Website redesign: WordPress or Webflow? The cost over three years
Most comparisons are written by people selling WordPress, Webflow or hosting. This guide compares the two for a redesign, works out the total cost over three years and says when neither fits.
The short answer
For a redesign, keep WordPress if your site lives through its blog, with hundreds of articles and several writers. Move to Webflow if a marketing team edits its pages every week without a developer and accepts a subscription for as long as the site exists: no more plugins to update, but a capped CMS and code you cannot take away with your content. For a website that must be fast and entirely in your name, a hand-coded site with an editing interface costs more upfront and often less over three years.
Website redesign: when should you rebuild your site?
Google and AI engines judge a site’s speed and the clarity of its content. A site that has fallen behind on both shows it in the search results.
Before launching a redesign, check that you fit one of these cases. Rebuilding a site that works, just for the pleasure of a new design, is money spent for nothing.
- It is slow: the homepage’s main element takes more than 2.5 seconds to appear on mobile, the threshold Google sets in its Core Web Vitals.
- It is unreadable on a phone: tiny text, broken menus, forms impossible to fill in.
- It generates no inbound leads: zero calls, zero forms submitted in months.
- Its design looks dated: your competitors look more credible than you, and it shows within the first second.
- You depend on a vendor: every text change goes through an agency, costs an invoice, and takes two weeks.
Why is my website not bringing in clients?
Most redesigns start from this question, and the technology is rarely the cause. Three problems come up almost every time, and switching platforms solves none of them.
The message is unclear. Within five seconds, a visitor must understand what you do, for whom, and what is in it for them. There is no proof. No portfolio, no numbers, no testimonials with a name and a face: the visitor has no reason to believe you.
The site is invisible. If nobody finds you on Google, or through ChatGPT or Perplexity, the best design is worthless. Content matters more than technology here: we explain how in our guide getting visible on ChatGPT and AI engines.
If your site is fast and readable but does not convert, start with the message and the proof. The technical redesign comes after.
My WordPress site is slow: fix it or rebuild it?
When a WordPress site slows down, the standard answer from hosting companies is to sell you a caching plugin or a bigger server. It works for a while: if your site is less than three years old, with few plugins and a lightweight theme, a thorough cleanup (removing unused extensions, compressing images, configuring the cache properly) can be enough.
Past a certain age, patches stop working. An ageing WordPress site piles up plugins, a theme bloated with options, and fixes layered on by successive vendors. At that point, caching no longer addresses the cause: the site runs too much code to display a simple page.
A simple test: if your site has already had two "performance" interventions and became slow again each time, patches are a money pit. That budget is better invested in a rebuild, on a slimmed-down WordPress if the blog is central, elsewhere if it is a showcase site.
WordPress, Webflow or a custom Next.js build: how do you decide when you are not a developer?
Almost everyone answering this question has skin in the game: Wix recommends Wix, WordPress agencies recommend WordPress, hosting companies sell servers. At Sonho, we sell neither hosting, nor WordPress, nor Wix: we hand-code custom websites, and we will tell you when another option suits you better.
WordPress is the right choice when content is the heart of the site: a large blog, several writers, hundreds of articles. Webflow suits a marketing team that edits its own pages every week and accepts a subscription for as long as the site exists. A custom build (a site hand-coded with modern tools like Next.js, plus an editing interface like Sanity) suits a 5-to-30-page website that needs to be fast, durable and entirely in your name.
The three options, criterion by criterion:
| Criterion | WordPress | Webflow | Custom |
|---|---|---|---|
| Initial cost (showcase site) | depends on the theme and plugins | depends on the plan and the layout work | From €2,500 excl. VAT |
| Cost over three years | hosting, maintenance, plugin licenses and incidents on top of the initial cost | a Webflow subscription for as long as the site exists, on top of the initial cost | the initial cost, with no plugin to update |
| Maintenance | mandatory: core, theme and plugin updates | handled by Webflow, included in the subscription | near zero: no plugins, no extension vulnerabilities |
| Speed | variable, depends on the theme and plugins | good | excellent by design |
| Dependency | on the vendor who knows your setup | on the Webflow platform (limited export) | none: the code and the content are yours |
| Best for | large blog, editorial team | autonomous marketing team, recurring budget accepted | a website that must last, convert and remain your property |
Moving a WordPress site to Webflow: what you gain, what you give up
Many marketing teams tired of WordPress updates consider this move when the redesign comes around. It makes sense in some cases, as long as you know what you are trading. The two tools do different jobs: WordPress is software you install with a hosting company and extend with plugins; Webflow is an online service that hosts your site and rents you the editor.
What you gain. No plugins to update, no security holes from a forgotten module: hosting, backups and updates are handled by Webflow and included in the subscription. The visual editor lets a non-technical person change a page without breaking the layout, which few WordPress themes allow cleanly.
What you give up. First, the freedom to leave: Webflow lets you export the HTML and CSS of your pages, but its own documentation states that CMS content (articles, entries, collections), user accounts, e-commerce data and localized pages are not included in the export (Webflow help). You get your articles back as a CSV file, to be rebuilt elsewhere. Then volume: the number of CMS items is capped by plan, up to 20,000 on the pricing grid Webflow published in October 2026 (Webflow pricing). A blog with several thousand articles quickly runs out of room. Finally the ecosystem: WordPress runs about 40% of all websites, Webflow under 1% (W3Techs, October 2026). Finding a vendor or a plugin for a specific need is still easier on the WordPress side.
