Burnswright vs. the $5k template shop.
The price gap between $5k and $8k looks small until you see what's inside each box. Here's the honest difference.
Most operators evaluating a site rebuild get at least one quote from a local "website shop" — one or two people working out of a coffee shop, selling Squarespace or Wix builds at $3-6k. They're not scams; they just deliver a different product than we do.
Whether that product is the right fit for your operation depends on three questions: Do you need real performance? Do you need real SEO ranking? Do you need custom integrations? If all three answers are no, the $5k template shop is probably fine. If any answer is yes, you'll be back in 18 months paying someone else to redo it.
This is the most honest comparison we can give: we have lost projects to template shops on price. We have also rebuilt sites that template shops shipped 18-24 months earlier, because the original site couldn't keep up with the operator's growth.
How the two compare
| Dimension | a $5k template shop | Burnswright |
|---|---|---|
| Typical cost | $3-6k | $8k starting (Tier 1) |
| Performance | 3-5 sec mobile load | Under 1 sec |
| Custom integrations | Plugin-dependent, marketplace-limited | Anything with an API |
| SEO infrastructure | Basic title tag + meta | Structured data, schemas, geo, redirects, sitemaps |
| Typical lifespan | 18-24 months before rebuild | 4-6 years before rebuild |
| Platform lock-in | Squarespace, Wix, GoDaddy Studio | None — code is yours |
Where a $5k template shop is the better tool
- Lowest upfront cost — $3-6k typical
- Fast turnaround — 1-3 weeks for simple sites
- Easy for the operator to edit — Squarespace/Wix admin panels are forgiving
- Adequate for a starter business — if you're testing whether the business itself works
- DIY-tier branding — fine for operators without a brand yet
Where we're the better tool
- Performance — template sites typically load 3-5 seconds, ours under one
- Real SEO ranking — service-area pages, structured data, schema. Template shops rarely build this
- Custom integrations — Stripe deposits, Twilio SMS, Hostaway booking — template shops route to off-the-shelf plugins that take a transaction fee
- Brand-grade design — we ship custom, not template customization. Your site stops looking like everyone else's
- Code ownership — full Next.js codebase you can hand to any developer; template builds lock you into the platform
- Longevity — our builds typically last 4-6 years before warranting a rebuild; template builds typically last 18-24 months before operators outgrow them
Who should pick what
If you're testing whether the business idea even works, a template shop is the right tool. Spend the $5k, get to market, see if the phone rings.
If you've established the business is real and the site is the front door customers actually use, the $3k gap to us pays for itself in conversion lift and SEO ranking within the first year. Most of our work has been operators who started with a template and outgrew it.
What buyers ask after reading this
Why isn't your Tier 1 cheaper?
Tier 1 is custom code, custom design, real photography direction, real SEO infrastructure. We can't ship that for $3k on a four-week timeline without compromising on what makes a site outperform a template. $8k is the floor where the math works.
Will I really outgrow a template site?
Maybe. Operators who never outgrow theirs stay below ~$500k revenue and don't need the site to do real work. If you're past that or expect to be, the template site eventually becomes the bottleneck.
Send us the a $5k template shop quote.
We'll come back within 24 hours with our own proposal and an honest read on which one's the better fit for your operation. No discovery decks, no paid scopes.