Short answer
A template platform gets a small site live in days for a monthly subscription, and anyone on the team can edit it. A custom build costs €900–22,500 and takes three days to ten weeks, and it delivers static HTML, one design system across every page, and a repository you own.
Most small sites should start on a template platform. The question worth asking is when a site stops being a brochure and starts being a channel, because that is the point where the two paths separate sharply.
Point by point
| Point | Template platform | Custom build |
|---|---|---|
| Time to a first version | Days | 3 days–10 weeks |
| Year-one cost | A monthly subscription | €900–22,500 |
| How a page reaches the reader | Assembled by the platform per request | Static HTML generated at build time |
| Where the design lives | In the platform’s editor | In tokens in your repository, shared by every page |
| Adding a second language | A parallel site to keep in step | A locale in the same route registry |
| Structured data and hreflang | What the theme provides | Generated per page from one source |
| Leaving the platform | The site is rebuilt elsewhere | The repository runs anywhere Node runs |
| Who can change a headline | Anyone on the team, immediately | Anyone on the team once a CMS is connected |
What the options are
Template platform
A hosted site builder with a visual editor, a theme, and a monthly subscription covering hosting, updates and support.
Choose this when
- The site is a handful of pages and stays that way
- A monthly subscription suits the budget
- Someone needs to publish a new page this week
Custom build
A coded site generated as static HTML at build time, with a design system, localised routing and measurement wired in from the start.
Choose this when
- The site is a lead channel with revenue behind it
- Several languages need URLs that read natively
- Search visibility and load speed decide the outcome
Verdict
A template platform is the right first move for a site that works like a business card. Once the site becomes the channel — several languages, a hundred pages, a search position worth defending — what a coded build owns outright starts to matter more than the speed of the first version.
Common questions
- Does a template platform hurt search visibility?
- A well-configured template site indexes fine for a small brochure site. The limit shows up at scale: control over rendering, structured data per page, hreflang across several languages, and page weight. That is where a coded build pulls ahead.
- Can we start on a template platform and move later?
- Yes, and it is often the right order. Plan for the content to move, keep the URL structure sane from the start, and budget for redirects. A migration costs less when the old URLs were designed to be mapped.
- Who updates a coded site once it is live?
- You do, through whatever editing layer the project includes. Today content lives as typed modules a developer edits; a content system is added when the volume of editing justifies it, and that decision is written into the proposal.
- Does a custom build need ongoing maintenance?
- It needs dependency updates and an occasional framework upgrade, which is a few hours a quarter. The deployment is static, so there is no server to patch. Ongoing capacity is available from €5,600/mo when you want it covered.
- How much does a second language cost on each path?
- On a template platform it is usually a second site to build and keep in step. On a coded build a locale is a configuration entry plus the translated content, so the cost is mostly the writing. This site runs five languages from one route registry.
- What does owning the repository actually get us?
- The right to hire anyone to work on it, host it anywhere, and read exactly what it does. It also means an engagement can end while the site keeps running. Every Torn Studio project ships this way.
Tell us what you want to build
Thirty minutes, free of charge, and a straight answer on whether we are the right studio for it.