WordPress is an open-source content management system — free to download, installed on hosting you choose, extended through tens of thousands of themes and plugins. It runs roughly forty percent of the web. It is also the platform I see most often broken — by plugin conflicts, abandoned themes, security incidents, and hosts quietly upcharging. 1 Week Sites is the other end of that spectrum: £1,000 once for a bespoke Next.js site, live in seven days, running on your own Vercel account from your own GitHub repo. No plugins to rot, no weekly updates to apply, no PHP version to chase. Over five years a typical small-business WordPress site costs £1,200 to £3,500 once you add hosting, a premium theme, essential plugins, and any maintenance. A 1 Week Sites build costs £1,000 plus roughly £60 a year. Pick WordPress when you genuinely need WooCommerce or membership plugins. Pick 1 Week Sites when you want something that just stays built.
Upfront vs five-year
WordPress: hosting £15/mo + theme £50 + plugins £200 + annual maintenance ≈ £1,800 over 5 years. Ranges vary widely.
When WordPress is the right call
- You genuinely need WooCommerce, LearnDash, membership plugins, or a forum — things WordPress solves that Next.js doesn't out of the box.
- You have a developer on retainer who is happy maintaining WordPress and keeping the plugin stack current.
- Your team is already trained on the WordPress editor and the cost of retraining on anything else is real.
- You run a large content-heavy site (blog, news, docs) and Gutenberg's editor fits how your writers work.
When a 1 Week Sites build is the better buy
- You want a site that doesn't need weekly updates, plugin audits, or hosting babysitting.
- Core Web Vitals matter and you don't want to fight a caching plugin to get them — WordPress mobile Lighthouse typically lands 45–75.
- You've been burned by a previous WordPress site going stale, white-screening, or getting hacked.
- Your site is a marketing site — not a shop, not a membership platform — and the WordPress complexity is pure overhead.
WordPress vs Wix vs Squarespace — the DIY trio
The honest split between WordPress, Wix, and Squarespace is who carries the risk. WordPress pushes maintenance onto you (or your developer). Wix and Squarespace keep it in-house — you just keep paying. A bespoke Next.js build moves the maintenance burden closer to zero because there are no plugins to rot. Read the full /writing/squarespace-vs-wix-vs-bespoke piece for the longer comparison.
| WordPress | 1 Week Sites | Winner | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who maintains it | You / your developer | Close to nothing to maintain | 1 Week Sites |
| Plugin ecosystem | Vast — and vastly variable | None required | Depends |
| Typical mobile Lighthouse | 45–75 | 95+ | 1 Week Sites |
| Security posture | Updates, updates, updates | Static output, minimal attack surface | 1 Week Sites |
Side-by-side
| WordPress | 1 Week Sites | |
|---|---|---|
| Upfront cost | £0 DIY, £500–5,000 with a developer | £1,000 once |
| Ongoing cost | Hosting + plugins + maintenance ≈ £200–600/yr | £60 per year (domain + email) |
| Timeline to live | 4–10 weeks typical with a developer | 7 days |
| Ownership | You own it — and the upkeep | Code on your GitHub, hosting on your Vercel |
| Performance | Mobile Lighthouse typically 45–75 | Mobile Lighthouse 95+ target |
| Security posture | Plugins are the main attack surface | Static / SSR — minimal surface |
| Editing after launch | Gutenberg editor, familiar to many | Markdown or CMS — I can bolt one on |
| Ecosystem depth | Plugins for everything (good and bad) | Code it, or skip it |
| Accessibility | Theme-dependent, commonly WCAG-weak | WCAG 2.2 AA baseline built in |
| Revisions | Your developer, hourly or retainer | One round included same week |
Five-year total cost
A realistic WordPress small-business site over five years: £15/month managed hosting, a £50 premium theme, £200 in essential plugins, plus £30/month ongoing maintenance. That's around £1,800 — and assumes nothing goes badly wrong. A flat-fee bespoke build is £1,000 once.
| Option | Five-year total | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| WordPress (hosting + theme + plugins + maintenance) | ~£1,800 | hosting £900 + theme £50 + plugins £200 + £600 maintenance over 5 years |
| 1 Week Sites + 5 years of hosting | ~£1,300 | £1,000 build + £60/yr domain & email |
Common questions
Can I migrate my WordPress content to a bespoke site?
Yes. I pull your posts, pages, and media via the WordPress REST API or a WXR export, then rebuild them into the new structure — typed content files or a lightweight CMS, depending on how often you'll edit. Existing permalinks get preserved where it's sensible so SEO doesn't reset.
Is £1,000 really all-in?
£1,000 is all-in for a five-to-seven-page bespoke marketing site: brief, design, build, one revision round, launch. No monthly fee, no retainer, no kill fee. You pay for your own domain (≈£12/year) and email hosting (≈£4/month on a provider of your choice). Nothing goes through me.
What about WooCommerce — I run a shop?
If your shop is the core of the business, stay on WooCommerce or move to Shopify — a bespoke Next.js build isn't the right home for a full product catalogue. If the shop is a small side-product (a handful of SKUs, a newsletter, a couple of digital downloads), I can build it with Stripe Checkout directly and skip WooCommerce entirely.
Why is a bespoke site faster than WordPress?
WordPress renders every page through PHP on every request — fast hosting papers over it, caching plugins paper over it harder, and the result is typically a 45–75 mobile Lighthouse score. A Next.js build ships static HTML (or cached SSR) with only the JavaScript the page needs. That's how you get to 95+.
When is WordPress the right answer?
WordPress wins when you need the ecosystem — WooCommerce, LearnDash, BuddyPress, membership plugins — and you have someone willing to own maintenance. It's also the right answer for large content operations where Gutenberg's editor fits how your writers already work. If that's you, use it.
Will I lose my WordPress plugins?
Yes — by design. Most plugins do one of three things: add CMS features, add commerce, or add analytics/marketing. The first I replace with either Markdown or a small CMS. The second I either skip (not the right site type) or build with Stripe Checkout. The third moves to a proper analytics tool like Plausible or GA4.
Bespoke, live in seven days.
£1,000 flat. Paid upfront. Full refund if I miss day seven. Code, hosting, and domain all in your name.