Template or built from scratch?

There is nothing wrong with a template. Millions of businesses run fine on one, and anyone claiming everything must be built from scratch is trying to sell you something.

But there is a point where the template stops being cheap. It is worth knowing where that point is before you reach it.

What a template actually is

A finished house where you are allowed to paint the walls. You can change colours, type and images. You can move the furniture around a little.

You cannot move a wall. And that is exactly where it starts to hurt — because one day you will want to move a wall.

The three places templates break

1. Speed

A template has to do everything, because it has to sell to everyone. So it carries everything — including what you never use. All that code still loads for your visitors.

You feel it on mobile, and Google feels it too. A slow page sits lower in the results than a fast one with the same content.

2. The one thing you want

Something always comes up. A calculator. A particular form. A list that has to work a specific way.

The template cannot do it. So you buy a plugin for it. Then another. After a year the site runs on fourteen plugins from fourteen different people, and when one of them stops maintaining theirs, you have a problem you cannot fix yourself.

3. The update

The template gets updated. It has to, or it becomes a security hole. But the update knows nothing about the changes made on top of it, so something shifts. Someone has to fix it. Every time.

When the template is the right call

• You need something now, and rather this week than next month
• The site is a business card, not a machine meant to earn
• The budget is under DKK 10,000, and that is what it is
• You expect to build properly in two years, when there is money for it

If that is your situation, take the template. It is a sensible call, and anyone saying otherwise is thinking about their own invoice.

When from scratch pays for itself

• The site is meant to bring in customers, not just exist
• You need something no template was built for
• Speed and Google mean money to you
• You want to own what you pay for — all of it

The part that never makes the quote

Always ask: what does it cost in three years?

A DKK 8,000 template with licences and plugins at DKK 300 a month costs DKK 18,800 after three years — and you still own nothing. That bill never appears on the front page of the quote, but it arrives.