01The purchase price is the smallest line
A ThemeForest theme, a Webflow or Framer template, a premium WordPress theme: all of them are priced to look like a bargain next to a quote from a developer. What the price covers is narrow. On ThemeForest, item support runs for six months from the purchase date and can be extended to a maximum of twelve, and Envato's own policy says support does not include modifying the item beyond the features on its sales page. Everything your business needs that the demo did not show is work you pay for separately, usually to someone other than the author.
- ThemeForest item support: six months, extendable to twelve at most
- Support excludes changes beyond what the item page describes
- A Webflow or Framer template also lives on that platform's plan for as long as the site is up
02Plugin sprawl and the rework nobody quoted
Templates are designed for a buyer who does not exist: a generic agency, a generic restaurant, a generic consultant. The moment your services, your booking tool or your menu do not match the demo, someone bends the template. On WordPress that usually means another plugin, then another, each with its own updates and its own way of breaking. Bending code you did not write is slower than writing code that fits, and every later change repeats the cost, because the developer has to relearn how the theme was bent the last time.
- Each missing feature tends to become one more plugin with its own update cycle
- Edits made directly in a theme's files can be overwritten by the theme's next update
- The second developer pays to understand the first developer's workarounds
03Speed you pay for on every visit
A multipurpose theme ships features for every buyer it hopes to sell to: sliders, animation libraries, page builders, icon sets, shop templates. Most sites use a fraction of that, but much of it still loads. Nobody sends an invoice for this. The cost shows up as a phone visitor on a weak connection waiting a little longer than they wanted to, and as Core Web Vitals that are hard to fix without removing the very things the theme was built on. We do not publish a conversion figure for this, because we have not measured one.
- Unused theme features often still load on every page
- Fixing speed can mean removing what the theme depends on
- A site written for one business only carries what that business uses
04When a template is still the right call
A template makes sense when the budget is well under 500 EUR, when the business really does look like the demo, or when you enjoy editing the site yourself and accept the platform's limits as the price of that freedom. In those cases PROOF48 is the wrong choice and we would say so. If you are still deciding between a builder like Wix or Squarespace and a custom site, our post on how to decide between a website builder and a custom-built site covers that question on its own. This post is only about what the template route costs after year one.
- Budget well under 500 EUR: a template is the honest answer
- Your business matches the demo closely: the rework cost stays small
- You want to edit everything yourself: a builder may suit you better than we do
Leaving a site that did not fit has its own bill
SCP Shine & Style, a beauty salon on Strada Baba Novac in Sector 3, Bucharest, already had a WordPress site. It was built badly, ranked badly and did not reflect the work. Replacing it was more than a new design: every old URL had to be redirected so nothing already indexed broke. That is the last instalment of a site that never fitted. When you finally leave it, the exit comes with its own work list.
See the build: SCP Shine & StyleQuestions, answered
Are theme updates free after the support period ends?
On ThemeForest, updates that keep an item working as described and protect it against major security issues come with the purchase. What expires is support, and support never covered custom changes in the first place.
I already have a template site. Should I rebuild it?
Not automatically. If it loads fast, fits your business and nobody is fighting it, keep it. Rebuild when the list of workarounds is longer than the list of pages, and redirect every old address when you do.
Does PROOF48 use templates to hit 48 hours?
No. The reference link you send is direction, not a source file. Every build is code written for your business, with no theme and no page builder underneath.
Where PROOF48 fits
A template's real price is spread over years: plugins, rework, expired support, a slower site and, eventually, the cost of leaving it. A custom site puts most of that cost up front and then stays yours. PROOF48 builds that kind of site for 500 to 2,500 EUR, and you see it working before you pay anything.
Cosmin Tiu · Founder, PROOF48
Cosmin has worked in online marketing and software development since 2018, and has built with AI every day since January 2023. He still writes code from scratch daily, in Python, React, Rust and C#. PROOF48 ships business websites in 48 hours and invoices afterwards, so every opinion on this blog was paid for in real builds, not in theory.