Is the website I'm buying a template website?

One practice that has increasingly grown in the web industry is the sale of 'custom' designed and developed websites that are actually just third party template websites with minor modifications.

Why is this done and is it a problem?

This is generally done by web industry businesses for profit and to reduce operational costs depending on how the service is being advertised versus cost being charged. It's commonly unscrupulous due to excessively inflated margins and poor working results.

Case study example - When it goes wrong

A client came to Actualise Design based on a referral to fix their uncompleted website developed by a third party. This business had entered into $25,000 'custom' website solution, only for it to be discovered the website was actually a free template readily available on the Internet.

Actualise Design did an evaluation of the business' project requirements and the current state of the template website to see what would be required to complete.

Given the bloated and messy code of the template website, we advised it'd actually be cheaper to create the site from scratch so we end up developing a completely new website with original design and development for $8,000.

The client was thrilled with the final website and received great feedback, however unfortunately had to learn a very valuable lesson to get there.

One consolation for the client is that they pulled out of their contract with the third party template developer at approximately two thirds through their project, so they were able to minimise losses without paying in full, effectively signing over the remaining budget to us.

This story unfortunately is not uncommon. On multiple occasions our team have come to the rescue due to subpar industry 'professionals' taking advantage of clients lack of understanding.

If you're currently having issues on a current web project, get in touch with us to see if we can help.

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