Site builder, WordPress or custom build: what you actually need
Wix, WordPress or hand-written code? Three routes compared soberly: five-year cost, maintenance burden, hard limits — and when each one is the right call.
The question comes up in almost every first call, usually phrased carefully: “Couldn’t we just do this in Wix?” The honest answer is often yes. And sometimes: absolutely, please do. This article compares the three usual routes without a sales agenda — including the cases where a studio like ours is the wrong choice.
Route 1: The site builder
Wix, Squarespace, Webflow in its simple mode: you pick a template, replace copy and images, and after a weekend a website exists.
What speaks for it. Entry costs between €15 and €40 a month, everything included: hosting, SSL, updates, backups. You need nobody. For a freelancer who needs four pages and a contact form, this is the economically correct decision — and frankly often the faster one too.
Where it breaks. Three things a site builder rarely solves: custom flows (multi-step enquiries, configurators, customer areas), genuine multilingual setups with clean URLs, and load time on mobile. Site builders ship generic JavaScript for every conceivable case — including the ones you do not use. Run Lighthouse on a typical builder site from a phone and you usually land between 40 and 65.
The second point weighs more: your content lives inside the provider’s system. Moving is possible but tedious — and in practice it rarely happens, because it looks more expensive than it is.
Route 2: WordPress
Around 43 per cent of all websites run on WordPress. There is a plugin for everything, a theme for every industry, and someone in every city who can operate it.
What speaks for it. The choice of ready-made building blocks is unmatched. If you need a multi-author blog, a membership area or event management, established solutions exist. And you are not tied to one provider: WordPress skills are a commodity.
Where it breaks. WordPress does not have maintenance costs — it has maintenance obligations. A typical company site runs 15 to 30 plugins. Each is someone else’s code that needs updates, can clash with other plugins, and will eventually be abandoned. The overwhelming majority of WordPress security incidents trace back not to the core but to outdated plugins.
Then there is the load-time overhead: every request runs PHP and database queries. Caching softens this; it does not remove it.
And finally the item nobody budgets for: running WordPress seriously means either a care plan (€50 to €150 a month) or someone in-house who looks after it. Over five years, the “cheap” option is rarely cheap.
Route 3: Custom built
Hand-written code on a modern framework, statically pre-rendered, with a lean editing system for content.
What speaks for it. Only the code your site actually needs exists. Pre-rendered HTML loads in fractions of a second, there is no database to fail at runtime, and no attack surface from third-party plugins. Everything is designable, because nothing is dictated by a theme.
Where it breaks. Entry costs four figures. And you need someone who built it or can read it — the number of people who can carry on your custom Astro site is smaller than the number who know WordPress. That is why every custom project must include documented code, a repository that belongs to you, and a CMS operable without a developer. Without those three, “custom” is just dependency.
The five-year arithmetic
Rough orders of magnitude for a company site of eight to ten pages:
| Cost type | Site builder | WordPress | Custom |
|---|---|---|---|
| Build | €0–2,000 | €3,000–8,000 | €4,000–12,000 |
| Yearly running | €300–500 | €600–1,800 | €100–1,500 |
| Five-year total | €1,500–4,500 | €6,000–17,000 | €4,500–19,500 |
The ranges overlap — that is the point. The decision is not made on price but on three other questions.
The three questions that actually decide
How much custom flow does your process need? If a visitor should do more than read and call, a site builder gets tight fast.
Who maintains the site in two years? If nobody in-house owns it, you need either a system with no maintenance burden or a contract with someone who takes it on. Both are fine — leaving it unspoken is not.
How much does visibility matter? If customers should find you through Google rather than word of mouth, mobile load time counts. Then the technical basis is not a matter of taste.
And when do we say no?
When someone arrives with four pages, no growth plans and a tight budget, we recommend a site builder. When a shop with thousands of items, stock sync and a returns process is needed, we recommend Shopify or a specialist. Both cost us a commission and save the other side real money — and the recommendation usually comes back around.