Website builder or web designer?
What each route costs over three years, how many of your evenings it takes, and what you own at the end.
Builders like Wix, Squarespace and GoDaddy are genuinely good products. The mistake is comparing their monthly fee with a designer's one-off price and stopping there.
The fair comparison includes your time and what you end up owning. Here is that comparison, with this studio's real numbers: £350 all in, then £19.99 a month.
The comparison
Three years, both routes.
Builder: the money
A monthly subscription plus a domain, usually plus a premium plan to remove limits and often plus paid apps for forms or bookings. Modest on its own, ongoing forever.
Builder: your time
Every design decision, every word, every photo crop, every page structure and all the search groundwork is yours to do. Most people I speak to got two pages in and stalled.
Designer: the money
£350 once, including the domain in your business name, business email, SSL and the first three months of hosting, then £19.99 a month for hosting, updates, backups, changes and support.
Designer: your time
A phone call, sending your logo and photos, and approving the design. The site is live 48 hours after that approval.
What you own
The part the price comparison misses.
On a builder
Your site lives inside their system. Stopping the subscription generally means the site stops with it, and moving it elsewhere means rebuilding.
Here
The domain is in your business name and the website is yours once paid for. If you stop the monthly support you keep both.
Either way, keep the domain in your name
Whichever route you take, make sure your website address is registered to your business and not to anybody else. It is the one thing that is painful to fix later.
Common questions
Straight answers.
Is Wix cheaper than a web designer?
Can I move a builder site to you?
Are builder sites bad for SEO?
What if I have already started building one?
Let's design the websiteyour business deserves.
Tell me what you need and I’ll come back to you personally with a clear next step. Websites start at £350 all in. Ready when you are.