The True Cost of a Custom Website vs Templates in 2026

The True Cost of a Custom Website vs Templates in 2026: A Developer's Honest Assessment I've been building websites for over a decade, and if there's one question I hear constantly from founders and marketers, it's this: "Should we go custom or use a template?" The answer used to be simpler. In 2016, custom was clearly superior but expensive. Templates were cheap but limited. Today? The lines are blurrier than ever, and the decision requires more nuance than most people think. After launching Sa