Wix gave you a pretty site that can't meet the Welsh Language Standards your contract requires
A custom website in Cardiff typically costs £8,000 to £60,000 over 1 to 4 months. You move beyond Wix, Squarespace and templates when you need a genuinely bilingual Welsh and English site that meets the Welsh Language Standards, accessibility that satisfies public-sector procurement, or performance that holds up when an event drives a traffic surge.
Wix and Squarespace build a good-looking site fast, and for a simple brochure that's fine. The trouble starts when a Cardiff organisation needs the site to be truly bilingual: not a second language bolted on a subdomain, but Welsh and English as equal, fully maintained versions with proper URL structure and SEO for both. Wix's multilingual handling is shallow, and you end up with a Welsh side that's perpetually out of date.
Public-sector and professional clients add accessibility and procurement demands that templates dodge. A Welsh Government or Cardiff Council-facing site has to meet accessibility regulations cleanly, and a half-template can't be certified the way procurement expects. So the cheap, fast site becomes the thing that fails the contract.
What breaks first in Cardiff
- Wix and Squarespace handle multilingual shallowly, leaving the Welsh version perpetually out of date
- Templates can't meet the accessibility standard public-sector procurement requires
- No clean bilingual URL and SEO structure, so the Welsh site is invisible to search
- Event-driven traffic surges can overwhelm a template-hosted site at the worst moment
The fix: website built for Cardiff, not rented
A custom website treats Welsh and English as equal from the URL structure up, so both stay maintained and both rank. It meets the accessibility standards public-sector procurement demands and holds up under event-driven traffic. For a Cardiff organisation whose contracts or reputation depend on a properly bilingual, accessible web presence, that's the difference between winning the framework and failing its requirements.
What website costs in Cardiff
| Project scope | Typical cost | Timeline |
|---|---|---|
| Bilingual brochure site, accessible | £8k to £20k | 1 to 2 months |
| Content-managed bilingual site with integrations | £20k to £40k | 2 to 3 months |
| Complex bilingual site, public-sector grade | £40k to £60k | 3 to 4 months |
The capability list that earns its budget
Cardiff website: the full scope
Everything a website build here can cover: landing page development, CMS development, Jamstack, SEO-optimized websites, website redesign, custom website development and web design.
Exactly what you get
A website where Welsh and English are equal from the URL up, both maintained, both ranking, with accessibility built to satisfy public-sector procurement and hosting that survives an event-driven traffic surge. It connects to your CRM and booking software so enquiries land in your systems, and analytics report the two language audiences separately so you can serve both well.
How to choose a developer in Cardiff
Choose a team that has shipped genuinely bilingual public-sector sites and can show the URL and SEO structure they use. They should talk accessibility compliance and Welsh Language Standards without prompting. A Cardiff partner who understands that the Welsh version must be equal, not an afterthought, will build a site that wins the framework instead of failing it.
- !They put Welsh on a subdomain afterthought. Ask how both languages stay equal and maintained
- !They can't speak to accessibility compliance. Ask how the site meets procurement standards
- !No bilingual SEO plan. Ask how the Welsh version ranks
- !They ignore event traffic surges. Ask how hosting handles a spike
- !They quote a template price for a public-sector brief. Ask what makes it procurement-ready
Most Cardiff teams pricing website end up comparing notes on hr, accounting, business intelligence dashboards too; the systems share one data spine.
Rohan advises mid-market and enterprise teams on ERP, CRM and custom software, and has led delivery on dozens of business-software builds.
Writes for Digital Heroes, shipping business software for 2,000+ brands across 55+ countries since 2017.
Frequently asked questions
Can't Wix do bilingual?
Wix offers shallow multilingual that typically leaves the Welsh version out of date and weakly structured for SEO. For a Cardiff organisation that needs both languages equal and maintained under the Welsh Language Standards, a custom build does it properly.
Why does accessibility matter so much here?
Public-sector procurement in Wales requires sites to meet accessibility regulations. A template that can't be certified to that standard fails the contract, which is why custom builds bake compliance in from the start.
Will both language versions rank?
Yes, with proper hreflang, URL structure and bilingual SEO so the Welsh and English versions are both discoverable, rather than the Welsh side being invisible to search.