Cheap websites look appealing for one reason: the price tag.

When budgets are tight, it’s easy to focus on getting something live for as little money as possible. Templates, cut corners, “quick builds.” On paper, it feels responsible.

The problem shows up later.

Cheap websites are rarely designed to change. They’re built to ship, not to grow. Once they’re live, every update turns into friction.

• Need a new page? The theme can’t handle it cleanly.
• Want to adjust messaging? The layout breaks.
• Trying to improve conversion? No one knows how the site was put together.

So you start paying in other ways.

You spend hours trying to fix things yourself. You hire a freelancer to “just tweak one thing.” You avoid changes altogether because touching the site feels risky.

None of that shows up on the original invoice, but it adds up fast.

Cheap websites also tend to lock you in. Custom hacks, brittle themes, or unclear ownership make it hard to switch providers or improve what you already have.

Eventually, the site stops doing its job. It doesn’t reflect your business anymore. It can’t support new services, new messaging, or new customers.

That’s when people say, “We need to redo the whole website.”

The expensive part isn’t the rebuild. It’s the years of lost momentum before it.

A better approach is to think in terms of lifetime cost, not launch cost.

A website should be easy to change, easy to improve, and cheap to maintain over time. Not because it’s fancy, but because it’s well-supported.

Cheap websites feel affordable on day one. Expensive websites feel expensive upfront.

The irony is that the second option usually costs less in the long run.