"Our site was built five years ago on WordPress for NT$30,000. Now we want memberships, booking, and LINE integration, and the dev says plugins conflict — fix one thing, three break. Keep patching WordPress or rebuild custom?" We field three or four of these calls a month. The cost of choosing wrong is time: wrong-direction clients lose six months on average and double their budget, then rebuild anyway.
When It Fits vs When It Doesn''t
WordPress fits content-led sites (brochure, blog, news), tight budgets (NT$30K–150K), self-editing, off-the-shelf plugin needs, few yearly changes. Custom (Laravel) fits process-led systems (members, booking, subscriptions, back-office logic), unique business logic, payment / ERP / API integration, large data, and operational-core systems that cannot break. Caveat: "80% content + 20% forms" makes custom a waste; "membership tiers + auto-billing + reports" makes WordPress plugins a future rebuild.
Alternatives Matrix
| Option | Pros | Cons | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| WordPress + plugins | Fast, cheap, self-editable | Plugin conflicts, security risk | NT$30K–150K |
| Site SaaS (Wix / Shopify) | Fastest launch, no ops | Long-term fees, low customization | NT$500–3,000/mo |
| Semi-custom (WP + custom) | Balances cost & flexibility | Bound by WP architecture | NT$150K–400K |
| Full custom (Laravel + Flutter) | Fits process, evolvable | High upfront, needs pro team | NT$400K+ |
Full Process (tools & deliverables)
- Requirements (3–5 days): interviews + MoSCoW feature list. Deliverable: spec, list (Notion).
- Design (1–2 weeks): IA + wireframes + visuals. Tool: Figma. Deliverable: clickable prototype.
- Development (4–10 weeks): build + payment integration. Tools: Laravel, Git, ECPay / TapPay. Deliverable: staging.
- Testing & acceptance (1 week): cross-device + checklist. Deliverable: acceptance sheet.
- Launch (2–3 days): DNS / SSL / deploy. Tools: Cloudflare, Laravel Forge, UptimeRobot. Deliverable: live site + monitoring.
Real Cost Breakdown
Beyond the dev quote: hosting NT$300–2,000/mo + domain NT$400–800/yr + SSL (Let''s Encrypt free or paid cert) + payment fees (ECPay ~2.8%, Stripe ~3.4% + fixed) + third-party APIs (SMS, maps, email) + maintenance (15–20% of dev cost/yr). WordPress looks cheaper, but plugin licenses + security upkeep + breach cleanup often catch up to semi-custom over three years.
Reality vs Client Expectation
- "WordPress is cheaper" → long-term upkeep often matches semi-custom over three years.
- "Custom changes anything" → changes still take dev hours and testing.
- "Launch is the finish" → launch is the start; first 90 days matter most.
- "More features is better" → every feature is maintenance debt.
Common Traps & Fixes
- Plugin-stack hell → inventory must-haves, consolidate.
- Editing production with no staging → always build staging first.
- Going live without testing payments → run a real small transaction + refund.
- Major changes with no backup → full DB + file backup, verify restore.
- No SEO redirects → list 301 mapping before changing URLs.
- Verbal "OK" with no checklist → sign off item by item in writing.
Success Metrics + 90-Day Roadmap
Day 30: monitor uptime (UptimeRobot), fix bugs, confirm GA4. Day 60: review bounce, dwell, funnel; optimize the two worst pages; finish structured data. Day 90: revisit KPIs (inquiries / signups / orders), decide next feature by data.
Decision Checklist
More "yes" means lean custom:
- ☐ Do you need membership tiers?
- ☐ Online payments / subscriptions?
- ☐ Custom back-office reports?
- ☐ ERP / CRM / LINE OA integration?
- ☐ Will data exceed tens of thousands of rows?
- ☐ Does downtime directly hit revenue?
- ☐ Will you keep adding features over two years?
- ☐ A unique flow off-the-shelf plugins cannot do?
- ☐ Are security / personal data a hard requirement?
- ☐ Is the team willing to invest in long-term maintenance?
Call to Action
Unsure which path? ScriptWalker offers a free 30-minute website health-check consult — we run the decision tree and give a written "WordPress vs custom" assessment plus a rough quote. Custom website projects start at NT$80,000. Email [email protected] or add us on LINE.