WordPress or a custom website?
Four questions, about a minute. The answer depends on what the site must do, who edits it, how much upkeep you will take on, and your budget.
1 of 4
What does the site need to do?
When WordPress is the right call
WordPress is a good choice when you will publish often yourself, the site does standard things (pages, a blog, a contact form, a simple shop) and the lowest start cost matters. There is a theme and a plugin for almost everything, and many people can work on it.
The cost comes later. Every plugin needs updates, some updates break each other, and an outdated plugin is the usual way WordPress sites get hacked. Plan for monthly updates and backups, done by you or paid for.
When a custom site is the right call
A custom site makes sense when the site has to do something specific to your business, such as bookings with your own rules, client accounts or a link to your stock or invoicing, or when speed on mobile is how you win customers.
It is built for exactly what you need, without a theme and twenty plugins loading on every page, so it opens fast and has far less to keep updated. I build custom sites with Next.js: a presentation site starts at 590€, an e-shop at 1,490€ and a custom web app at 2,500€, with a fixed written price before work starts.
The question that usually decides it
Who keeps the site running after launch. If someone on your side will edit it every week and look after updates, WordPress is fine. If you would rather the site just works and you ask for the occasional change, custom costs less over a few years than it looks on day one.