The Hidden Costs of DIY Website Builders: Why "Easy" Isn't Always Economical

Written by Richard

Business Technology

You've seen them before. I have too. "Build a professional website in 10 minutes!" It's tempting, so you sign up. A DIY website builder that costs way less than a professional developer? Yes please! After all, who doesn't have 10 minutes to spare? And 3 hours later, after subscribing and paying extra for an actually professional template, you are laughing at RAVENCI for saying you needed them at all.

Drag-and-drop the hero banner, upload your favourite photo, enter that zinger of a tagline...wait, how did I just break the template? Ok, undo, ignore that.

Seriously, these DIY website builders are going to be the end of web developers. Aren't they?

Here are 7 reasons why, at RAVENCI, we're not worried and why we still believe you need a professional and experienced web developer for your website.

1. The "Template Look" That Screams DIY

You know how you can easily spot a PowerPoint presentation? The same thing happens with DIY website builders. There are only so many templates, and so many ways to customise them. When your customers are comparing you to your competitors, do you really want them to only be comparing pricing?

When your customers are comparing you to competitors, do you really want the only differentiator to be price? If you don't invest in standing out, why would customers feel special choosing you over someone else who looks exactly the same?

A client of mine rang me once and said, "Richard, can I just tell you something that happened this morning? A couple from America are in Brisbane on holiday and were looking for a beauty salon. They looked online and ended up with me. They told me that my website looked so professional and clean, it wasn't difficult to choose whom to go with."

Your business deserves to stand out, not look like every other company that chose "Template #47" from the same builder. Make your pricing a secondary consideration for your customers, not the only reason they choose you.

2. The SEO Trap You Didn't See Coming

Your favourite DIY site builder promised you an easy website and what's better? They look after your SEO!

Here's the kicker, those site builders aren't looking after your SEO. They are looking after their own SEO. In fact, the more customers that they can get using their site builder, the more those customers are promoting them with behind-the-scenes code that points back to their site builder.

When Google and Bing crawl through your website, they do it through the code. Look at this example code from a popular builder (you'll recognise it immediately):

Every day, around the world, there are millions of vulnerable children who face the most challenging and sorrowful start to life. One child in six lives in a conflict zone, a quarter of a billion children are out of school, and around 150 million children suffer from malnutrition.

How many times do you see the word "wix" embedded in the code verse any other keyword used in the actual content? Let's say this particular website wants "malnutrition" and "children" to be keywords for their organisation. In this one block of text:

Children is mentioned 3 times
Malnutrition is mentioned once
Wix is mentioned 10 times

When search engines visit this website, who do you think is gaining more in SEO?

Now, you might be thinking, "but I don't use WIX. I use that other really popular site builder." I'd hate to break it to you, but that other builder is an even bigger culprit.

Always remember this one important detail: every business wants to promote itself. Site builder platforms are no different.

3. The Performance Problem

Remember when Australia's internet was... well, let's just say "challenging"? Even with the NBN improvements, page speed still matters enormously. Google prioritises fast-loading websites, and your customers do too.

DIY website builders are notorious for bloated code. They need to accommodate millions of different design possibilities, so they load every possible script and stylesheet, whether your site uses them or not. It's like carrying a toolbox with every tool imaginable when you only need a screwdriver.

On top of that, and this might get slightly technical but bear with me, if you look again at the code above you will notice that the one block of text required 8 nested elements. I didn't even include the parent elements. Compared to a custom built website, you would have 2 nested elements at most for that block of text.

When your customers are visiting your website, they are waiting for all of that to load.

I mentioned before that really popular site builder. One thing they don't menion in promoting their builder is that your website will perform well. Here's how one simple website built by a site builder ranked on Google performance testing:

Mike Perry Pagespeed Insights results on Desktop

And that's just on desktop. It performs worse on mobile.

Compare that with a website I built for a client recently. Here's how their website scored:

Peninsula Homes Pagespeed Insights results on Desktop

4. The Time Trap

Here's what those "build in 10 minutes" ads don't mention: that's 10 minutes to get something that looks like a website. The 10 minutes don't include the time it takes to sign up, subscribe, pick a template and realise that the one you actually want isn't included in the base subscription tier. Building something that actually works for your business - with proper content, optimised images, contact forms, and pages that convert visitors into customers - takes much longer.

I have had clients wanting help fixing their website that they built on a site builder that is now giving them errors. They've spent hours trying to work out what went wrong and after spending days perfecting that home page, they realise they're losing so much time from doing their actual work.

As a business owner, your time is worth money. If you normally charge $50, $80, $100 per hour for your services, and you spend 40+ hours building and tweaking your website, you've just invested $4,000 of your time and you're still not sure why some things aren't working. For that same amount, you could have had a professional site built while you focused on what you do best.

5. The Migration Nightmare

Here's the real kicker. What happens when you outgrow your DIY builder? What happens when they increase their prices (which Wix did substantially in 2023), or when you need functionality they simply can't provide?

Do you start over? Can you spare that time and money?

Most DIY builders make it intentionally difficult to export your content and move elsewhere. It's like buying a house where all the furniture is bolted to the floor - you can leave, but you can't take anything with you. No DIY builder collaborates with another. It would make no sense for them to.

6. The Hidden Subscription Costs

Let's talk numbers for a moment. You are promised a very low starting cost per month which you are certain you can afford. That's why you signed up.

Then you realise that this cost did not inlude:

A custom domain
Removing their branding
E-commerce functionality
Email marketing
Advanced analytics

Worst of all, you just found out that the pricing was in USD, not AUD. On top of the pricing now being more expensive than you first thought, you're at the mercy of the Australian dollar, paying this much this month and paying something else completely the next month because of conversion and extra exchange fees.

Want to know something else? The first year with WIX and Squarespace are much cheaper than the second year. They count on you not checking your direct debit after 12 months. Do you know how I know that? A client of mine once told me that they were paying $40/mo. for their subcription. I thought it was great, very affordable. Just out of curiosity, I told them to check their bank account to make sure.

The email they sent me was heartbreaking. "Richard, I need to leave this platform right now! They're charging me $215 every month!!"

And don't get me started on what happens if you forget to cancel before the renewal...

7. What Professional Development Actually Gives You

When you work with a professional developer (shameless plug: like RAVENCI), you get:

Clean and performant code that search engines love
A unique design that represents your brand, not theirs
Websites that load quickly regardless of where your customers are
Content and functionality that's completely portable
Someone who can fix things if and when they break (the internet being what it is, changes will cause things to break eventually)

The Bottom Line

DIY website builders aren't inherently evil - they serve a purpose for personal projects or very simple business needs. But for most Australian businesses trying to compete in today's digital marketplace, they're a false economy.

You wouldn't use a DIY legal kit for important business contracts, or perform DIY surgery when you need medical treatment. Your website is often the first impression your customers have of your business - isn't it worth doing properly?

The real question isn't whether you can afford professional web development. It's whether you can afford not to invest in it.

Ready to break free from DIY limitations? Let's chat about building a website that actually works for your business, not against it.