Every small business owner in Edinburgh has asked themselves this question at least once: should I just build the site myself on Wix or Squarespace, or is it worth paying a web designer?
It's a fair question. DIY builders are heavily marketed, they look cheap, and they promise you can be up and running in an afternoon. So here's the honest answer — including when they're the right call, and when they'll quietly cost you real money.
The pitch DIY builders make
"Build a professional website in minutes. No coding required. Only £16 a month."
It's a compelling pitch. And to be clear: Wix, Squarespace, GoDaddy and the rest have made real websites accessible to businesses that couldn't previously afford one. That's genuinely good. But the pitch skips over several important things.
Where DIY builders let you down
1. Google ranking
This is the biggest one. Wix and Squarespace sites can rank on Google — but they're fighting a headwind. Their code loads slower than a custom build. Their SEO tools are limited compared to what a proper site uses. Their URLs are less clean. Their schema options are basic.
None of these are dealbreakers on their own. Stacked together, they mean that when you compete with a properly-built site for "plumber Edinburgh" or "kitchen fitter Leith," the properly-built site wins nine times out of ten. You're not paying a Wix subscription — you're paying to be invisible.
2. Design that stands out
Templates look great when you first pick them. Then you realise a thousand other businesses picked the same one. The whole point of a website is to make your business memorable — a template designed for anyone to use is designed to make no-one memorable.
A custom-built site can look and feel like your business. It uses your language, your photos, your specific benefits. That personality is what converts a visitor into a customer.
3. Conversion
DIY builders let you build a website. They don't help you build a website that converts. The difference is enormous: two sites can look similar and get similar traffic, but one turns 3% of visitors into enquiries and the other turns 0.5%. That's a 6x difference in customers won.
Getting to 3% requires deliberate design decisions — where the call-to-action goes, what the headline says, how the form is structured, when to use urgency, when to use social proof. Templates make none of these decisions for you.
4. Being locked in
The subscription model is comfortable — until you want to leave. Try exporting your Wix site to run somewhere else. You can't. Try moving your Squarespace content and design. You can't. You don't own your website — you rent it. And rents go up.
The trap: DIY builders look cheap because you're comparing their monthly fee to a designer's one-off price. Compare properly and it's often the other way round. Three years on Squarespace at £30/month is £1,080. And you own nothing at the end of it.
Where DIY builders actually work
They're not always the wrong choice. DIY is fine for:
- Testing a business idea before committing serious money. Ship a rough site, see if anyone bites, upgrade when it's working.
- Hobby projects where the site doesn't need to earn.
- Businesses that don't depend on Google. If all your customers come from word-of-mouth or a physical location, a simple template site is fine.
- Simple portfolio or "about" sites for people who just need an online business card and don't expect the site to actively bring in leads.
What DIY builders can't do is compete with a properly-built site on Google, or convert visitors as well. For any Edinburgh business whose growth depends on being findable and turning visitors into customers, that's a serious problem.
The honest comparison
Cost over three years
- DIY: £15–£50 a month = £540–£1,800 over three years. Plus your time.
- Freelance-built site: £1,500–£3,000 up front, £30–£100/month = £2,580–£6,600 over three years.
The freelance route is more expensive on paper. But the freelance site should be earning you meaningfully more customers, which flips the maths completely. Even one extra customer a month from search — worth £200 or £2,000 depending on your business — pays for the freelance site inside the first year.
Time spent building it
- DIY: 20–60 hours of your time, minimum. Time you could've spent running your business.
- Freelance: Under 2 hours of your time — a chat, sending photos, reviewing the site.
Long-term flexibility
- DIY: Locked in. Difficult to change platforms, difficult to scale.
- Freelance: You own the domain and the site. Portable to anywhere.
Want a fixed price for your website?
Tell me what you're after and I'll come back within one working day — a clear plan, a fixed number, no jargon.
Get my free quoteThe signs you've outgrown DIY
- You Google your service + Edinburgh and can't find yourself
- You've hit the limits of what your template can do
- You spend more time fighting the builder than running your business
- Your site loads slowly on a phone
- You get almost no enquiries from the website
- You want to add features the platform doesn't support
Any two of these, and you've probably outgrown DIY. All six, and every month you delay is costing you customers.
When to switch (and how)
The switch itself is straightforward. You keep your domain (so any existing SEO doesn't reset). Your content moves over, gets rewritten to convert better, and the site is rebuilt properly. Typical timeline: 1–2 weeks from first chat to going live.
You can usually do it without downtime — the new site launches, the old one gets switched off, and your customers don't notice a thing. Except that they now find you on Google.
My honest recommendation
If you're just starting out and testing an idea, use DIY. Get something live, see if it works.
If you're a real business — money coming in, customers to win, growth to chase — DIY is a false economy. You'd never run your business on the free version of anything else. Your shopfront deserves the same.
Request a fixed quote and I'll tell you honestly whether you need a full build, or whether your current site can be salvaged.
Common questions
Is Wix or Squarespace okay for a small business?
For a hobby site, casual use, or a simple online presence, yes. For a business relying on Google to bring in customers, they hold you back — templates are generic, SEO tools are limited, and you're locked into their ecosystem. Most Edinburgh small businesses outgrow them within a year.
Can Wix websites rank on Google?
They can, but they're fighting one hand behind their back. Wix and Squarespace generate slower code, offer less control over SEO essentials, and their templates tend to look identical to thousands of others. A custom-built site will out-rank them for the same effort every time.
Should I switch from Wix to a proper website?
If your Wix site isn't bringing you customers, or you're constantly frustrated by what you can't change, yes. The switch is straightforward — you keep your domain, we rebuild properly, and you own the result. Usually done in 1–2 weeks.
How much cheaper is DIY really?
The subscription looks cheap — £15–£50 a month. But factor in the customers you don't get because you're not ranking, the design compromises, and the time you sink into fighting the platform, and DIY often works out more expensive within a year.
Will I lose my current site's SEO if I switch?
No — done properly, you keep your domain, redirect the old URLs to the new ones, and your SEO transfers. Often the new site starts ranking better than the old one within weeks.