WordPress vs a custom-built site: who maintains it?
The build is the easy part. The real difference between these two is who is responsible for the site eighteen months from now.
WordPress runs an enormous share of the web and it earns that. It is capable, it is everywhere, and there is a plugin for almost anything you might want.
The comparison people usually make — WordPress versus custom, on features — misses the difference that actually costs money. It is not what the site can do on launch day. It is who is responsible for it a year and a half later.
What WordPress is genuinely good for
Anything with a plugin. Bookings, memberships, events, shops, multilingual content. If a well-maintained plugin exists, you get functionality in an afternoon that would take weeks to build from scratch. That is a real advantage and it is why WordPress is so widely used.
Finding someone to work on it. Almost every developer in the world can work on a WordPress site. You are never stuck with one supplier, which is worth more than it sounds.
Publishing a lot. If your business genuinely produces articles regularly, its editing tools are mature and unmatched.
If any of those describes you, use WordPress. This is not a close call.
The maintenance question
Here is what the sales conversation tends to skip.
A WordPress site is not a finished object. It is WordPress, plus a theme, plus however many plugins, and all of those update on their own schedules. Updates occasionally conflict. Plugins get abandoned. Security problems are found in popular plugins precisely because they are popular, and outdated installations are actively scanned for.
So somebody has to keep it up to date. That somebody is you, or someone you pay, or — most commonly — nobody, until something breaks or the site starts serving content it should not.
The number of neglected WordPress installations is not a criticism of the software. It is a consequence of selling people a thing that needs looking after without telling them so.
Ask before you buy: who applies updates, how often, and what happens if one breaks the site? A good answer includes backups and a way to roll back. "It updates automatically" is only half an answer.
What a custom site trades away
Fairness requires this section.
No plugin ecosystem. Anything you want has to be built, which for complicated features costs meaningfully more.
A smaller pool of people who can work on it. Anyone competent can pick up a well-built modern site, but it is not the same as being able to hire from almost anyone.
Slower to add unusual features. WordPress wins clearly here.
Weaker self-editing. If you want to write and publish articles yourself several times a week, WordPress is built for that and a simple custom site is not.
What it gains
Fewer moving parts. No plugin conflicts, and a much smaller surface for things to go wrong on.
Speed. A site that only contains what it needs is generally faster than one carrying a theme and a dozen plugins. That matters — most of your visitors are on a phone.
Less to maintain. Fewer components updating independently means fewer updates that can break something.
It does exactly what it does. No settings pages for features you will never use.
Which to pick
WordPress if: you need plugin functionality, you publish frequently, or you want the largest possible pool of future developers — and you have a plan for maintenance.
Custom if: your site is a small number of pages that need to load fast and be accurate, you would rather not think about updates, and you do not need features a plugin would provide.
Most small businesses are in the second group and get sold the first, because WordPress is what most suppliers build.
What we do
We build small custom sites: $499 to build, $49 a month to run. The monthly fee is partly the answer to the maintenance question above — updates, monitoring and small content changes are ours to worry about, not yours.
The honest limit: if you need a shop, a booking system, memberships or events, WordPress with a good plugin will likely serve you better and cost less than having those built. We will tell you that rather than sell you something narrower than you need.