Should I choose a custom website redesign or a template-based website redesign service? Two options look similar in usability but always have different effects on attractiveness, navigation, fast loading capability, and ranking chance in Google.
In a custom redesign, agencies redesign everything from scratch, so you get a very unique online presence. On the other hand, a template redesign is a pre-built theme where page layouts are already designed, where you have to just reorganise all layouts and content. Template websites load faster, and they are very cheap to buy, but have some major limitations.
So the reality is, both options have good and bad sides. We clearly explain the difference between the two redesign options in this guide. By the end, you’ll have a clear opinion about which option will bring more benefits to your business model.
Key Differences Between Custom and Template Website Redesigns
As a business owner, you should always have a clear understanding of the fundamentals between a custom website design and a pre-built template. Because both options have different advantages and also have personal drawbacks, but it would be beneficial if you choose an option considering your business needs, budget, and long-term goals.
| Key Factor | Custom Redesign | Template-Based Redesign |
| Design Flexibility | Fully tailored to your brand | Limited to the structure of the chosen template |
| Uniqueness | 100% unique look | Most of the websites may look similar |
| Development Control | You can include any feature you want | Works perfectly with the features allowed by the template |
| Speed of Build | Slower | Faster |
| SEO Potential | Strong | Depends on the template quality |
| Performance | Can be made lightweight and fast | Some templates are heavy and slow |
| Scalability | Easy to scale growth with custom features | Harder to upgrade scaling features |
| Cost | Higher cost because it’s built from scratch | Lower cost because most things are already designed |
| Best For | Businesses wanting a powerful website | Businesses needing something quick and budget-friendly |
Advantages and Disadvantages of Custom Websites
With the help of custom websites, you are able to build a unique business website that you can’t do with a ready-made layout. You will have full access to change anything when needed. The breakdown below will help you understand why a custom redesign is the right choice for you and how it’s okay if you don’t use it.
Advantages
- Freedom to design anything you want: A custom website means you can design any part of your site precisely in the way that you want it.
- Complete control over how you want the website to be built: You decide to change how features should work, how pages should guide visitors, and how users should take actions.
- Easy to grow, and features can be added later: Custom websites are built with future growth in mind. Adding new pages, tools, or features later is a cheaper way over time.
- Fast experience on mobile devices: Studies show that faster mobile sites naturally make more users interested and improve conversions by up to 20% to 30%.
- Stronger protection against security risks: Custom websites commonly use stronger security practices and require fewer public plugins to run.
- Built to perform better on search engines (SEO): Custom websites give full control over site structure, page speed, and technical SEO. Well SEO-optimized custom sites often rank in the top positions.
- Represents your brand with unique looks: In a custom website redesign, it matches your exact brand personality instead of following a fixed layout.
Disadvantages
- Need more costs at the beginning than template websites: You have to spend more to redesign a custom websites at the beginning because every page & layout is built from scratch.
- Requires more time to build: Proper planning, design, testing, and development are needed to redesign a custom website. This means you cannot launch your site as you can with a template site.
- Needs regular updates, fixes, and technical care over time: Custom websites won’t stay secure and fast without regular maintenance and ongoing support.
- Requires more time, planning, and skilled professionals: Building a custom site is not easy. It needs experienced designers and developers like We Misc. Without proper expertise and knowledge, a custom website will never look professional.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Template Websites
Advantages
- Does not require a big budget to design: Small businesses can build and launch a template website for 60 to 80% less budget than a custom-built website.
- Can launch your website within a few days: Template websites are pre-built, so they can go live within one to three days once your site content is ready.
- Designs are made for specific types of businesses: Template websites are a perfect choice for businesses like restaurants, gyms, or home service brands.
- Very easy to use, even if you are not a designer: The template framework allows you to edit every layout with drag-and-drop editor features. So beginners can manage without technical skills.
- Works well on phones and tablets: Most template sites are mobile responsive by default.
Disadvantages
- You cannot change the design freely: Templates limit your customization approach on layouts and features.
