Let me say the quiet part first: DIY builders are good now. Squarespace templates are tasteful. If you have the time and the eye, you can absolutely make a decent site yourself. So why does done-for-you exist?

Because the template was never the hard part. The hard part is deciding what goes on the page — what you charge, which twelve images make the cut, what the headline says, what you cut. That’s judgment, and it’s exactly the work DIY leaves on your desk.

The real cost of DIY

The studios that come to me with half-finished Squarespace sites all tell the same story: forty hours in, evenings and Sundays, and it still doesn’t feel right. Forty hours of a working photographer’s time is real money — often more than my flat fee — and the result still carries the faint smell of a template.

When DIY is the right call

Just starting out, no budget, portfolio still forming — build it yourself, truly. You’ll learn what you want to say. The switch makes sense when the site’s job changes from “existing” to “winning work”: when a wedding booking pays for the whole project, the math stops being about the website.

Either way, own your domain, keep your photos organized, and write your prices down somewhere. Whoever builds the site, that’s the material it’s made from.