If you've ever browsed a marketplace of website templates, you've seen the same five layouts dressed up in different colours. They look fine. They load. They fit a designer's idea of what a small business should look like in 2018. They are also, almost always, the wrong choice for any company that wants to grow.
A template is built for the average. Average industry, average audience, average conversion path. The moment you start asking it to do something specific — sell a category-defining product, qualify a niche audience, position against a category leader — it pushes back, and you push back harder, and the result is a site that looks vaguely off and converts worse than the template's demo.
Custom design starts from your customer, your offer, and your commercial KPIs. It's slower and it's more expensive in the first quarter. It is dramatically cheaper across a four-year ownership window — both in revenue earned and in time recovered from fighting a system that wasn't designed for you.
The best agencies don't sell you 'custom design' as a luxury. They sell it as the sensible default once you're past a certain growth stage. If your website is one of your top three revenue-driving assets, a template is almost certainly leaving money on the table.
We build every Molo site from a blank canvas because we've watched too many businesses outgrow templates within twelve months. If you're at that stage, talk to us — even if it isn't with us, we'll help you sense-check the right next step.