A hosting company's builder comes bundled with the account that already holds your domain. A site written for you comes from a conversation about your business. The real difference is who writes the pages.
Short answer
A hosting company's builder is convenient: one account, one bill and a tool in the same place as your domain. A site written for you is built from your answers, with each page passing a check before publishing. The bundle suits a simple page you will write yourself, and the written site suits a business that wants finished pages.
The appeal is real: your domain, your hosting and your site tool live in one login, on one bill. Connecting them takes little effort, and there is one place to call when something breaks.
For a small site that you will write and maintain yourself, that convenience may be exactly right. Our guide to what hosting does explains the part that is bundled.
Support is part of that appeal. When the domain, the hosting and the builder come from one company, a question about why the site is down has one place to go, and nobody can point at somebody else.
Choose it when you want a single simple page, a personal project, or a modest site you enjoy writing yourself. It is also sensible if you are already paying for hosting and need only a basic presence.
If the whole job is one tidy page and you have the words, the extra step of a written site adds little. Be honest about how much time you will spend on the writing.
The same goes for a site that rarely changes. If your information barely moves, the work of keeping it current is small and a simple tool is enough.
You answer questions about your services, areas and what sets you apart, and the builder writes the titles, descriptions, headings, copy and the questions people ask. It builds a multi-page site with its own page structure and internal links.
Before publishing you see the planned pages and what the build costs, and you approve it. Each page then passes a check, many of whose rules follow public standards, including Google Search Essentials.
The assistant can also read your existing website address to fill gaps, so the first draft starts from what you have already said online rather than from a blank page.
You do not have to move your domain. A site here can go live on your own domain with one DNS record, a CNAME, and an SSL certificate is issued for you. Until your domain is connected, it can run on a free address.
The assistant walks you through the record for your registrar. Our page on builders with hosting covers the trade-offs of bundling.
Keep the domain registered in your name and keep the login details somewhere safe. Whichever route you pick, the address is the asset you cannot easily replace.
A bundled builder is usually a tool, and tools take time. Count the hours to write every page, add titles and descriptions, and keep the pages in step. For some owners that is a pleasant weekend, and for others it is the reason a site never gets finished.
A written site moves that effort into a conversation and a review. You answer questions, look at the planned pages, approve them, and read what comes back before it goes live.
Neither is better in the abstract. Decide by asking how you spend your time best, and whether the site is something you want to craft or something you want done.
Ask who writes the words, what is checked before anything goes live, what you can take with you if you leave, and what is billed separately. The answers matter more than the feature list.
Compare also with template websites, which sit between the two. Our pricing page shows the plans, and after the first payment, published sites stay live for thirty days after you cancel.
Work through these honestly. The bundle wins on convenience, and the written site wins on finished pages.
No. For a simple page that you will write yourself, the convenience of one account and one bill can be exactly right.
No. Your own domain can point to a site here with one DNS record, a CNAME, and an SSL certificate is issued for you.
With a bundled builder, usually you. With a site written for you, the builder writes pages from your answers, and every page passes a check before it publishes.
After the first payment, published sites stay live for thirty days after you cancel and you can download your site files.
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