A $1,000 website built by your cousin who knows a bit about WordPress? Not a bad way to get your business online. Family discount included, hopefully.
And at the time, that was probably exactly what you needed.
Fast forward five or ten years. You’ve hired a team, expanded your services, and started attracting bigger clients. The problem though, is that your website still looks like it belongs to the business you ran from your spare bedroom. You might even cringe a little when someone asks for the link.
Now you’re comparing a $1,000 template with a $10,000 custom website design and wondering what on earth makes one worth ten times more.
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After 14+ years designing and developing websites, I’ve got a few thoughts. So let’s put them head-to-head in a $1K vs $10K website showdown to see what you’re actually paying for.
Round 1: Filling in a Template vs. Figuring Out What Your Business Needs
The $1K website:
You pick a website template, send over your content, and the designer fits everything into the existing layout. For a new business with a handful of services, that can work well.
But as your business grows, you’re trying to squeeze more services, locations, team info, and other content into a template that wasn’t designed to accommodate it all. Pages become cluttered and customers have to click around too much to find what they’re looking for.
The $10K website:
You’re paying for me to ask what might feel like a ridiculous number of questions before we even get to the fun design stuff. But I promise there’s a reason! I want to know how your business works, who’s using your website, what’s not working with the current one, and what you need the new one to accomplish.
All those answers help me figure out how the website should be laid out.
I’ve explained this discovery process a lot more in Why I Ask So Many Web Design Discovery Questions (& Why It’s a Good Thing) if you’re interested!
Round 2: A Good-Looking Template vs. A Design That Looks Like Your Business
The $1K website:
I’ll give templates some credit: there are plenty that look really nice. But there’s a good chance other companies are using the same layouts, fonts, and design elements.
Even after adding your branding, the finished site can still feel pretty generic. If a potential customer has your website and two competitors’ websites open in separate tabs, there’s not much about the design helping them remember your brand.
The $10K website:
You’re paying me to design something specifically for your business. I’m working through the layouts, fonts, colors, imagery, and all the little details that make a website feel completely unique to you.
Sometimes I’ll spend ages adjusting something as small as the spacing between elements. Excessive? It may feel like that. But those little things add up to a big (and good!) impression, and I explain why in 6 Design Mistakes a Trained Eye Catches Instantly.
Round 3: Squeezing in the Words vs. Building Around Your Content
The $1K website:
Templates come with little boxes for headlines, descriptions, and pictures. They’re easy to fill when you’ve only got a few things to say. But what happens when you have eight services and each one needs a proper explanation? You end up cutting important information or cramming paragraphs where they don’t fit.
The $10K website:
We look at the actual content before settling on page layouts. If one service needs a diagram, another needs FAQs, and a third needs a clear explanation of your process, we can design for that. Your content determines the layout, rather than being restricted by one.
I’ve written more about why I prefer this approach in Why Website Content & Design Have to Be Built Together.
Round 5: Getting the Site Live vs. Building It Properly Behind the Scenes
The $1K website:
Here’s something worth thinking about: when you’re paying $1,000 for a website, how much time can the developer realistically spend on everything you don’t see?
I’m talking about site speed, mobile testing, SEO setup, and making your content understandable to search engines. Some of that work may get done, but there’s only so much anyone can squeeze into that budget.
The $10K website:
This is where a good chunk of that extra budget goes. I’m checking site speed, testing layouts and functionality across devices, and paying attention to accessibility, SEO, and how your content is structured for search engines and AI tools. There’s a lot happening behind the scenes, and I want to get those details right so your site performs at its absolute best.
Round 6: Adding Another Fix vs. Making Room for Growth
The $1K website:
Need another service page? Easy enough, until the template doesn’t have anywhere to put it. Then you’re duplicating pages, squeezing in yet more extra sections, and adding plugins to make things work.
Before you know it, what should’ve been a simple update has turned into hours of fixing layouts and figuring out why adding one little feature has managed to break something else. Not fun.
The $10K website:
For a custom website design, I’m thinking about what you might need to add to your website before we even start building it. We can create reusable layouts so new services and locations look like they belong, and plan for things like CRM integrations or custom features.
Of course, adding new features down the line will still cost money, but you shouldn’t have to pull half your website apart every time your business grows.
So, Does Your Business Need the $1K or $10K Website?
If you’re just starting out and need a few pages to get your business online, I’d say save your money. A decent $1,000 template could serve you perfectly well for years.
But if you’ve spent years building your business, you’re attracting bigger clients, and your website is starting to look a little embarrassing next to your competitors’, I’d say it’s probably time to invest in something better. Especially if you’re planning to keep growing.
Ready for a Website You’re Proud to Send People To?
Before you assume every website I build costs $10K, I should probably clear that up! Our custom website projects start at $3,500, with most falling somewhere between $5,000 and $10,000. It really depends on what you need.
So if you’re thinking about upgrading your website, let’s have a chat. We’ll work out what your site needs to do now and in the future, and go from there. And yes, I’ll probably have a lot of questions!
