What you actually get with a template
Templates are fast and affordable because the design and structural decisions are already made - you're customizing colors, text, and images inside an existing framework. That's a genuine advantage when speed matters more than differentiation, particularly for very early-stage businesses still validating whether the offer even works.
The tradeoff is that thousands of other businesses are using the same template with different colors. In categories where visitors are comparing multiple options in open tabs, a site that looks generic reads as a generic business, regardless of how good the actual product is.
What you actually get with a custom build
A custom site is built around your specific brand, your specific user journey, and your specific conversion goals - not retrofitted into someone else's structure. That means faster load times (no bloated, unused template code), a design that can't be mistaken for a competitor's, and interactions built for exactly how you want a visitor to move through the site.
The tradeoff is cost and timeline. Custom work takes longer and costs more upfront because every decision is made from scratch instead of inherited from a template.
How to actually decide
Ask what you're competing on. If price and speed to market are the priority and your category doesn't reward differentiation heavily, a well-executed template is a legitimate, smart choice. If your brand's entire pitch is premium quality, trust, or being unmistakably different from competitors, a template working against that pitch is a liability regardless of cost saved.