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Custom website vs. template: which is better?
The two most common routes to a new website. Each suits something different — here is an honest comparison, so you decide right.
A template is a ready-made look you add content to; a custom website is designed and coded directly for you. A template is cheaper and quicker to start with. A custom website is unique and contains only the code you actually use — which usually, though not always, shows up in the speed. Which pays off depends on your goals, not on what is “better”.
| Template | Custom website | |
|---|---|---|
| Purchase price | CZK 8,000 – 25,000 | CZK 14,900 – 59,900 with us |
| Running cost per year | hosting CZK 1,000 – 3,000 + plugin licences | from CZK 4,680 including maintenance |
| Time to launch | days to 2 weeks | 14 days to 7 weeks depending on scope |
| Appearance | shared with the template’s other customers | yours alone |
| Excess code | features you will never use still load | only what is actually on the site |
| Maintenance | updating the template and the plugins is on you | nothing that could break itself with an update |
| Who owns it | a licence to the template, not ownership | the site and the source code are yours |
| Where it runs into trouble | on an unusual requirement or on growth | on the budget at the start |
A template (e.g. ready-made WordPress templates)
- Plus: lower price, quick start
- Plus: good enough for a simple calling card
- Minus: plenty of other companies have the same look
- Minus: often slower — lots of extra features you will not use
- Minus: harder to adapt and it hits limits as you grow
Custom website
- Plus: a unique look made exactly for your brand
- Plus: only the code the site really uses — which shows up in the load time
- Plus: it contains only what you need; it grows more easily
- Minus: a higher purchase price and a longer lead time
How to decide: the five questions it comes down to
Go through the five rows and see where most of your answers fall. If three or more are on the left, buy a template and keep the money for advertising — we will help you with that too.
| Question | Take a template if… | Take a custom website if… |
|---|---|---|
| Budget | you have up to CZK 25,000 for the site and do not want to spend more right now | the site can carry CZK 15,000 and up and you see it as a three-year investment |
| Deadline | you need to be online within a week | you have two weeks to two months |
| Where your customers come from | they come from referrals, Facebook or off the street, and the site is just a calling card | the site is the main or second strongest source of enquiries |
| Who will maintain it | you have someone who will keep on top of template and plugin updates | you do not want to deal with maintenance and would rather hand it over |
| What the site has to do | text, photos and a form are enough for you | you need a calculator, bookings, an integration with your own system or something a template cannot do |
It is only fair to admit where this table is weak: it was put together by a supplier who builds custom websites. That is why there is deliberately no row for “appearance” or “SEO” — we would be marking our own homework there. The truth is that a well-chosen template satisfies most sole traders, and that plenty of companies have a custom site built before they have a reason to.
Common questions about templates
What a WordPress template costs and what you pay on top
So the comparison does not limp, let us go through both options on the same four items. Licence and build: a template from a marketplace comes to roughly CZK 1,200 to 2,500 one-off, plus the paid versions of the plugins it often assumes — without them it does not look like the demo image; a custom site has no licence, the whole amount is work. Setup and content: with a template you either do it yourself, or a freelancer usually wants CZK 8,000 to 25,000 for it; with us it is part of the package price. Running it: hosting with a template CZK 1,000 to 3,000 a year, with us CZK 390 a month including maintenance; a domain at around CZK 250 a year applies to both. Maintenance: with a template, updates to the core, the template and the plugins — either your time or someone paid; with us it is in that CZK 390.
The point of that breakdown is not that a template works out more expensive. Often it does not. The point is that the entry price compares only the first of those four rows, and that is the smallest part. The breakdown of our own prices is on the page Price calculator How much a website costs.
Can a visitor tell you are using a template?
An ordinary customer cannot. The competition can, and so can a designer and anyone who has looked at a lot of websites. The more practical question is a different one: whether the first screen clearly says what you do, who for and what the person should do next. That can be managed with a template, and plenty of custom sites fail at it.
Are custom websites always faster?
No. A custom site carries only the code that is actually used, so it starts with a head start — but a well-tuned template with a few plugins can beat a carelessly built custom site. Check the speed yourself in PageSpeed Insights: enter the address of any site, ours included, and read the LCP value on mobile. It is free and you do not need us for it.
What if I already have a template?
Let it run until something starts to pinch. Moving to a custom site makes sense at the point where the template holds you back on something specific — features cannot be added to it, it is slow even after optimisation, or it looks like your competitor’s site. Until then it is a crown spent for nothing. When the move does happen, it is a redesign and the content and the positions can be carried over.
We build custom websites with an emphasis on speed. Speed is one of the factors Google openly uses to assess pages — but it is neither the only one nor the strongest. The main reason is simpler: people wait for a slow site only until they get tired of waiting. More on the page Custom website design.
Frequently asked questions
Is a custom website always better than a template?
No. “Better” does not exist here, only more suitable for your case — go through the five questions in the table above. Put simply: a template wins on price and on how fast you can start, a custom site on the fact that anything can be done in it and that it is yours, source code included. Where we will not mark our own homework: on its own, going custom will not get you better positions in Google. Those are decided by the content and by how well the site is built technically, not by the category.
Is a custom website faster than a template?
Usually yes, but it is not a law. A custom site contains only the necessary code, whereas templates often carry a lot of unused features. A badly built custom site can be slower than a well-tuned template — it comes down to craft, not category.
Can a template site be rebuilt as a custom one later?
It can, but it is a redesign — budget for it as a new project. Which is why, for companies with ambitions, it pays to go custom straight away.
Where to next
Write three sentences and we will tell you which of the two to take
All we need is what you do for a living, what the site should bring in and how much you have for it. Within 24 hours you will get a recommendation in writing — either a specific template with a link and an estimate of what you would pay for it elsewhere, or our package with a fixed price and a date. Free and with no call.
Free, with no obligation and no call. We are quite happy to recommend a template for a few thousand — we send more answers like that than is economically good for us.