What the migration takes. Articles are imported into the Webflow CMS from a CSV file, and 301 redirects are also uploaded as a CSV in the site settings (Webflow help). The layout does not transfer: it is rebuilt page by page. Plan for a full redesign: no tool converts the layout automatically.
To decide:
- Stay on WordPress if the blog is the heart of the site, several people publish every week and you have hundreds of articles.
- Move to Webflow if you have fewer than a few hundred entries, a marketing team that wants to edit its own pages and a subscription budget accepted for the long run.
- Go custom if your website must be very fast, stay entirely in your name and depend on neither plugins nor a platform subscription.
What each option costs over three years
Comparing quotes on the entry price leads to the wrong choice. Over three years, a WordPress site also costs hosting, maintenance, plugin licenses and incidents: an update that breaks the theme, a hacked extension, a form that stops sending. Ask each provider for these amounts before comparing.
These costs come with the platform itself. WordPress is an assembly of third-party building blocks that each evolve at their own pace, and someone has to pay to keep the whole thing standing. Webflow shifts that cost into a subscription: more predictable, but never-ending.
A modern custom site has no plugins to update, no extension vulnerabilities and no hosting to manage. Once live, it just runs. At Sonho, a hand-coded custom website costs from €2,500 excl. VAT as a fixed price: more expensive than a WordPress theme installed in two days, with no plugin or license to pay for afterwards. And you edit everything yourself through the editing interface, without paying to change a photo.
How do you redesign your site without losing your Google rankings?
This is the number one fear, and it is justified: a poorly managed redesign loses traffic, sometimes a lot when URLs change without redirects. The outcome depends on method, whatever the technology. You can migrate from Wix, WordPress, Squarespace or Webflow while keeping your search rankings, as long as you follow four steps.
First, an audit of the pages that rank: list in Search Console the pages that receive Google traffic and their keywords. Those are the assets to protect. Then, 301 redirects: every old URL permanently redirects to its new equivalent page, one page at a time.
Third step, preserving the meta tags: the titles and descriptions of pages that perform are carried over, never rewritten at random. Finally, post-launch monitoring: submit the new sitemap in Search Console and watch for errors for four to six weeks. A dip lasting a few days is normal; a drop that persists signals a forgotten redirect.
Who owns your website? The checklist before you sign
Comparisons rarely cover ownership, and it is the first blocker we run into: a company wants to rebuild its site and discovers that the domain name is registered in the agency's name, that nobody has the hosting credentials, and that the agency no longer answers. Getting your own site back then takes months.
Before signing with any vendor (us included), demand written answers to this checklist:
At Sonho, the client owns everything: the domain is in your name, the content is yours and you keep the credentials. If you ever leave, you take your site with you. To check where you stand on ownership and search rankings before a redesign, tell us about your project and we will go through it in the first conversation. For timing, allow 4 to 6 weeks: the details are in our guide how long it takes to build a website.
- The domain name: is it registered in MY name, with registrar access I control?
- The hosting: is it on an account whose credentials I hold?
- The code and the content: are they handed over (or accessible) if I switch vendors?
- The analytics and Search Console accounts: are they created on an email address belonging to my company?
- What happens if the vendor shuts down or stops answering?
Frequently asked questions
- Can you move from WordPress to Webflow without losing your search rankings?
- Yes, if the migration follows the same method as any redesign. List in Search Console the WordPress pages that receive traffic, keep their URLs where possible, and import 301 redirects for the others in the Webflow settings, which accept a CSV file. Carry over the titles and descriptions of the pages that rank, then watch Search Console for four to six weeks. The main risk is blog posts: Webflow places articles under a collection prefix (for example /blog/), which often changes their URLs. Plan one redirect per article.
- How long does a website redesign take?
- At Sonho, allow 4 to 6 weeks from the first call to launch. A redesign that drags on is usually held up by content: copy and photos that are not ready. Lock them down before starting the project.
- How often should you redesign your website?
- There is no fixed lifespan: you rebuild a site when it gets slow, hard to read on a phone or stops bringing in leads. A cleanly coded site, fast and with a message that stays accurate, can last longer with simple content updates. Conversely, an assembly of plugins ages faster: every third-party building block evolves and eventually breaks the whole.
- What exactly is a custom website?
- It is a site hand-coded with modern tools like Next.js, without a site builder or a ready-made theme. It only ships the code you need, hence its speed and the absence of maintenance. And you stay autonomous: an editing interface like Sanity lets you change text, photos and pages yourself, without a developer.
- Will I lose my search rankings by redesigning my site?
- Not if the migration is done methodically: audit the pages that receive traffic, set up 301 redirects page by page, preserve the meta tags that perform, and monitor Search Console after launch. Lasting losses come from redesigns where old URLs are abandoned without redirects. Demand this migration plan in the quote.
- What happens to my old site during the redesign?
- It stays online and keeps working. The new site is built on a temporary address, invisible to the public and to search engines. On launch day, we switch the domain and activate the redirects. Your visitors never see an "under construction" page.
