Website template or custom website: how to choose
What you get, what you do yourself and what you own with a website template, and when a custom website is the better buy.
By Sena Studio · Updated · All guides
The short answer
Both end with a website. A template is a finished design you adapt yourself, today, for the price of a licence. A custom website is designed around your brand by people who build it with you, for the price of a project.
If a template's pages already fit your business and you, or an AI tool you use, can change the words and pictures, a template is the faster and cheaper way. If your brand, your pages or your visitors' path need to be shaped for you, a custom website is.
Side by side
| A template | A custom website | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting point | A finished design, with its pages and sample content | Your brand and what your visitors need to do |
| Price | The licence on the template's listing | From $1,000 with unlimited pages |
| When you have it | When the download finishes | 1–2 weeks, typically, once scope is agreed and content is ready |
| Who does the work | You, or your AI tool, with the guide in the download | We do; you review and decide |
| What you own | A licence to use it (Standard: one project) | Everything we make for you, once paid in full |
| Forms | Show a confirmation until you connect them to a form service or your own server | One enquiry form, built in |
Choose a template when
- Its pages already match what your business needs to say.
- You are comfortable changing text, images and colours yourself, or asking an AI tool to.
- You want to launch this week, and spend the budget elsewhere.
- You can connect a form to a service such as Formspree, or have someone who can.
Read the listing first: what it is for, what you unzip, which formats are on sale, and which AI tools it has been tested in, with the date of each test. See our templates.
Choose a custom website when
- Your brand has to carry the site, not adapt to someone else's design.
- Your visitors need a path no template has: a particular enquiry, a particular order of pages.
- You would rather review and decide than do the work yourself.
- You want the design files and the code made for you, and owned by you.
The starting scope is unlimited pages on your existing brand, one enquiry form, two rounds of design refinements and launch. You supply the copy and images. Content systems, shops and additional integrations are quoted separately. See what a website project covers.
The middle way
Template setup, from $750: we set one of our templates up with your logo, colours, copy and images, and launch it on your domain, with the licence included. Existing layouts stay in place. New sections, custom layouts, copywriting and integrations are quoted separately.
Starting prices in USD. Your proposal confirms deliverables, milestones, costs and payment stages before work begins.