The First Decision Every Small Business Faces
You've decided you need a website. Now someone will inevitably say "just use Wix" and someone else will say "hire a professional." Both are right — for different situations.
Here's how to make the decision without getting talked into something that doesn't fit your needs or budget.
What Website Builders Are Good At
Wix, Squarespace, Showit, and WordPress.com let you build a website yourself, usually by dragging and dropping elements into place or modifying a template.
They're genuinely good for:
- Simple business sites (5–10 pages: home, about, services, contact)
- Portfolios and galleries
- Basic online stores with straightforward products
- Getting online fast — days, not weeks
- Very tight budgets
- Situations where you want complete control over future updates yourself
The output can look completely professional. Many businesses you interact with daily use Squarespace or Wix. The limitation isn't quality — it's flexibility.
When Builders Start to Struggle
Website builders hit a ceiling. If you need any of the following, you'll run into frustration:
- Complex custom functionality — booking systems with specific rules, customer portals, custom calculators, inventory tied to your point-of-sale system
- Very specific design requirements — your brand has standards that don't match available templates
- Integration with business systems — connecting your website to your CRM, accounting software, or custom business tools
- Competitive SEO needs — builders are generally adequate for basic SEO but lack advanced configuration options
- Performance at scale — some builders struggle with very large product catalogs or high traffic
What Hiring a Developer Gets You
A developer (or development agency) can build exactly what you need, with no compromises imposed by a platform. You're not constrained by what a template allows.
The trade-off: cost and time. A good freelance developer charges $50–$150/hour. A simple 5-page site built professionally might take 15–25 hours. That's $750–$3,750 before design, content, or revisions.
You also need to manage the relationship — communicating your needs, reviewing work, giving feedback. This takes time and energy.
Three Questions to Guide the Decision
1. How complex is what you need? If it's a standard business site — pages describing what you do, a blog, a contact form — a builder will handle it fine. If you need custom functionality, a developer is almost certainly the right call.
2. How much is your time worth? Building your own website takes 20–60 hours for most non-technical people. If you earn $75/hour in your business, spending 40 hours on a website costs you $3,000 in opportunity cost — roughly the same as hiring a competent freelancer.
3. Who's going to update it? If you're comfortable logging into a website to update content yourself, a builder gives you full control. If that sounds daunting, having a developer you can call is valuable.
The Hybrid Approach
A popular middle path: hire a developer to set up a website on a platform like WordPress, then take over updating it yourself. You get a professional result without being locked into paying for help with every small change.
This works well if you invest time upfront in learning how your platform works.
The Honest Bottom Line
Most simple small business websites don't need a developer. If you have a few hours and your needs are straightforward, a website builder will get you to professional results.
But if the website is central to your business — it's where customers book, buy, or get quotes — professional development is worth the investment. A slow, confusing, or broken website costs more in lost business than any developer's fee.