Choosing a supplier

Build it yourself, use a template, or hire someone?

Three routes to a website, what you pay with on each, the signs a template has become too tight, and what a build has to include to be worth the money.

By Daniel Aideborn · Published 21 September 2026 · 4 min read

Short answer: templates carry further than people think, right up until the site has to do something. For as long as the page presents the company, the question is mostly how much of your own time it is worth. The moment it has to take payments, book appointments or show a customer something that only exists with you, the cost changes character.

Below are the three routes, what you actually pay with on each, the signs that the template has become too tight, and what a build needs to contain to be worth more than the template.

Three routes

None of the routes is wrong. What makes them expensive is choosing one and then trying to force the other into it.

When a template is enough

• The site should say what you do, show a few examples and take an enquiry.
• Somebody internally actually enjoys tinkering with it.
• The content changes often, and speed matters more than getting it exactly right.
• You are early, and the important thing is to exist at all.

At that point a build is hard to justify. Spend the money on the words and the pictures instead — they move more customers than the technology does.

Signs the template has become too tight

• You type the same detail into two systems every week, because the site does not talk to the other one.
• There is a feature you want, and the answer is "the theme cannot do that".
• The site has grown slow with plugins and nobody dares remove one.
• You pay for four add-ons that between them do one thing you needed once.
• The design looks like three competitors', because it came from the same template.
• You turn customers away because the flow does not scale, not because the work is missing.

One or two of those is normal. Four or five means the work already exists — it is just being done by people instead of by a tool. Where the line to a web app runs is described in When is a website enough, and when do you need a web app?.

What a build has to include to be worth the money

1. A fixed price and scope in writing before anything is built.
2. Handover onto your own accounts: domain, hosting and email in your name.
3. The code and the content are yours, with documentation that is enough for the next person.
4. A way for you to change the text yourself afterwards, decided before the build rather than after.
5. Technical groundwork done once: measurement, sitemap, speed, accessibility.

Without those you are buying a template at template quality, only from a human. What separates them is not how the site looks on day one, but what you can do with it in year two.

What it costs with me

The prices are fixed and written down before anything is built. What each package contains is under pricing, and what drives the price of a quote — whoever you ask — is covered in What does a website cost for a small business?.

Five questions before you decide

• How many hours a month do you want to spend on the site yourself?
• What should a visitor be able to do, beyond reading?
• Who changes the text in six months, and with which tool?
• What happens to the site if whoever built it disappears?
• Which running fees are added, and who are they paid to?

If you are unsure which route your case belongs to, describe it in the contact box at the bottom of the home page. I will tell you if a template is enough — that is a perfectly good answer, and it costs nothing to get it.

Related services: Websites