Simply Built vs WordPress – which is the right web design platform for you? When it comes to having a website designed (or re-designed), you have nearly limitless choices. Web design agencies are plentiful, and provided you have the time and budget, can do a great job creating a site that represents your brand. You could also go the DIY route, assuming you have some technical skills and the time to learn to put it together yourself.
Simply Built is the bridge between these two options. We provide an intuitive and easy to use drag and drop page builder, so you can make changes whenever you want. We also give unlimited content edits done by a professional web designer – so if you need to make changes, just let us know!
In this article, we will compare Simply Built services to one of the most popular website platforms – WordPress. We’ve broken it down by category to help you make an informed choice on what platform will work best for you.
Website Builder
Simply Built
Simply Built has an easy and intuitive page builder with a wide range of pre-built sections, including testimonials, FAQs, contact forms, pricing plans, about us, text blocks, tabs, footers, and teams. This makes building your pages quick and easy, while allowing you to customize the content of the section blocks.
There are many widgets you can add to your pages with a couple of clicks, including basic elements like text, icons, rows, titles, and buttons, as well as more advanced features like click-to-call buttons, maps, photo galleries and more.
WordPress
WordPress is more limited. The Gutenberg editor allows adding of content blocks, but they are much more basic in nature. To add real page builder functionality, you will need to add a page builder theme like Elementor or Genesis – both which have a learning curve and an additional cost.
Templates
Simply Built
Simply Built offers instant access to over 90 mobile-responsive templates, designed to look great on any device. The templates are organized in categories according to industry. There are also blank templates you can design however you like.
WordPress
There are thousands of themes available for WordPress. Many are free, many are paid. Because WordPress themes are third party – IE, some private individual or company designs and maintains them – there is a wide range of quality control. Some themes are released and then never update. There are even instances of WordPress themes being pulled from the repository for shady practices. Be very careful about your theme choice.
Mobile Responsiveness
Simply Built
Every Simply Built template is fully mobile responsive and easily tested within the platform.
WordPress
Responsiveness largely depends on the theme you choose – some are better than others. Additionally, you may have to tweak your content to ensure that it can be seen correctly on tablets and smartphones.
Blogging Tools
Simply Built
Simply Built has easy to use blogging tools. Post content can be added and customized in the page builder, and the blog post layouts are uniform throughout your site.
WordPress
WordPress started as a blogging platform, so this is one thing it does well. With a great suite of tools, blogging is an easy process on WordPress.
Personalization Tools
Simply Built
With Simply Built, you can build your own personalization tools or select from a wide range of predefined rules such as popups for newsletter sign-ups, special promotions for specific customers, and content targeted at different visitor types.
WordPress
No built-in user personalization – personalization would have to be achieved using free or paid plugins.
E-commerce
Simply Built
E-commerce is available to users for an additional fee. There is a simple setup process to get your store up and running quickly. You can also sell on Facebook and Instagram (on select plans), and it includes free integration with Google Shopping.
WordPress
There is no native e-commerce built into WordPress – you’ll have to find a free or paid third party plugin. This increases the learning curve and possible cost.
Trial Period
Simply Built
If you would like to try out our page builder, you can do so for 14 days!
WordPress
WordPress.com has a free forever plan that does NOT have premium features. If you want to use WordPress.org, you’ll have to have and pay for a hosting company.
Multilingual Websites
Simply Built
SB has support for over 55 languages.
WordPress
WordPress has support for over 70 languages.
Plugins
Simply Built
SB has curated several professionally designed plugins to add to the functionality of the platform.
WordPress
There are thousands of plugins for WordPress, each built by a third-party developer. Some are free, some are paid. Like with themes, you must be cautious about what plugins you install on your website.
Search Engine Optimization
Simply Built
Our platform has SEO features built in. You can add both general SEO information to your settings (meta tags and descriptions, and schema information), and more specific SEO details to each page.
WordPress
WordPress SEO functionality comes from third-party plugins. Again, there are both free and paid plugins depending on your needs.
Support
Simply Built
This is where we really shine. With your Simply Built subscription, you have access to unlimited content edits made by our professional design team. You simply let us know what edit you would like to have made (this could be text, font, colors, images, etc.), and we make them. Simple!
If you’re more of a “do it yourself” person, and you have questions about how to use our page builder or other features, we have video tutorials and a knowledge base at your disposal. Finally, if you get stuck and need help, you can open a support ticket, and we’ll reach out!
WordPress
You can always reach out to your hosting company for support. But if your issue has to do with WordPress directly, they may or may not help. And if you’re having trouble with a plugin, good luck getting help from your host. You’ll need to go to the plugin developer for that. Whether they answer depends largely on how much you’ve paid them.
There are, of course, free forums and sites where you can try to troubleshoot your own issues. You probably have plenty of time for that sort of thing, right?
Pricing
Simply Built
Our pricing is, well, simple. Your $79.00 per month subscription gets you everything – access to the drag and drop page builder and tools, unlimited content edits, world-class support, and more. There is an upcharge for some add-ons like e-commerce, but we try to make those costs easy to understand, too.
WordPress
WordPress pricing is much more complicated. You’ll need hosting which can range anywhere from $4.00 to $30.00 every month, depending on the quality and speed you’re willing to live with. On top of that, you’ll probably want a professionally designed theme. Those can cost up to $360.00 per year.
You’ll probably also need plugins to get the functionality you want out of your site. Want the best SEO plugin for WordPress? Yoast SEO Premium is available for $89.00 a year. Want to keep hackers and attackers at bay? Wordfence Premium is $99.00 a year. If you want to sell goods from your WordPress site, you could go with the Woocommerce plugin – it’s free! But if you want to add functionality (say, for instance, recurring subscriptions), that’s an additional $199.00 per year!
As you can see, WordPress, which markets itself as “free,” really starts to add up when you try to get the functionality you get from Simply Built. And no one from WordPress is going to volunteer to make your content edits for free, either!
In Conclusion
WordPress is a great platform because it’s so versatile. You can get plugins that do almost anything. If you know, or are willing to learn, CSS and HTML coding, you can make your site look anyway you want. Many well-known sites are built on WordPress, and for good reason. If your business has (or can afford) a team of developers, then WordPress might be the right choice for you.
However, if you would rather focus on growing and running your business, and you would like a clean, responsive website to enhance your brand, consider Simply Built. From our unlimited content edits to our support system, we take care of your website, so you don’t have to.
Get started with your Simply Built site today!
