The adverts make it look so simple. A smiling business owner drags a few boxes around, types some words, and – just like that – they have a stunning website. Ten minutes, no skills required.
If only.
I’m not here to bash Wix or Squarespace or any of the others. They’re genuinely impressive pieces of software, and for certain people in certain situations, they work fine. But there’s a significant gap between the marketing and the reality, and if you’re a small business owner weighing up your options, you deserve an honest picture.
The hidden learning curve
Yes, you can drag and drop. But that’s the easy part.
The hard part is knowing what to drag where. Which layout works best for your content? How do you make the mobile version look right? Why does that text look fine in the editor but wrong on the published page? How do you get your logo to sit properly in the header?
These platforms give you hundreds of options – fonts, colours, spacing, animations, widgets – and very little guidance on which ones to choose. For someone without design experience, that freedom quickly becomes overwhelm.
It’s a bit like being handed the keys to a professional kitchen and told to cook a restaurant-quality meal. All the equipment is there. That doesn’t mean you know how to use it.
Then there’s the content
The website builders give you boxes to fill in. They don’t tell you what to write.
This is where most DIY websites stall. You’ve got your template set up, your colours chosen, and then you’re staring at a blank hero section wondering how to describe your business in one compelling sentence.
Writing website copy is a skill. It’s not about describing everything you do – it’s about communicating value quickly and clearly. Most business owners, understandably, find this hard. They’re too close to their own work to see it from a customer’s perspective.
So the website sits unfinished. Weeks turn into months. “I really need to sort out that website” becomes a recurring guilt.
The bits nobody mentions
Beyond the design and content, there’s a whole layer of technical and legal setup that the adverts skip over entirely.
You need a domain name – bought separately, connected properly. You need an SSL certificate so your site shows as secure. You need GDPR-compliant cookie notices and a privacy policy that actually reflects what data you collect. You need to set up Google Analytics if you want to know whether anyone’s visiting. You need to optimise images so your pages don’t load slowly. You need to check everything works on different browsers and screen sizes.
None of this is impossibly difficult, but it all takes time to learn and time to do. And if you get it wrong, the consequences range from minor embarrassment to actual legal non-compliance.
The real cost is time
Most DIY website builders charge somewhere between £10-£30 per month, which sounds like a bargain compared to hiring a professional.
But that’s not the real cost. The real cost is your time.
How many hours will you spend learning the platform? Trying different templates? Wrestling with layouts that won’t quite work? Writing and rewriting content? Googling how to do things that should be simple?
For most small business owners, those hours would be better spent on actual business activities – the things that bring in money and build relationships. Time has a value, and spending ten evenings on a frustrating website is genuinely expensive.
When DIY makes sense (and when it doesn’t)
I’ll be fair. DIY builders can work well if you have some design sensibility, you’re comfortable with technology, you enjoy the process, and you have time to invest. If that’s you, go for it.
But if you’ve already tried and got stuck, or the thought of it fills you with dread, or you simply have better things to do with your evenings, there’s no shame in handing it over.
A professional website isn’t an extravagance. It’s a tool that works for your business while you’re busy doing other things. And it might cost less than you think – especially compared to the DIY hours you’d otherwise spend.