Custom site or a template: how to actually decide
Templates aren’t the enemy. The real question is whether your site has a job important enough to justify custom work.
Every few months someone asks us whether they should buy a template or build custom. It’s the wrong first question. The right one is: what is this website actually supposed to do?
A template is a fine choice when the site’s job is to exist — to look credible, list what you offer, and give people a way to contact you. If that’s the brief, paying for custom design is mostly vanity.
Custom earns its cost when the site has a measurable job: convert a specific visitor, support a particular sales motion, or express a brand that competitors can’t copy with the same theme. When the page is the product, every point of friction has a price.
Our rule of thumb: if a 5% lift in conversion would pay back the custom build within a year, build custom. If it wouldn’t, start with a great template and put the money where it moves the needle.
There’s also a middle path most people miss — a custom front, standard plumbing behind it. You get a distinctive first impression without rebuilding things the world has already solved.