The honest comparison
We have nothing against WordPress. It is just the wrong tool for most of what it gets used for.
It runs about four in ten websites, and plenty of those are exactly right. But if your site explains what you do, shows some work and lets people get in touch, you are running a database, an admin system and thirty plugins to deliver what could be a handful of files.
| Typical WordPress build | Refettle rebuild | |
|---|---|---|
| What gets shipped to the browser | PHP rendered on demand, a theme, and typically 20–40 plugins | Static HTML, CSS and a small amount of JavaScript |
| Attack surface | Plugin vulnerabilities, an admin login, a database, a file uploader | No database, no login, no server-side code on the public site |
| Monthly licences | £40–£150 for sliders, forms, SEO tools, backups — renewing forever | None |
| Typical mobile load | Four to eight seconds | Under a second |
| Updates | Weekly, and any one of them can take the site down | Nothing to apply |
| Hosting requirement | PHP, MySQL, and enough memory to keep it upright | A folder of files behind a web server |
| Who owns the code | Locked to a theme vendor’s conventions | You do — we hand over the repository |
| Editing content | Anyone can edit anything, including the layout, by accident | Structured fields on the Publish plan; layout stays intact |
The real cost
The build price is the small number.
A £3,000 WordPress site is rarely a £3,000 website. Add the licences, the managed hosting, the developer retainer for when a plugin update breaks the layout, and the five years it quietly runs for.
We are not claiming we are cheaper on day one. We are claiming the second number is smaller, and that you can see both before you commit.
Five years, roughly
- Plugin and theme licences
- £40–150 / mo
- £0
- Managed hosting
- £25–80 / mo
- In your plan
- Fixing things after updates
- £400–600 / day
- £0
- Security clean-up
- £500–2,000 a time
- Nothing to clean
Ranges are typical UK small-business figures, not a quote. Your actual numbers come out of the free audit.
Being fair about it
When you should keep WordPress.
We would rather tell you this now than take a deposit and discover it in week three. Do not rebuild if:
- You genuinely need thousands of pages managed by many people with different permissions.
- You are running WooCommerce at real volume and it is working.
- You have an in-house team who know it, maintain it, and keep the plugin count low.
- Your budget is under a thousand pounds — at that price, a well-kept WordPress site beats anything we could responsibly build.
If none of those describe you, a rebuild is very likely to pay for itself. The audit will say so either way — and it says so for free.
Find out which side of that line you are on.
Send us the address. We will send back your real numbers and an honest answer, including when the honest answer is to leave it alone.