WordPress, Wix, Squarespace or custom-built?

This decision matters less than it feels like it should. A well-built site on any of these will beat a badly built site on any other, and most small businesses would be served by two of the four. What actually differs is who can change it, what it costs over time, and what happens when you outgrow it.

The four, honestly

1. Wix or Squarespace

   You build it yourself in a visual editor, and they handle hosting, security and updates. Genuinely good software - the criticism it gets is mostly out of date. Strengths: nothing to maintain, and you can change things at midnight without asking anyone. Weaknesses: you cannot take the site elsewhere, the monthly fee never stops, and the ceiling arrives the first time you need something the editor cannot do. Right for a new business, a side project, or anyone whose time is worth less than the money right now.

2. WordPress

   The most widely used option, and the most misunderstood. It is a system you host yourself, extended with plugins. Strengths: it can do almost anything, and you can move it to another host or another developer. Weaknesses: it is the one option that genuinely needs looking after - plugins update, break each other and occasionally introduce security holes. Right for a business that needs a blog, a shop, or a system nobody else offers - and that accepts maintenance as a running cost.

3. A custom-built site

   Written for your business rather than assembled from a template. Strengths: it is as fast as it is possible to be, does exactly what you need and nothing you do not, and there is nothing to keep patched. Weaknesses: it costs more up front, and you cannot restructure a page yourself unless it has been built to let you. Right for a business where speed and being found matter commercially - which, for a local business competing on search, is most of them.

4. Shopify, if you are actually selling online

   Worth naming because people try to avoid it and regret it. If your business is shipping products, the payments, stock, tax and delivery problems are already solved there and will cost you real money to solve anywhere else. Selling a handful of items alongside a service business is different - that can live on any of the above.

What it costs over three years

The sticker price and the three-year price are different arguments, and the second is the one that should decide it.

• A DIY builder: little or nothing to start, then a subscription forever. Three years of a business plan is usually somewhere between £500 and £900 - plus your own evenings, which are the largest cost and the one nobody counts.
• WordPress: a build fee, then hosting and maintenance. Cheap to start and steady thereafter, provided the maintenance actually happens. Unmaintained, it is the most expensive option on this list, because the bill arrives all at once as a hacked site.
• Custom: the highest up-front cost and the lowest running cost. Nothing to subscribe to, and hosting for a site of this kind is often free at small business traffic levels.

The question that actually decides it

Not "what is best". Ask instead: what will I need to change, how often, and who will change it?

• Changing content weekly, yourself, and enjoying it: a DIY builder or a custom build with proper editing - both work, and the builder is cheaper.
• Changing something twice a year and never wanting to think about it: custom. Nothing to maintain, nothing to log in to.
• Publishing constantly, or selling online: WordPress or Shopify respectively, and accept the maintenance that comes with the first.
• Competing on Google against businesses with real budgets: custom, and it is not close. Speed and structure are where the advantage is, and they are the two things a template controls rather than you.

Where we would tell you not to hire us

We build custom sites, so treat the following as the part of this article that costs us money. If you are testing whether a business idea works at all, do not spend anything on a website yet - use a builder, get to your first customers, and come back when the answer is yes. If your entire model is publishing several articles a week, WordPress is a better fit than what we make. And if you are shipping products from day one, start on Shopify.

What we are good at is the business that needs to be found locally, needs to look credible to someone spending real money, and needs the site to answer questions rather than just exist. If that is the shape of it, the up-front cost is the cheaper end of the decision.