- The website may look similar to other sites: Thousands of businesses use the same template. So a unique brand identity never has a chance to be established.
- Some templates can make the site slow: Many templates include extra features that literally cause slow loading speed.
- Support from the template provider may be limited: Fast or personalized support is not always available when problems arise.
- SEO might not work as well as a custom website: Templates often lack clean code and a deep SEO structure.
- It can be hard to expand the features in the future: Adding new features or pages can become difficult as the business grows.
- Some templates may not work perfectly on mobile devices: A poor mobile experience can increase bounce rates significantly.
- Uploading content can take extra time: Templates often have fixed layouts that limit content placement. This can slow down updates and content publishing.
Custom Website Or Template Website: Which One Should You Choose For Your Business?
It’s a very wise decision to think 1st, what are your business ambitions, budget, and growth plans before choosing a redesign option. When you properly know which decision will fit your situation and business needs. You will take the right website redesign solutions.
When Should You Choose Custom Website Redesigns?
- Your business needs a special online presence: A custom website perfectly represents the purpose your business wants to show online. This helps you get a memorable first impression. And studies show that this type of 1st impression builds 75% more trust among users.
- You want your brand to look different from competitors: A custom design always looks very unique from all angles, and it does not look like others in your business category. This gives people a unique reason to remember your brand differently.
- You plan to grow your business over the long term: Custom websites can be expanded as your online presence needs to handle a large amount of traffic with advanced features, pages, and automated tools.
- You want a website that can support SEO implementation: Agencies like We Misc can easily apply proper SEO structure across a custom redesign site, optimize pages, and improve technical errors to boost site speed as traffic grows.
When Should You Choose a Template Website Redesign?
- Your website only needs basic features: If you want to show only your services, contact infos, about infos, and run marketing through social media, then templates are your best friend.
- You have a small budget: Template website redesign costs less because the entire site structure already exists. All you have to do is hire a freelancer who is experienced in organizing all the information as you want.
- You want to get the website online as fast as possible: After you buy a domain and hosting, all you need to do is structure your full website design using drag-and-drop features. And all it takes is a few days to launch your brand new site.
- You do not have advanced coding skills: Templates are pre-built website themes that only need to be connected with WordPress to manage and update all information. So most users can manage updates without hiring a developer, saving time and money.
Cost Comparison: Custom Redesign vs Template Redesign (2026 Pricing)
Custom redesigns cost more because everything is built step-by-step, with research, knowledge, experience, and enough time to give a unique online look for your business. But template redesigns can easily be created in an affordable budget since most of the design and structure are already designed. See the comparison table below to measure typical 2026 website redesign pricing ranges:
| Category | Custom Website Redesign | Template-Based Redesign |
| Typical Cost | Small business: $5,000–$15,000
Mid-size: $15,000–$40,000 Enterprise: $40,000–$150,000 |
Basic template refresh: $800–$2,500
Premium customization: $2,500–$8,000 Extra plugin/theme costs: $50–$500 |
| Design Flexibility | A fully different design created for your brand | Limited to the structure |
| Brand Uniqueness | High | Medium/Low |
| Performance & Speed | Optimized coding gives smooth functionality, fast-loading capability | Depends on template quality |
| SEO Potential | Strong | Moderate |
| Scalability | Built to grow with your business and add advanced features later | Limited |
| Development Time | Longer (4–12+ weeks) even more | Faster (maximum 1–4 weeks) |
| Maintenance Cost | Variable depending on custom features | Lower, but plugin updates may increase cost |
| Ideal For | Businesses wanting full control and unique branding | Startups or small businesses that need fast but affordable redesigns |
| Hidden Costs |
|
|
5 Common Mistakes Businesses Make When Choosing a Redesign Option
The mistakes businesses make below are not causing serious issues, but gradually these mistakes become the reason for low traffic, insufficient leads, and cost a huge amount of money. So, as a business owner, please understand the below mistakes and don’t follow them, as no early issues affect your site’s SEO performance, mobile speed performance, and UI/UX experience.
