MachSites vs hiring a web designer
In short: A good freelance designer or studio is the right call when you need a custom brand and a site designed from scratch to fit it. MachSites is for owners who already have a look that works and want it rebuilt fast on faster infrastructure — under a second, in 5 business days, at a flat price — with edits handled after. Different jobs, and this page is the honest split.
| MachSites | Hiring a web designer | |
|---|---|---|
| What you get | Your existing look rebuilt on fast infrastructure | A custom design created from scratch for your brand |
| Typical timeline | Live in 5 business days | Often 4–12 weeks depending on scope |
| Pricing | Flat $1,299 rebuild, known up front | $2,000–$10,000+, often scope-dependent |
| Speed of the finished site | Under 1 second on Cloudflare's edge | Depends entirely on how they build it |
| Ongoing edits | Send a request, we handle it | Hourly, retainer, or you learn the CMS yourself |
| Who owns the site | You do — code exported on request, no lock-in | Usually yours, but varies by contract — read it |
| Best fit | Owners who want it fast, flat-priced, and handled | Owners needing bespoke design and brand work |
The honest version first
This one’s easy to get wrong, so let’s be straight. A good web designer is not a competitor MachSites tries to beat on every axis — they do something we deliberately don’t. So let’s start with when you should hire a designer instead of us.
Hire a designer if: you need a custom brand and a site designed from scratch to fit it. New identity, distinctive layouts, art direction, custom photography or illustration — that’s craft, it takes real time, and a talented designer is worth every dollar of it. MachSites doesn’t do original design work, and we’ll happily tell you so. If that’s the job, go find someone great.
Still here? Then you probably already have a look that basically works — maybe a designer built it years ago, maybe you assembled it yourself — and what you actually need is for it to be rebuilt fast, priced known, and handled afterward. Here’s how the two paths differ.
Timeline and price certainty
Custom design is a project: discovery, drafts, revisions, development. Depending on scope, that’s commonly 4 to 12 weeks and $2,000 to $10,000 or more, and the final number often moves as the scope does. That’s not a knock — it’s the honest nature of bespoke work.
MachSites is a fixed thing, not a project. We rebuild the look you already have in 5 business days at a flat $1,299, so you know the number and the date before you start. You can see exactly what’s included on the pricing page. If you need original design, that certainty isn’t worth trading for it — but if you don’t, it’s a very different experience.
Speed is built in, not hoped for
A designer’s site is only as fast as how it’s built, and plenty of gorgeous sites are heavy and slow. With MachSites, speed isn’t a variable — we rebuild as lean pages on Cloudflare’s edge, so they load in under a second. Google found 53% of mobile visitors leave after three seconds, so on a service site the load time is quietly deciding whether that design ever gets to do its job. Run your current site through the Grader and see where it lands.
Ongoing edits are the part people forget
The website is day one. Then you need a new service page, a seasonal update, a fixed typo. With a designer, that’s usually hourly work, a retainer, or you learning their CMS yourself. With MachSites, you send a request and we handle it — that’s the model. For an owner who doesn’t want a second job maintaining a website, that difference compounds over the years.
A path that uses both
Here’s the honest hybrid a lot of owners land on: hire a designer once for the brand and design you love, then have MachSites rebuild it on fast infrastructure and handle the edits after. You get the bespoke look and the sub-second speed and hands-off maintenance. The two aren’t really rivals when you use them for what each does best.
So which one?
One question: do you need something designed from scratch, or do you need a look you already have rebuilt fast and handled? A designer is the right answer to the first. MachSites exists for the second. If you’re also weighing DIY builders, the MachSites vs Wix and MachSites vs Squarespace pages run the same honest split.
The honest verdict
If you need a from-scratch custom brand and design, hire a good designer — it's worth every dollar. If you already know roughly what you want and mostly need it rebuilt fast, priced flat, and handled afterward, that's the gap MachSites fills.
Brett Gilbertson
MachSites — performance infrastructure for local business · Updated July 6, 2026