WordPress vs a custom website: which fits a contractor?

The short answer

No platform ranks better by default. Google's SEO Starter Guide works through the same basics for any site, whatever it's built with: help Google find and crawl your pages, organize the site so people can find their way around, and write content that's helpful, reliable and easy to read. It doesn't name a platform that ranks better. So the real choice is about how you want to run the site for the next five years: who will make changes, how much upkeep you'll accept, and what the site needs to do besides show information.

We build custom sites, so read this with that in mind. We've tried to give WordPress its due, because for plenty of contractors it's the right call.

What WordPress does well

• You can edit it yourself. The editor lets an owner or office manager change hours, add a photo or write a new page without calling anyone. For a business that changes often, that's worth a lot.
• It's free and open source. WordPress.org describes it as open source software licensed under the GPL (version 2 or later), so the software itself costs nothing. You pay for hosting, a theme if you want a premium one, and any paid plugins.
• A huge ecosystem. There's a plugin for almost anything: forms, booking, galleries, SEO settings, multilingual pages. Many are free.
• Easy to hire for. WordPress.org says the platform runs more than 43% of all sites on the web, so a great many freelancers and agencies know it. If one disappears, you can find another.
• You can move it. A self-hosted WordPress site can be moved to a different server or host, and WordPress publishes its own instructions for doing it. You're not locked into one company's platform.

If you want to update your own site weekly and you're willing to keep it maintained, WordPress is a solid choice.

Where WordPress costs you: plugins and updates

WordPress's strength is also its upkeep burden. A contractor site on WordPress runs a theme and, usually, a set of plugins, often written by different developers on different release schedules. Each one is code running on your server, and each needs updating.

WordPress's own documentation tells site owners that to keep your WordPress site secure, you should always update your plugins and themes. Since version 5.5, administrators can opt in to automatic updates theme by theme and plugin by plugin (plugins can also be switched on in bulk). They are off until someone turns them on, and the same page suggests setting up regular automatic backups first, so you can roll back if an update goes wrong.

That's the cycle WordPress owners live with: updates come out, someone applies them (or forgets to), and now and then an update conflicts with another plugin or the theme. None of that is a disaster if someone is responsible for it. The problem is when nobody is, and the site quietly runs outdated code for a year.

How do security and speed compare?

Security. A WordPress site has a login page, a database and code from many sources. That's more surface for attackers to probe. WordPress's own hardening guide says many WordPress attacks are carried out automatically by malicious bots, and that once a security fix is released, the information needed to exploit the old flaw is almost certainly public, which makes outdated versions more open to attack. A well-maintained WordPress site with strong passwords, two-factor login, few plugins and prompt updates is reasonably safe. A neglected one isn't.

A custom static site, the kind we build, is a set of prebuilt pages served as files. There is no admin login on the public site, no database behind it, and no plugin code running when a visitor loads a page. There's simply less to attack. Forms still need care, because they send data somewhere, but the attack surface is much smaller.

Speed. Speed depends more on how a site is built than on what it's built with. A lean WordPress theme with optimized images can be fast. A page builder that loads scripts for features the page doesn't use, plus sliders, chat widgets and tracking tags, will be slow. Static sites start with an advantage because the page is ready before anyone asks for it, but heavy images or scripts can slow them too. Check any site, on any platform, against Google's Core Web Vitals. The published targets are the main content loaded within 2.5 seconds (Largest Contentful Paint), a response to taps and clicks within 200 milliseconds (Interaction to Next Paint), and a layout shift score of 0.1 or less (Cumulative Layout Shift), with Google suggesting each one be judged at the 75th percentile of visits, counting mobile and desktop separately.

Side by side

Ownership: the question that matters on both

Ownership problems aren't about the platform. They're about the contract. A WordPress site on your own hosting account is fully yours. A custom site built in a format only one agency can edit, hosted on their account, with the domain in their name, isn't really yours even if you paid for it.

Ask the same questions whichever route you take. Is the domain registered to your company? Is the hosting account yours or transferable on request? Do you get the source files or a full export? Are analytics and Search Console in your account? Can another developer pick it up without the original builder's help? When we build a site, your company holds the domain registration and the hosting account, the site files belong to you, and you keep every piece if we stop working together.

Questions to ask before you choose

Whichever way you lean, put these questions to the person building the site. Their answers will tell you more than any platform comparison.

1. Who applies updates, how often, and what does that cost? For WordPress, get a named person and a monthly routine. For a custom site, ask what kinds of changes need a developer.
2. How many plugins or outside scripts will the site run? Fewer is better. Ask what each one is for.
3. What happens to a form submission? Where does it go, who gets alerted, and what happens if that fails?
4. How are backups made and restored? Ask when a restore was last tested.
5. How fast are the pages on a phone? Ask for Core Web Vitals results from sites they've already built, measured on mobile.
6. If you stop working with us, what do we get? The answer should include the domain, the hosting account or a full export, the source files and every login.

A builder who answers clearly and in writing is a good sign on either platform.

When does each one fit?

WordPress tends to fit when:

• You or someone in the office wants to edit pages often and is comfortable doing it.
• You have someone, staff or a paid service, responsible for updates and backups every month.
• You need a feature that an established, well-maintained plugin already does well.
• Your budget favors a lower upfront cost and you accept the ongoing maintenance.

A custom build tends to fit when:

• You'd rather never log into a dashboard or think about updates.
• Speed on a phone is a priority and you don't want to fight a page builder for it.
• The site needs to connect cleanly to your own systems, like quote forms that create leads in your CRM and text the customer.
• Your content changes in occasional batches rather than daily, so having a developer make edits isn't a bottleneck.

Either way, the most important decisions sit above the platform: the right pages, real copy, a quote path that reaches your office, and tracking that tells you what's working. Our guide on what a contractor website needs covers those, and what a contractor website costs walks through budgeting for both routes. If you're weighing hosted builders like Wix or Squarespace too, see our comparison of website builders and custom sites. To see how we build, visit our websites page.

Frequently asked questions