Straight answers on websites, SEO and automation

Renting your website is costing you more than you think

Criael · 20 July 2026 · 4 min read

Directory platforms and "website included" listing services charge local businesses £60 to £100 a month for a templated page. Across Liverpool, thousands of businesses pay it, because the pitch sounds sensible: no upfront cost, someone else handles it.

Run the numbers over one year and the picture changes. At £80 a month you spend £960 a year, every year, for a site you never own. Our Starter build costs £450 once. By month six the owned site is cheaper, and from then on the gap widens every month.

The part they don't put in the brochure

Price is the smaller problem. Ownership is the bigger one. When you cancel a rental site, the platform deletes it. The copy you refined, the photos you supplied, the reviews you collected: gone, together with any Google position the pages earned. You start again from nothing, and your old customers find a dead link.

We've helped businesses leave these platforms, and the escape checklist is short but urgent: save every page's text, download every image, and copy every review before you give notice. The day the contract ends, the platform's site disappears.

Questions to ask any provider, including us

• If I stop paying, do I keep the site? (With rentals: no. With a Criael build: yes, everything.)
• Who owns the domain? (It should be registered in your name, never the provider's.)
• Can I take the files to another developer? (If the answer is no, you're renting.)

If your current provider passes all three, you're in good shape and we'll tell you so. If you're unsure, send your web address through the free site check and we'll give you a straight answer within 24 hours.

Wix, Squarespace or a custom build: what a Liverpool small business should pick in 2026

Criael · 20 July 2026 · 5 min read

We build custom sites for a living, so read this knowing where we stand. We've still tried to write the comparison we'd want as a buyer, because two of these three options suit some businesses better than we do.

Wix and Squarespace: right when time is your only budget

Both platforms let you publish a decent site in a weekend for £10 to £30 a month. If you're pre-revenue, testing an idea, or you enjoy tinkering with your own pages, start there. The trade-offs arrive later: template sameness, slower load times as plugins stack up, monthly fees that never stop, and pages that need real SEO knowledge to rank against established local competitors.

A custom build: right when the website has a job to do

When the site must win customers, the calculation shifts. A custom build gives you copy written for the searches your customers type, pages that load fast on a phone in a car park, and full ownership of every file. Industry studies suggest UK agencies charge £1,500 to £5,000 for a 5-page build. Ours is £895 with copywriting, SEO setup and a hero video included, because one founder with modern tools carries less overhead than an office.

The honest decision table

• No budget, happy to DIY: Wix or Squarespace. Come back when it needs to perform.
• Trading now, needs enquiries: custom build. The site pays for itself when it wins work.
• On a rental platform: move. We covered why renting costs you twice.
• Got a custom site already: keep it maintained and keep it ranking. That's a care plan conversation, not a rebuild.

Still torn? Send your situation through the contact page. If the right answer is Squarespace, that's the answer you'll get.