Should I build my own website or hire a web designer?

The SBA's post on this question says no one answer fits every business. It names four factors: your budget, your needs, your timing and your internal capabilities.¹ The post is from 2018, so use it for the questions, not for its prices.

In plain terms: how much money you have, what the site has to do, how soon you need it, and whether someone in the business can do the work. On timing, the SBA said in 2018 that a builder site can go live in a few hours, and that a custom build means time spent explaining what you need to your developer.¹ The rest of this page goes through each factor.

The SBA lists what each route gives you and what it asks of you. We left out its 2018 prices.

For today's prices, see what a small business website costs. For three years of builder plans next to a kit, see website kit or Wix and Squarespace alternatives with no monthly fee.

More than picking a template. With a builder or a kit you write the words, choose or take the photos, fill in your hours, services and prices, publish the site, and check every page on a phone. Our kit guide lists what needs your attention: page titles, descriptions, link destinations, picture descriptions and the data behind the pages, as well as your name, hours and prices. It says to open every page and tap every contact link on your phone before you publish.

You do not need to write code. Our kit guide says you do not need to run Python to publish, and you can paste the kit's prompts into a free AI helper to do the typing.

Google asks whether content is made for people, shows first-hand experience, and makes clear who wrote it.³ You are the one who does the work, so the words about it are yours to write. If you use an AI helper to fill in the pages, read every line before it goes live. Google's guidance asks how much human work went into content, and warns against using generative AI to produce large amounts of text without manual oversight or curation.³

Three free checks cover most of the technical side: speed, targets and accessibility. First, PageSpeed Insights from Google runs Lighthouse on a page and reports performance, accessibility, best practices and SEO, with 90 or more counted as good. It also shows data from real Chrome users, where there is enough, for the three Core Web Vitals.⁴

Second, know the Core Web Vitals targets. Google says a good page shows its largest content within 2.5 seconds, responds to a tap or click within 200 milliseconds, and keeps layout shift to 0.1 or less, for at least 75% of visits.⁵

Third, accessibility, which people skip. The W3C's WCAG documents explain how to make web content more accessible to people with disabilities, and WCAG 2.2, published in October 2023, is the current version.⁶ Our free website check scores a site against industry standards from Google, the W3C and Mozilla, including the automated WCAG 2.2 tests. A professional's site isn't proof of a fast one. In our check of 11 web design sites that came up in Google searches for Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx in October 2026, 9 scored under 90 for performance on Google's phone speed test.⁷

Planning, a design made for you, help with the writing and a launch. In the New York prices we read, that kind of work started around $2,500.⁸ The SBA adds that you get someone to contact for ongoing changes and fixes.¹ We list what local designers and freelancers publish in kit, freelancer or local web designer.

Before you hire, get three things in writing: what's included, whose name the web address and the logins are in, and what changes after launch cost. The SBA notes that on a DIY builder you can't take your site with you.¹ Ask any designer the same question: if you stop paying, what do you keep?

• The site is mostly information: what you do, where you work, your hours and a phone number.

• You or someone you trust can spend the time, and is comfortable filling in a sheet and uploading files.

• Customers reach you by phone, text or email. A site of plain files has no built-in contact form, booking or store.

• Your budget is small, and you can live with limited customization.

• You need booking, payments or a store connected to the site.

• You want a custom design, or help with planning and writing.

• You don't have the time, or you want someone to call when something breaks.

• You are ready to pay for that. Ask what's included before you agree to anything.

Yes: a kit. It is a set of finished pages that you fill in and publish yourself, which sits between a builder and a custom design. Our kits are $39.99 (Classic) and $59.99 (Premium, Motion and Play), paid once, for one business. A site of plain files can be moved to another host or handed to a designer later. To compare a kit, a builder and a designer over three years, see kit, builder or web designer: which to choose. For how a kit differs from a template, see website templates vs ready-made website kits.

To see what a kit looks like for your business, try Hair salon, Cleaning service, Accounting & tax, Auto repair, Landscaping or Electrician. The whole list is at website kits. If you would rather have a site built for you, tell us about your business.

We sell website kits and build sites, so we have a stake in this question. The SBA, Google and the W3C are not selling websites. Clutch runs a directory of agencies, so it has an interest in how its survey reads, and Squarespace sells website plans. The check results are our own, from a kept result file, with no site named. The kit facts come from our own store and kit files, which we checked.