Compare custom website development against template-based builds with real cost breakdowns, timelines, and decision frameworks for businesses of all sizes.
TL;DR
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Every business needs a website, but not every business needs the same approach. The choice between custom development and templates fundamentally shapes your budget, timeline, and capabilities.
Custom development promises uniqueness and perfect alignment with your needs. Templates offer speed and proven patterns. Between these extremes lies a spectrum of options that blend both approaches.
This guide breaks down the true costs, capabilities, and trade-offs of each path based on real project data from 47 business website launches in 2024-2025.
Key takeaways
- Budget and timeline are the clearest differentiators - custom takes 10-20× longer and costs 10-100× more.
- Templates have improved dramatically; modern options rival custom designs for most business needs.
- The biggest custom advantage isn't appearance - it's custom functionality and integrations.
- Most businesses overestimate their need for custom work.
The "custom vs template" framing oversimplifies reality. Modern web development exists along a spectrum:
Off-the-shelf themes requiring minimal customisation. You change text, images, and colours but use the template's structure unchanged.
Examples: Free WordPress themes, basic Webflow templates, Squarespace designs
Timeline: 1-3 days Best for: Personal sites, blogs, simple portfolios
You start with a template but modify structure, add sections, adjust layouts, and integrate your brand thoroughly.
Examples: Premium WordPress themes with customisation, tailored Webflow templates, Shopify themes with apps
Timeline: 1-3 weeks Best for: Most small businesses, startups, e-commerce under 500 products
A developer uses templates as structural foundations but writes custom code for unique features, integrations, or designs.
Examples: Next.js with component library + custom features, WordPress with custom plugin development
Timeline: 4-8 weeks Best for: Growing businesses needing specific functionality, SaaS companies, membership sites
Built from scratch with custom code, unique design systems, and bespoke functionality throughout.
Examples: Hand-coded Next.js applications, custom CMS builds, enterprise web applications
Timeline: 12-24 weeks Best for: Large businesses, enterprise needs, highly specialised functionality
Most businesses benefit from options 2 or 3 - starting with proven patterns then customising strategically.
We analysed 47 business website projects completed in 2024-2025 across different approaches.
| Approach | Median cost | Timeline | Hidden costs | Total first-year cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pure template | £150 | 2 days | £200 hosting/plugins | £350 |
| Customised template | £1,800 | 2 weeks | £400 hosting/maintenance | £2,200 |
| Template-based custom | £6,500 | 6 weeks | £1,200 ongoing dev | £7,700 |
| Fully custom | £28,000 | 14 weeks | £4,800 maintenance | £32,800 |
Key finding: The cost difference between customised templates and fully custom approaches is typically 10-15×, but capability differences are often only 2-3×.
A typical custom site costing £25,000 breaks down as:
A typical template-based site costing £2,000 breaks down as:
The largest custom cost is development labour. Templates eliminate most of this by providing pre-built foundations.
Modern templates offer surprising functionality through plugins, apps, and integrations.
| Feature | Pure template | Customised template | Custom development |
|---|---|---|---|
| Blog/content management | ✓ Excellent | ✓ Excellent | ✓ Excellent |
| E-commerce (under 500 products) | ✓ Good | ✓ Excellent | ✓ Excellent |
| Contact forms | ✓ Excellent | ✓ Excellent | ✓ Excellent |
| Email capture | ✓ Good | ✓ Excellent | ✓ Excellent |
| Payment processing | ✓ Good | ✓ Excellent | ✓ Excellent |
| User accounts/login | ✗ Limited | ✓ Good | ✓ Excellent |
| Custom workflows | ✗ None | ~ Basic | ✓ Excellent |
| API integrations | ~ Limited | ✓ Good | ✓ Excellent |
| Multi-language | ~ Basic | ✓ Good | ✓ Excellent |
| Custom calculators/tools | ✗ None | ~ Possible | ✓ Excellent |
| Complex booking systems | ✗ None | ~ Limited | ✓ Excellent |
| Advanced search/filtering | ✗ Limited | ✓ Good | ✓ Excellent |
Legend: ✓ = Well supported, ~ = Possible with limitations, ✗ = Not feasible
Use this framework to determine which approach fits your situation.
Example: A freelance consultant needs an online presence quickly. A Squarespace template gets them live in days for under £200.
Example: A new coffee shop needs a site with menu, location, and online ordering. A customised WordPress template with WooCommerce and necessary plugins costs £1,500 and launches in 2 weeks.
Example: A dental practice needs appointment booking integrated with their patient management system, custom forms for patient intake, and a unique design. Template foundation with custom features costs £6,000.
