Should I Build My Own Website or Hire Someone?

Honest answer upfront: it depends on where your business is at and what your time is worth. Both are legitimate choices. Here's a framework for deciding which one makes sense for your situation right now.

When DIY makes sense

• You're pre-revenue or in the very early stages with no budget to allocate
• The site is a placeholder while you validate the business idea — it just needs to exist, not perform
• You genuinely enjoy the technical side and have 20–40 hours to spend on it
• The website isn't your primary source of new customers — you get work through referrals or in-person
• You've already built sites before and know what you're doing

When to hire someone

• You've been operating for 12+ months and the site needs to do real work — rank in Google, convert visitors into enquiries
• Your time is worth more than the build cost. If you bill at $80/hour, a 20-hour DIY project costs you $1,600 in lost productive time — roughly the same as a Starter build
• You've already tried DIY and the site isn't converting — you're getting visitors but not enquiries
• You want to rank in Google for local search terms like "[your service] + [your suburb]"
• You're embarrassed to hand out the URL and it's affecting how you present your business

The real cost of DIY

The upfront saving is real, but so are the hidden costs:

• A Wix or Squarespace subscription runs $300–$600 per year, every year — you never stop paying
• Building a decent 5-page site yourself typically takes 20–40 hours, including learning the platform. That's time you're not spending on your business
• When something breaks — and it will — you're troubleshooting it yourself
• DIY templates load slower than a purpose-built static site. Squarespace sites average 40–70 on Google's mobile PageSpeed score; a custom static site on Cloudflare consistently hits 90+
• Template sites tend to look like template sites, which affects how prospects perceive you

What you get when you hire a specialist

• Fixed price, clear scope — you know exactly what you're getting before you commit
• Done in 2–3 weeks, not 2–3 months of fitting it in around everything else
• Mobile-first and SEO-optimised from day one, not something you bolt on later
• Someone who's done this 50+ times and knows what actually converts visitors into enquiries
• A site that's built to rank for your local search terms, not just to exist

Decision framework

If you decide to hire — what to look for

Not all web designers are the same. Before committing, check for:

• A fixed price quote — hourly billing on a website project is a red flag. You should know the total cost before you start.
• Clear scope — how many pages, what's included, what costs extra.
• Portfolio or references — real sites you can look at, not just mockups.
• Someone who asks about your business before quoting — if they quote without understanding what you do and who your customers are, the brief is already wrong.

The bottom line

Neither option is wrong. The wrong option is paying for a site — whether that's your time or your money — and ending up with something that doesn't bring in work. If you're not sure which way to go, get in touch and I'll give you a straight answer based on where your business is at.