1. Choosing a Redesign Just Because It Is Cheap
Most businesses prefer to redesign their websites with the cheapest budget to save money. But unfortunately, in a low-budget redesign, agencies skip the process of planning unique UX, proper SEO structure, and On-Page optimization. Over the time, this gap in redesign lowers the total conversion rates by 20 to 30% according to the studies. And you have to spend more if you want to fix those issues later.
2. Not Thinking About How the Website Will Handle More Pages and Features Later
Most of the businesses avoid thinking about future website growth, and they become serious only about current needs. As a result, when new pages, services, or tools need to be added, the website cannot support them as it should. Even if you add all the features in some way with an improper designer. Then it will cause poor navigation, slow loading speed, and you will need to redesign the entire website again.
3. Not Realizing How Important SEO Is for Search Rankings
SEO is not a common name that can be added to a redesign. So be serious and remember, if URL structure, page hierarchy, and On-Page optimization are ignored, search rankings can drop dramatically. Since around 68% of online experiences start with a search engine. Weak SEO will not send positive signals about your site to Google, and it means low traffic.
4. Trying to Change a Template Too Much, Which Can Cause Problems
Templates are designed to work within fixed limits, but many businesses customize them with heavy layouts that cross the limits. This often breaks layouts, increases load time, and creates technical bugs. Overly customized templates cannot become a super-fast online profile as per your expectations.
5. Ignoring How the Website Needs to Handle More Users or Content Later
Without strong server support websites cannot perform better as a huge amount of traffic starts to come. If this scalability is ignored, your page will load more slowly than previously, and visitors will feel bored while navigating. The matter may not be serious, so remember a 0.01 to 1-second delay in page loading can damage conversions by up to 7% every time someone lands on your site.
The Future of Website Redesign: Custom or Template?
Website templates will become more advanced in the upcoming years, but custom website redesigns are going to lead the future of website redesign. It’s true that templates make it easier to launch simple sites, but in modern times, online audiences are used to seeing websites more flexible and functional that templates cannot provides.
So, in 2025 and the upcoming year 2026, business websites are not able to thrive strongly without supporting features like fast loading speed, AI tools, SEO, voice search, interactive UI/UX, and apps. Even in today’s time, only about 11% of active websites worldwide were made using templates. But the majority of businesses use custom redesign to stay competitive and look different.
But these features are impossible to implement without the help of agencies who are experienced in custom coding for decades. That means professional designers and developers are still essential.
Design A Custom Website Redesign With We Misc
At We Misc, we have been redesigning custom websites for 8+ years, and over the years, we have successfully updated and redesigned 800+ successful websites worldwide. After redesigning all of the custom websites, they now have a powerful online business tool.
Now, if you want to level up your business online, custom redesigning is not optional for you. And, We Misc is always ready to help you level up your value online by showing a clear purpose by completely transforming your business site.
Get your Free Quote Today. Let’s redesign your website together for your audience that properly fits in your budget and moves your business in the right direction.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is a Custom Website Redesign Worth My Investment?
Yes, a custom website redesign will definitely be worth your investment, but when you hire experienced and trusted agencies like We Misc. You will get complete control over your site design, SEO work, site analytics, and future updates.
Are Templates Good Enough for Business Websites?
Template websites performance is perfect enough for small businesses that just need a simple navigation website. They work well when you only need to show your basic service pages.
Which Is Better for SEO, Custom or Template?
Custom websites are usually better for implementing SEO improvements. They let you include code, faster loading speed, and better control over changing the page structure, which helps search engines index your site more smoothly.
Do Templates Slow Down Websites?
Some templates can slow down websites to load completely because they include extra features that are beyond the adopting limitations. This extra code can increase loading time if it is not optimized properly by professional developers.
How Long Does Each Type of Redesign Take?
A template redesign can take a few days to two weeks to be completely transformed. But a custom redesign takes more time to be created. Sometimes it can take several weeks, because agencies plan everything from scratch and build every layout according to the plan.
