Why not just build it myself on Squarespace?
Fair question. It’s the one people ask most, and usually they ask it a little apologetically, like it’s rude to say out loud. It isn’t. You’re weighing a few hundred dollars and a weekend against a real invoice, and you should.
So here’s the honest answer, including the part where I tell you when you don’t need me.
When a template is the right call
A Squarespace, Wix, or Shopify template is a good decision when most of these are true:
You mainly need a place to exist online: hours, address, a phone number, a few photos.
Your customers already know who you are before they look you up.
You aren’t counting on Google to send you strangers.
You have the time and the patience to build it, and to keep it updated.
If it’s slow, a little generic, or ranks on page four, nothing bad happens to your business.
If that’s you, go build the template. Seriously. Spending $4,500 on a website that only needs to confirm you’re real is a bad use of money, and I’d rather you keep it.
When a template starts costing you
The picture changes when the website is supposed to do something — bring in customers who don’t know you yet, make the phone ring, or replace the referrals that dried up when a competitor opened across town.
That’s where template sites quietly underperform, and it’s rarely for the reason people expect. It isn’t that they look bad. It’s that:
They aren’t built to rank.
Templates are built to look good in a demo. The structure Google actually reads — headings, page hierarchy, load speed, how service pages connect to each other and to your city — is either locked down or left for you to figure out. Most business owners never do, because nobody told them it mattered.
Built for everyone, so built for no one.
A template doesn’t know that a powersports shop needs an inventory page that loads fast on a phone, or that a therapy practice needs an intake path that feels private. You end up bending your business to fit the layout.
You’re the developer now.
Every update, every broken plugin, every ‘why does it look wrong on my sister’s phone’ is yours. That’s fine if you enjoy it. Most owners don’t, so the site slowly goes stale, and a stale site is worse than no site.
Yours only as long as you keep paying.
You can’t take a Squarespace site with you. Custom code is a file you own. You can host it anywhere, hand it to anyone, or hand it back to me.
What it actually costs
This is the part nobody puts on their website, so here it is.
A template site, honestly accounted for
- •Platform subscription, domain, and the apps you’ll eventually need: roughly $2,900 over three years for a typical small-business setup.
- •Your time to build it: most owners spend somewhere between a full weekend and a couple of weeks of evenings, and then a few hours a month keeping it alive.
- •The cost of ranking nowhere: this is the expensive one and the hardest to see. If you’re in a service business and you’re not on the first page for your city, the customers searching for you are calling someone else. You don’t get a bill for that. You just don’t get the call.
A custom site with me
- •The Launch package is $4,500. That’s a site built around your actual business, structured to rank in Southern Utah, on code you own outright, with the local SEO foundation done on day one instead of never.
- •Your time: a kickoff meeting and a couple of review rounds. You don’t touch a page builder.
- •After launch, you can stop there, or keep me on a month-to-month retainer if you want someone actively working on results. No long contracts. If it stops being worth it, you cancel.
The gap between the two isn’t $4,500 versus free. It’s about $1,600 and your weekends, in exchange for a site that’s built to bring in business rather than just confirm you exist.
Side by side
| Feature | Template | Custom |
|---|---|---|
| Ownership | Rented — locked to the platform | You own the code, host anywhere |
| SEO structure | Generic, you configure it | Built for your services and city |
| Your time | Ongoing — you build, update, fix | Kickoff + reviews, then done |
| Speed | Depends on theme and plugins | Sub-2-second loads, no bloat |
| Upkeep | Monthly platform fee + your hours | A few dollars/month hosting, optional retainer |
Ownership
SEO structure
Your time
Speed
Upkeep
What you’re paying for, specifically
“I don’t understand what I’m paying for” is the most common hesitation I hear, so here’s the list. When you hire me, you’re paying for:
Someone who has seen your problem before.
Twenty-plus years of building sites, from local shops to enterprise systems. I know what breaks and what works before we start.
Structure Google can read.
Page architecture, speed, local signals, and service pages built to rank for the searches your customers actually type.
Code you own.
No platform lock-in, no themes, no plugin roulette. It’s a set of files that belong to you.
One person, start to finish.
You talk to the developer. Not a project manager, not a sales rep. Me.
A site that fits the business.
Built around how your customers decide, not around a layout designed for a fictional bakery in the template gallery.
Your time back.
You run the business. I run the website.
Common questions
Yes. That’s exactly what Template Rescue is. The content comes with you; the structure gets rebuilt.
Usually less. There’s no subscription and no plugins to break. Hosting for a typical business site runs a few dollars a month, and updates are either something you learn once or something I do on retainer.
No. Custom code only. If you need a content management system, I build on one that keeps the code in your hands.
The Launch package typically goes live in a few weeks from kickoff, depending on how quickly we get your content together.
Then you probably don’t need me, and I’ll tell you that on the free audit.