Quick answer
Framer suits a small business that wants a striking, design-led site, has someone comfortable in design tools, and is happy to pay Framer every month for hosting. A custom website suits a business that wants a site built around how it wins work, owned outright and hosted anywhere. Our custom WordPress sites start at £499 one-off.
Framer began life as a prototyping tool for designers and has grown into a website builder with hosting, a CMS and AI features that generate a first draft of a site from a prompt. The results can look superb. Whether it suits your business depends less on how good it looks on day one and more on who maintains it, what it costs over a few years and how far you expect the site to grow.
Framer’s plans, as listed
Framer’s pricing page listed these site plans in US dollars at the time of writing, November 2026, with sales tax added at checkout:
| Plan | Monthly price | Pages | CMS | Bandwidth | Custom domain |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | Generous, on a Framer address | Included | 1 GB | No |
| Basic | $10 | 30 | 2 collections, 1,000 items | 50 GB | Yes |
| Pro | $30 | 150 | 10 collections, 2,500 items | 100 GB | Yes |
Add-ons such as extra pages, CMS collections, localisation and advanced hosting cost more. A business site needs at least the Basic plan to use its own domain.
Framer and custom, side by side
| Framer | Custom website | |
|---|---|---|
| Who builds it | You, a Framer designer or AI as a starting point | A developer or agency |
| Design freedom | Very high, if you have the skills | Very high, done for you |
| Running cost | A Framer plan for as long as the site lives | Hosting with any provider |
| Hosting | Framer’s own | Your choice |
| Limits | Pages, CMS items and bandwidth by plan | Set by hosting and the build |
| Forms, bookings, integrations | Forms and plugins within Framer | Anything that can be built or connected |
| Editing | Design canvas; a learning curve | Simple fields for the content you change |
Where Framer shines
Visual polish. Animation, scroll effects and layout control are Framer’s strengths. Design studios, creative freelancers and start-ups pitching to investors often choose it for that reason.
Speed for designers. If you already design in tools like Figma, Framer feels familiar, and you can publish a finished site without handing over to a developer.
A fast first draft. The AI generator gets you a starting layout quickly. Treat it as a sketch: the words and structure still need writing for your customers and your searches. Our guide to AI website builders versus custom sites explains where AI drafts fall short.
Where a custom website is the better fit
Trades and local services. A heating engineer or a solicitor’s website succeeds through clear service pages, local relevance, trust signals and a fast route to a quote. That is about structure and copy more than animation, and it is what a custom build is planned around.
Ownership and portability. With a custom WordPress site, you own the code and can host it with any provider. Framer’s plans describe hosting on Framer. Before you invest heavily in a site on any hosted builder, check in its help centre what you can take with you if you leave; Framer’s help centre is the place to confirm the current position.
Growth beyond a brochure. Quote calculators, booking tools, client areas and CRM connections are easier to add when the site is not limited to one platform’s feature set. Our guide to no-code versus custom development covers where builders reach their limits.
Day-to-day editing: be honest about who does it
Most small business websites are edited by whoever has ten minutes on a Friday afternoon. On Framer, changing a headline or swapping a photo is straightforward, and blog-style content can live in the CMS. Moving a section, adding a new service page that matches the others, or fixing how something looks on a phone happens on the design canvas, with its layers, stacks and breakpoints. Designers find that natural. Owners who do not design often find it nerve-racking, and either avoid updating the site or pay someone each time.
A custom build can put the things you change often, such as prices, opening hours, service descriptions, team photos and case studies, into labelled fields with the layout locked. You change the words; the design looks after itself.
If you hire a Framer designer, ask these first
- Which Framer plan will the site need, and who pays for it: you or the designer?
- Will the site and the Framer account be in your name from day one?
- Which parts will you be able to edit yourself, and which need the designer?
- How are forms handled, and where do enquiries go?
- What happens if you want to add bookings, payments or a client area later?
- If you part ways, what exactly do you keep?
The same questions apply to any web designer on any platform. The answers just matter more on hosted builders, because the platform holds the keys.
A three-year cost comparison
Take a five-page site for a small accountancy practice.
- Framer Basic, built yourself: $10 a month is $360 over three years in plan fees, plus tax, plus your own design time, which is often the biggest cost.
- Framer, built by a freelance Framer designer: the designer’s fee plus the same plan fees.
- Custom WordPress from us: £499 one-off for up to eight pages, plus hosting. Our management and hosting is £20 a month, but you can host anywhere.
- Pay monthly custom site: our pay monthly website is £79 a month on a 12-month minimum term with hosting included, for those who prefer spreading the cost. Our comparison of subscription and one-off websites explains the trade-offs.
The cheapest route on paper is Framer built yourself. It is only cheapest in practice if your time is free and you enjoy design work.
Also count the cost of change. A new service, a new area or a price rise means editing pages. If each change needs a paid hour from a designer on any platform, that cost repeats every year. Ask for a written list of what you can change yourself before you choose.
SEO on Framer and on a custom build
Both can rank. Search engines care about useful content, clear structure, speed, and pages that match what people search for, as Google’s SEO Starter Guide sets out. Framer lets you edit titles, descriptions and page addresses. A custom build should arrive with the page structure planned around your services and areas, plus schema markup and a sitemap. The platform matters less than whether anyone has planned the pages around your customers’ searches.
Which suits you? By situation
| Your situation | Better fit |
|---|---|
| Design studio or creative portfolio | Framer |
| Start-up landing page for a launch | Framer, or a dedicated landing page |
| Trades or local service business chasing enquiries | Custom |
| You want to edit text and photos, not layouts | Custom |
| Planning bookings, quotes or a client area | Custom |
| Want to own the site and host anywhere | Custom |
What our custom websites include
Our custom WordPress website is £499 one-off for up to eight pages, hand-coded with no page builders, delivered in two to four weeks. It includes a custom design, a mobile-first build, an SEO foundation with schema, meta tags and a sitemap, contact forms connected to your inbox, Google Analytics, a written walkthrough for editing and 30 days of support. You own the code. Try the website cost calculator for a figure for your situation, and see every price on our pricing page.
Get the UK Website Project Brief Template (free)
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Frequently asked questions
How much does Framer cost for a business website? +
Framer's pricing page listed a Free plan without a custom domain, Basic at $10 a month and Pro at $30 a month at the time of writing, with tax added at checkout. A business using its own domain needs at least Basic. Add-ons for extra pages, CMS collections or localisation cost more.
Is Framer good for SEO? +
It can be. Framer lets you set page titles, descriptions and addresses, and its sites can load quickly. Rankings depend far more on content and structure: clear service pages, local relevance and pages that answer real searches. A template or AI draft still needs that planning and writing done before it will rank.
Can I edit a Framer site without design skills? +
Simple text and image changes are manageable, and the CMS helps for repeated content such as blog posts. Layout changes happen on a design canvas, which has a learning curve. If nobody in the business enjoys design tools, a site with protected layouts and simple editing fields is usually less stressful to maintain.
What does a custom website from Luxbranding cost? +
Our custom WordPress website is £499 one-off for up to eight pages, delivered in two to four weeks with SEO foundations, contact forms, analytics and 30 days of support. You own the code and can host anywhere. If you prefer to spread the cost, our pay monthly website is £79 a month on a 12-month minimum term with hosting included.
