What is a custom-coded website?
A custom website is built from scratch, with no theme and no page builder. We write the front end in Next.js and run the content through Sanity, so every line of code exists because your site needs it, not because a template shipped with it. Nothing loads that you didn’t ask for.
That control is what produces the speed. Efedra Clinic, one of our builds, holds a Lighthouse score of 98 and a largest-contentful-paint of 0.8 seconds. You don’t reach those numbers by bolting a caching plugin onto a theme; you reach them by not shipping the bloat in the first place.
What is WordPress?
WordPress is a PHP content management system that powers roughly 43% of the web. You pick a theme, add plugins for the features you need, and edit through a dashboard most people already recognise. That ecosystem is its strength: there is a plugin for almost anything, and developers are easy to find.
The cost of that flexibility is weight and upkeep. Every plugin is more code to load, another thing to update, and another possible security hole. None of that makes WordPress bad. It makes it a particular set of trade-offs.
Side-by-side comparison
| Factor | Custom (Next.js) | WordPress |
|---|---|---|
| Page speed | Lighthouse 95–98 typical | Lighthouse 50–70 with plugins |
| SEO built-in | Structured data, clean code from day one | Via plugins (Yoast, RankMath), added later |
| Security | Minimal attack surface, no plugin holes | Frequent plugin exploits, update dependency |
| Upfront cost | From £800 / £3,500 | £1,500–£8,000 for a custom build |
| Year 2–3 cost | Hosting only, on your account | Plugin renewals £300–£800/yr + maintenance |
| Editing | Sanity: edit from your phone | WP dashboard, strong for content-heavy sites |
| Scalability | Scales to SaaS, marketplace, multilingual | Slows under heavy traffic, plugin conflicts |
| Lock-in | None; you own the GitHub repo | Tied to WP; migration costs £500–£5,000 |
| Time to launch | Landing 1–2 wks, corporate 4–8 wks | Basic 2–4 wks, custom 2–6 months |
3-year total cost: the part no one shows you
The build price is the part everyone compares. It’s also the smaller half of the bill.
| Cost item | Custom (Code-Site.Art) | WordPress (agency build) |
|---|---|---|
| Build | £3,500 (corporate tier) | £3,000–£8,000 |
| Hosting / year | Included year 1, then ~£0 | £50–£200/month managed WP |
| Plugin licences | None | £300–£800/year |
| Maintenance | Not needed | £500–£1,500/month if outsourced |
| Security incidents | Rare | £200–£2,000 average per incident |
| 3-year total | ~£3,500–£4,500 | £8,000–£25,000+ |
These ranges come from published UK agency pricing and our own client data. Of 14 clients who came to us with a WordPress site to rebuild, 12 had spent more on WordPress over the previous two to three years than a new custom site would have cost them outright. The monthly figures are small enough to ignore one at a time, which is exactly why they add up.
When WordPress is the right choice
There are clear cases where WordPress is the sensible pick, and it would be dishonest to pretend otherwise:
- You publish ten or more articles a month and need non-technical editors in the dashboard daily
- You run a large catalogue of 500+ products on WooCommerce
- Your team needs to self-edit constantly without a developer
- Your budget is under £1,500 and a template site does the job
When a custom website is the better choice
- Speed is a competitive edge; clinics, law firms and property all live or die on local SEO
- You need integrations: booking systems, a CRM, payments, more than one language
- You want to own the code outright, with the GitHub repo and no platform dependency
- SEO matters from day one, on clean architecture with no plugin bloat
- You want a fixed price and no surprise invoice in year two or three
Real example: Efedra Clinic
Efedra, a clinic in Odesa, moved off a slow platform onto a custom Next.js build. Largest-contentful-paint dropped from 3.2 seconds to 0.8. Within six months they had 3.2× more enquiries and four times the organic traffic from Google, and they reached the top three results for their main keyword inside three months. The full project ran to $4,525 including a Helsi booking integration and a second language. See the full case study.