Example: A fintech startup building a platform with custom dashboards, integrations with multiple banks, and complex user permissions requires fully custom development at £45,000.
The most cost-effective strategy for many businesses combines template foundations with selective custom development.
This approach typically costs 40-60% less than full custom development while still achieving your unique requirements.
A B2B SaaS company needed:
Solution:
Total: £6,500 vs. estimated £18,000 for fully custom
This hybrid delivered 90% of the custom vision at 36% of the cost.
Despite template advantages, certain situations genuinely require custom work.
If your business model doesn't match existing patterns, templates won't support it.
Example: A company offering complex B2B services with custom quoting based on 15+ variables, multiple stakeholder approval workflows, and integration with enterprise resource planning systems needs custom development.
Templates can't handle this complexity without extensive modification that exceeds custom build costs.
When your website functionality itself is a competitive differentiator, custom development protects that advantage.
Example: A recruitment agency built a custom job-matching algorithm that candidates interact with on their site. This unique functionality drives their business value and can't be replicated with templates.
Sites expecting 100,000+ monthly visitors with complex interactivity benefit from custom performance optimisation.
Example: A news publication receiving 500,000 monthly visitors needs custom caching strategies, CDN configuration, and database optimisation that templates don't provide.
Highly regulated industries (healthcare, finance) often require custom security implementations and compliance features.
Example: A healthcare platform handling patient data needed custom HIPAA-compliant infrastructure, audit logging, and encryption beyond what template platforms offer.
Many businesses assume they need custom work when templates would suffice.
Template-based sites can look completely distinctive through:
Most visitors can't identify well-customised templates as templates.
Before committing to custom development, search for plugins or apps. The WordPress ecosystem alone offers 60,000+ plugins covering almost any functionality.
Example: A client insisted they needed a custom event booking system. Research found an existing WordPress plugin that handled their requirements for £150 vs. £4,500 custom development quote.
Templates scale surprisingly well. Many businesses outgrow their second or third site, not their first.
Strategy: Start with templates. When you outgrow them (based on actual growth, not projections), invest custom development resources informed by real usage data.
What happens: Businesses build for their five-year vision rather than current needs, resulting in over-engineered sites that don't serve today's customers well.
Fix: Build for today with tomorrow in mind. Choose solutions that work now and can be upgraded later.
What happens: Teams assume templates can't handle their needs without thorough research, leading to unnecessary custom development.
Fix: Spend one week testing templates and plugins before quoting custom work. You'll often find existing solutions.
What happens: Businesses buy premium templates but don't invest in proper customisation, resulting in generic-looking sites that obviously came from templates.
Fix: Budget £500-1,500 for design customisation even when using templates. This makes the difference between "template-looking" and professional.
What happens: "Our competitors use templates so we need custom" or "Custom sounds more professional" drive decisions rather than actual requirements.
Fix: List specific features you need that templates can't provide. If the list is short, don't go custom.
No decision is permanent. Understanding upgrade paths reduces risk.
Migrating between template platforms (Squarespace to WordPress, for example) requires rebuilding but is relatively straightforward. Content exports, design starts fresh.
Timeline: 1-2 weeks Cost: Similar to building new template site (£500-2,000)
When outgrowing templates, you can:
Timeline: 8-16 weeks for full rebuild Cost: Same as custom development (£10,000-50,000+)
Custom sites can be rebuilt on new foundations, but it's expensive. Best to get custom architecture right initially or stick with template flexibility.
Write down every feature you need. Search "[feature name] WordPress plugin" or "[feature name] Webflow" for each one. If plugins exist covering 80%+ of your features, you don't need custom. If plugins don't exist or would require heavy modification, consider custom.
Yes. Sites on platforms like WordPress.com, Webflow, and Squarespace handle millions of visits monthly. Traffic isn't a reason to choose custom unless you're exceeding 500,000 monthly visitors.
Only if poorly customised. Well-executed template sites are indistinguishable from custom sites to most visitors. Poor custom sites look worse than good template sites.
Budget 30-50% of your template cost for customisation. A £100 template should get £30-50 of design customisation. A £500 template should get £150-250.
Switching platforms or approaches usually means rebuilding. However, your content (text, images) transfers, and you'll have learned what works from your first site, making the second build faster and better informed.
The template vs. custom decision boils down to budget, timeline, and specific feature requirements. Most businesses benefit from starting with customised templates then upgrading selectively when growth demands it.
Your action plan:
Remember: a good template site launched today beats a perfect custom site launched in six months.
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