Custom-coded websites are the most bespoke form of website build as they are built entirely from scratch by code and made bespoke based on your brand and requirements. 

Custom-coded websites ensure your business stands out from the saturated market of generic websites, specifically when there are thousands of businesses every day creating websites using free website design builders.

On the surface, custom-coded websites seem like the best option as they allow for more creative freedom allowing the inclusion of certain features tailored bespoke to your brand’s requirements. 

However, once you start delving deeper into researching whether or not a custom-coded website is the correct option for you, it’s worth reviewing the drawbacks that are associated with opting for a custom-coded website. 

Custom-coded websites are often a lot more expensive simply due to the amount of time and the level of expertise that is required to produce them.

Likewise, you may be expected to pay larger sums of money upfront with a custom-coded website, whereas some of other forms of bespoke design can significantly reduce the costs.

The rough cost for a custom-coded website can be anything from £20k - £100k, whilst bigger cooperates can afford to invest this much on a website, it doesn’t mean it is the correct option for all businesses.

There are far more affordable and effective website solutions (that still work just as well) for small and medium businesses.

An extensive amount of time will be dedicated to developing the custom-coded website to ensure that it is bespoke to your brand. A custom-coded website from scratch can take anything from 6-12 months for a full build. 

Since the full build takes this long to develop you can expect that even small changes will take 5-10X longer than they usually would, which of course incurs a greater cost per change.

Businesses that are working on a short timescale or want to start making a return on their investment soon rather than later see this as a downfall of custom-coded websites and wish to opt for a quicker alternative.

Most businesses go into a website build with pre-existing ideas and expectations from a custom-coded website that brings your brand website to life featuring your brand colours and an integration of your brand values through the pages.

It is therefore essential to find a dedicated design team with the skills and capabilities to  implement your designs correctly.

Similar to the above point, whilst your design ideas may seem entirely clear and simple in your mind, it can prove to be difficult when it comes to communicating these ideas to the design team.

Miscommunication or simply different visions and personal design choices can cause lots of back and forth between each other to get the designs spot on, subsequently causing additional   delays, costs and making it a lengthy expensive process.

Once your website is built, that is not the end of it. You’ll require ongoing website optimisation to ensure that it continues working effectively, and generally making any edits requested, e.g. adding a new team member or adding seasonal offers or banners.

Depending on the company you choose to create your custom-coded website with, you may incur costs for additional edits or optimisation of the website once complete.

Since custom-coded websites are built using a high-skillset, should your business ever be in a position whereby you cannot afford to pay higher costs over long service times, you may struggle to make amends to your website as you’ll have to pay for the pricey amends.

When you purchase a custom-coded website, you are simply purchasing the website alone. This does not take into consideration additional performance-based elements like  Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) as they will come without any search engine optimisation included.

Custom-coded websites are purely built from a coding and design point of view.

To implement the essential performance optimisation, these will include another heafty set of fees which can quickly double your costs. This optimisation is essential for a website to be successful and generate money/enquiries for your business unless you have a huge brand name where people are ready looking for your business.

When it comes to deciding on the perfect style of website for your business, it is essential to consider the downfalls that come with each different type of build.

You can almost guarantee a custom-coded website will be better designed,  but it is the other factors such as lack of performance that should be considered.

When it comes to deciding on a custom-coded website, you effectively need to understand the costs or timelines that you may be working at.  If you decide a custom-coded website is the best option for you, be confident that it will a lign perfectly with your budget, timescale and expectations from design and   performance.

You may want to ask yourself questions like:

"Am I willing to make a compromise on the length of build to ensure that the website that I have will be bespoke to my company?"

"Will the money spent in the short/medium-term actually be a positive long-term business investment?"

"Do I need my website to perform, get found in Google and bring in new revenue for my business or do i have enough budget to not need to recover on costs of a custom-coded website?"