The choice between WordPress or a custom website comes up in nearly every first call. Start with the scale of what is being compared: according to W3Techs, WordPress sits behind 40,2 % of all websites and 58,8 % of those running a content management system. It is not a fad, it is the standard. Whether it is right for you is a separate question.
What each one is, without the jargon
WordPress is a content management system: a dashboard where you log in, write, upload photos and publish without touching code. On top of it go themes and plugins to make it do things it does not do out of the box.
A custom website is built for your specific case, with no generic dashboard and no third-party plugins. What is there is what you need, and nothing else. In exchange, changes are made by whoever built it.
The question that decides it: who touches the site every week?
If the answer is «me, and I want to get in whenever I feel like it», WordPress. If it is «nobody, I do not want to see it, let somebody handle it», custom. Almost every decision that goes wrong comes from answering this backwards: people who ask for a dashboard and never log in, and people who want autonomy and end up waiting for somebody to change a price.
When WordPress is the right answer
- You publish often. A blog, news, an events calendar, listings that change weekly.
- Several people edit. Users, permissions and a dashboard anyone picks up in an afternoon.
- You need something specific that already exists. Bookings, catalogue, memberships: there are plugins already built and tested.
- You want to change supplier without rebuilding. Being standard, almost anyone can pick it up.
When a custom website pays off
- Few pages that rarely change. One service, a handful of sections and contact.
- Speed genuinely matters. With no theme and no plugins loading extra weight, the page opens sooner on a phone.
- You do not want surprise maintenance. Nothing to update monthly and no plugins being abandoned.
- There is something of your own behind it. A calculation, an unusual form, a connection to your management software.
The cost nobody puts in the quote
A site with a CMS has to be maintained. WordPress own documentation insists on keeping everything current, and «everything» means the core, the theme and every plugin. Let a year go by and the site turns into a minefield: updating breaks things and not updating leaves it open. Why small business sites in particular get hit is in why small business websites get hacked, and what proper maintenance has to cover is in website maintenance: what it covers.
Plugins, which is where it gets out of hand
The pattern repeats: ten get installed, three get used, two are paid yearly and one has not been updated in two years. Every plugin is one more piece that can break or be abandoned, and none of them warns you when it happens. The healthy rule is the same as with any tool: if you do not use it every month, out it goes.
Speed is not decided by the CMS
It is decided by what you put inside it. You can build a painfully slow custom site and a fast one on a CMS, but it is easier to end up slow when a theme, a visual builder and fifteen plugins pile up. What usually weighs most is the images, and that is independent of the CMS: we go into it in why your website is slow on mobile.
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SEO does not depend on the CMS either
Google neither rewards nor punishes you for using WordPress. What matters is that the content can be read, that each page has its own title and text and that nothing is blocking the way in. If the site relies on JavaScript to render content, there are rules, and they are in Google JavaScript SEO basics. The usual reasons for not showing up are in why your website does not appear on Google.
Who owns the site and how you get out
This gets asked too rarely and hurts a lot. With either option, the domain has to be in your name and you have to be able to take the copy, the photos and the contacts with you. What is not acceptable is a dashboard you have no access to, or a site that only runs on the server of whoever built it. We cover it in who owns your domain.
Five questions before deciding
1. How often will you change something?
Weekly, get a dashboard. Twice a year, you do not need one.
2. Who is going to do it?
If there is no name attached, nobody is opening that dashboard.
3. How many pages do you actually need?
Three well-written ones beat fifteen half-done, and that changes the answer.
4. Who updates it, and on what budget?
If there is no maintenance fee in the plan, the problem arrives on its own, with time.
5. What happens if you change agency tomorrow?
The answer has to be «I take it with me», no buts.
Three cases: WordPress, custom or a mix
- Restaurant with a daily menu. The menu changes every day, so they need to get in themselves: dashboard, yes.
- Installer with three services. The site changes once a year. One well-built fast page serves them better, and we cover it in what a landing page is.
- Four-person consultancy. They publish articles and have a form that talks to their software: a mix, decided piece by piece.
What does not change, whichever you pick
Four things have to be demanded either way, and none of them depends on the technology. The domain in your name. A backup somebody actually restores, not one that merely exists. The copy and the photos in your hands, off the server. And a specific person to call when the site goes down on a Saturday.
With those four covered, the choice between CMS and custom is reversible. If one is missing, the problem is not the CMS: it is the contract.
Moving from one to the other without losing rankings
It can be done, and it is not dramatic if it is done in order: same content, same addresses or properly set redirects, and a fortnight of watching afterwards. The step by step is in migrating your website without losing rankings. What gets lost is never the CMS: it is the old addresses left unredirected.
We'll tell you in a ten-minute conversation
We reply the same day. No commitment, no sales pitch.
What we do and what it costs
We build the site and maintain it inside the plan, so the client never has to log in and touch anything unless they want to. In our prices, Tu Landing is 100 € a month and Tu Web, with up to ten subpages, 200 €, plus VAT and with no lock-in, including high-performance hosting, email, maintenance and the domain in your name. The presence plans, with articles and a worked Google profile, are 400, 750 and 1.500 €.
If what you want is to compare outside quotes without being taken for a ride, the list of things to ask is in how much a website costs.
How we decide it with you
Half an hour looking at three things: how often the content changes, who is going to change it and what the site has to do besides look good. That gives the answer, and sometimes the answer is that you already have what you need and it just has to be fixed. Tell us your case and we will tell you, no strings attached.
Tell us what you need and we'll give you a price
We reply the same day. No commitment, no sales pitch.