DIY6 min read
Wix or a web designer?
Build it yourself on Wix or Squarespace if you have the time, a good eye and the habit of updating it. Pay a designer if you would rather spend the winter on the business, need booking or ordering wired in properly, or want someone on the end of a phone when the hours change. The DIY sites are not slow; the problem is upkeep.
Written by Rebecca Peake
Published Updated
Can I build my website myself?
Yes, and more people should say so out loud. The builders have moved on a long way. If you have an eye for a page, a free Saturday and photographs you are not embarrassed by, you can have something respectable online by Sunday evening for the price of a subscription. Plenty of the businesses we admire around Bude started exactly like that.
The question is not whether you can. It is what the site looks like eighteen months later, in the week the fryer breaks and the season starts.
Are the do-it-yourself builders slow?
No, and this is where our trade is quietly dishonest. Designers have said for years that a builder site is heavy and slow. Real measurements from real visitors, gathered by Chrome and published every month, say the opposite.
of all sites measured passed all three of Google's Core Web Vitals on mobile in February 2026. The builder platforms sit above that baseline, not below it — the platform is not what makes a site slow.
So if somebody tells you your site is slow because of the platform it sits on, ask to see the measurement. Usually the problem is the photographs, not the builder. Our article on why a website is slow on a phone has the three checks you can run yourself in ten minutes.
So what does a designer actually do?
Less drawing than you would think. Most of the value is in decisions somebody has to make and nobody enjoys making.
- Deciding what each page is for, and cutting everything that is not that.
- Writing the words, which is the part that takes the longest and gets skipped first.
- Wiring the booking, ordering or enquiry so it lands with the right person and does not go silent in August.
- Putting your number, your hours and the one thing to do next where a thumb can reach them.
- Checking it on an old phone on one bar of signal, rather than on a big screen on the shop wifi.
- Being the person who fixes it when something breaks, so that job is not yours at nine on a Sunday.
Who is the best website builder in the UK?
There is no answer to that question, which is why it keeps getting asked. The best builder is the one you will still be updating in February. If you already know your way around one, use it. If the thought of it makes you find something else to do, no amount of feature comparison will fix that, and the subscription will quietly renew around a site that has been wrong since last summer.
What happens in February?
This is the real argument, and it has nothing to do with software. A site is not a thing you buy. It is a thing somebody keeps. Hours change at half term. The menu changes when the supplier does. The photographs age faster than you think, and the login was set up on an email address that belonged to somebody who has since moved on.
of small business owners handle their own marketing, on top of running the business. US survey of 778 small business owners, 2025.
Nobody in that group is short of intelligence. They are short of Tuesdays.
| What you are comparing | Building it yourself | Paying us |
|---|---|---|
| What it costs to start | A subscription, usually a few pounds a week | From £1,195, or built free from £25 a month; fixed in writing before we begin |
| Who writes the words | You | Us, with you. Or you, if you would rather write them |
| Who takes the photographs | You, or a stock library everyone else uses too | A photographer, quoted for the job |
| Who changes the hours at Christmas | You | You, with your own login, or us: the Grow care plan, £120 a month, includes 30 minutes of changes |
| Who you contact when the booking form stops | A help centre and a chat window | The mobile number of the person who built it |
| What it really costs you | Your evenings | Money |
Scroll the table sideways →
So which one are you?
Build it yourself if you enjoy it and you have the winter free. Pay somebody if the booking has to work properly, or if you want a name and a number rather than a chat window.
There is a middle road that suits a lot of the businesses we work with, and it suits a café or a pub best of all, because the menu moves when the supplier does. We build it with your own login, which comes with the 15 Page Plan at £65 a month or any Bespoke Website, then show you how to change the menu, the hours and the photographs yourself. The monthly fee on the plan, or the Keep care plan from £60 a month on a Bespoke Website, keeps the site hosted, backed up and updated while you look after the words.
And if you built your own a few years ago and it has fallen behind, that is a website redesign: a new site in place of the old one, without losing what Google already knows about you, from £25 a month on a pay-monthly plan or £1,195 as a Fast-Track Website.
What to do about it
- Open your own site on your phone and try to book, order or ring in one tap. Time yourself.
- Find out today who holds the domain name and who has the login. If nobody in the business knows, that is the first job.
- Put one hour in the diary each month for updates. If you cannot, that tells you which route you are on.
- If you would like a second opinion on what you have, send us the address for a free website check.
Quick questions about doing it yourself
Is it cheaper to build my own website?
To start with, usually. A builder subscription costs a few pounds a week, against £1,195 or more for a Fast-Track Website, or £25 a month on our 1 Page Plan with nothing upfront. The real cost of building it yourself is your time: the writing, the photographs and the updates, every season, for as long as the site is up.
Can I edit a site you build for me?
Yes, on the right plan. The 15 Page Plan, £65 a month, and every Bespoke Website come with your own login for the words and photos, and we show you how to use it. On a Fast-Track or Bespoke Website, the Grow care plan also includes 30 minutes of changes from us each month, and Lead includes 90.
Do I own a site I build on a website builder?
You own your words, your photos and your domain, but the site itself lives on the builder's platform and generally cannot be moved to another host as it stands. Leave, and you rebuild. Our pay-monthly sites work the same way. A Bespoke Website is different: the code is yours once it is paid for, to host anywhere.