Redesign or rebuild?

The most expensive sentence in web projects is "let's just reskin it" — said about a site that's rotten underneath. And the most wasteful is "let's rebuild from scratch" — said about a site that only needed a week of care. Here's how to tell them apart.

The five-minute test

Answer these five questions about your current site:

1. Does it load in under ~3 seconds on a phone? (Test at pagespeed.web.dev)
2. Can you edit the content without calling a developer?
3. Does it work correctly on mobile — no horizontal scroll, no broken forms?
4. Is the underlying platform still supported and getting security updates?
5. Can your developer (or a new one) actually get the code and deploy a change?

Four or five "yes": the bones are fine — a redesign is enough. Two or fewer: a visual refresh would be paint over rust; rebuild.

Redesign is enough when…

• The site is fast and stable but looks dated.
• Structure and content are basically right — the presentation isn't.
• You can still change things without fear.

A redesign keeps your URLs, your search rankings and your content. It typically costs a fraction of a rebuild and ships in days, not weeks.

Rebuild when…

• Every small change breaks two other things.
• Page speed is stuck no matter what you compress — the platform itself is the bottleneck (see the slow-website guide).
• The site is locked into a builder or a departed developer's setup and nobody can safely touch it.
• You're changing what the site is — from brochure to store, from store to application.

The middle path

Often the right answer is neither: fix the five broken things, restyle the pages that get traffic, leave the rest alone. We call this "repairs" and it's deliberately unglamorous — a fix-list with a price per line, not a grand project. Ask any studio quoting you a rebuild to explain why a repair pass wouldn't do. The honest ones will answer; the rest are selling you the bigger invoice.

Not sure which one your site needs? Send us the link — we'll tell you honestly, including "it's fine, change nothing". Request a review.