Wix can host your Dundee studio's brochure. It can't host your vertical slice.
If a Dundee studio needs a playable WebGL demo on its site, or a design house wants an interactive portfolio that loads fast and looks bespoke, Wix and Squarespace will fight you the whole way. Custom website development runs £10,000 to £70,000 over 1 to 4 months and earns it when the site has to perform, integrate, or express a brand a template can't.
Templates are fine for a brochure. They're a problem the moment a Dundee studio wants to embed a playable build, stream a trailer without jank, or wire a wishlist to Steam. Squarespace and Wix give you a fixed structure, limited performance control, and a generic look, and in a UNESCO City of Design that last point alone can cost you credibility with the exact clients and players you're courting.
The life-sciences and higher-education side has its own needs: publication lists that pull from a research database, grant and team pages that update without a developer, and accessibility that passes a public-sector audit. Template builders make all of that awkward, so you end up either with a site that doesn't do what you need or a pile of manual updates that go stale.
The fix: website built for Dundee, not rented
A custom website gives you control of performance, design, and integration: a playable build that loads cleanly, a portfolio that expresses your brand exactly, and pages that pull live data from your systems. For a Dundee studio or design house, the site is a credibility signal, and a bespoke build is the difference between looking like everyone else's template and looking like the studio you actually are.
The capability list that earns its budget
Dundee website: the full scope
Everything a website build here can cover: SEO-optimized websites, website redesign, custom website development, web design, Next.js development, React development and responsive web design.
What website costs in Dundee
| Project scope | Typical cost | Timeline |
|---|---|---|
| Bespoke marketing site + CMS | £10k to £25k | 1 to 2 months |
| Site with playable embeds + live data | £25k to £45k | 2 to 3 months |
| Complex site + integrations + accessibility | £45k to £70k | 3 to 4 months |
How long it takes, phase by phase
Exactly what you get
You get a site that loads a playable build cleanly, expresses your brand instead of a template's, and updates publication or project pages from live data. It passes accessibility and performance audits, and it integrates with your CRM and analytics. For a Dundee studio or design house, the site stops being a generic placeholder and starts doing the credibility work it's supposed to.
How to choose a developer in Dundee
Choose a team with a design portfolio that holds up in a design-led city and the engineering to embed playable media without jank. Ask for Core Web Vitals scores on sites they've shipped and how they'd handle a WebGL build or a live publication feed. The right partner gives you a CMS so content edits don't always route through them, and builds accessibility in rather than bolting it on.
- Performant embedding of playable builds, WebGL, and rich media without the jank
- A bespoke design that signals credibility in a design-led market
- Live data on publication, team, and project pages instead of manual updates
- Accessibility and performance built to pass public-sector and education audits
- Clean integration with your CRM, CMS, and analytics rather than a closed template
- A custom site costs more upfront and needs hosting and maintenance you own
- Content editing may need a CMS setup rather than a template's instant editor
- Over-engineering a simple brochure site wastes budget a template would have saved
- You take on performance and security responsibilities a hosted builder handled
- !They reach for a template by default. Ask why custom is or isn't justified for your needs
- !No plan for embedding playable media performantly. Ask how a WebGL build loads
- !They ignore accessibility. Ask how the site passes a public-sector audit
- !No CMS so every edit needs them. Ask how non-developers update content
- !Weak on Core Web Vitals. Ask for a performance benchmark on a real build
If website is on the roadmap, hr, accounting, business intelligence dashboards usually follow within the year. Budget them as one conversation.
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 we embed a playable game build on a custom website?
Yes. A custom build can host a WebGL or playable demo that loads performantly, which templates like Wix and Squarespace handle poorly. For a Dundee studio, a playable hero is often the most persuasive thing on the site.
Why not just use Squarespace for a studio site?
Squarespace is fine for a brochure but limits performance, design, and integration. In a design-led city, a generic template can undercut credibility, and it can't embed playable media or pull live research data the way a custom build can.
How do we keep content editable without a developer?
With a headless CMS configured so non-developers safely edit text, images, and team or publication pages. That keeps the site current without routing every change through your developer.
Will a custom site pass accessibility audits?
If built to WCAG standards from the start, yes. That matters for public-sector and education work in Dundee, where audits are common and a template build often falls short.
How much does a custom website cost in Dundee?
A bespoke marketing site with a CMS starts around £10k. Adding playable embeds and live data runs £25k to £45k, and a complex, fully integrated, audit-ready site reaches £70k.