Your agency sold you a custom design and delivered a template

How to tell if your site is a template

The fastest test is to search the internet for a phrase from your site combined with the words "template" or "theme". If you find a demo site that looks identical to yours apart from the colours and photos, that is your template.

Other signs you have been sold a template dressed up as custom:

• Your site looks suspiciously similar to other sites the agency has built for completely different industries
• The layout, fonts, and section structure feel generic - hero banner, three boxes, testimonial slider, contact form, in that exact order
• You were given very little choice during the build - no wireframes, no mockups, no design rounds, just "here it is"
• You can find the same design on theme marketplaces like ThemeForest, Elementor, or Divi for £40-60
• The whole project went from signed off to launched in under three weeks

You can also right-click on your site and choose "View Page Source". You do not need to read it. Just scan for words like "Astra", "Divi", "Avada", "Bridge", "Enfold", "Salient", "OceanWP", or "Elementor". Those are template names. If you see them all over the code, you have a template.

Why agencies sell templates as custom

Because the maths is too good to resist. A custom design takes 40-80 hours of work between a designer and a developer. A template takes one person an afternoon to install and tweak. If the agency charges you £2,000-4,000 either way, the template route is pure margin.

The word "custom" is also legally slippery. Agencies will argue that swapping the colours, adding your logo, and writing your text counts as customisation. In their dictionary, it does. In yours, it probably does not.

The biggest tell is the design process itself. A real custom build involves rounds of mockups, revisions, and sign-off before a single line of code is written. A template build skips all of that because the design decisions were made by someone else, years ago, for a generic audience.

What a real custom design actually involves

If you paid for custom, this is roughly what should have happened:

• A conversation about your business, your customers, and what you want the site to do
• Wireframes - rough black-and-white sketches of each page layout - for you to approve
• Visual mockups in a tool like Figma showing exactly what the finished pages will look like
• At least one round of revisions where you ask for changes and the designer makes them
• Final sign-off before any code is written
• A build that follows those mockups closely, not a template that vaguely resembles them

If none of that happened, you did not get custom. You got a template with a paint job.

What you can do about it

First, dig out your original quote, contract, or email thread. Look for the word "custom", "bespoke", or "unique design". If it is in writing and you can prove the site is a template, you have a case for a partial refund or a credit.

Second, ask the agency directly. "Can you confirm whether my site is built on a purchased theme or template? I would like to know the name of it if so." Watch how they answer. The honest ones will tell you. The ones who go quiet, change the subject, or get defensive have just told you everything.

The agency that sold you a £40 template as a £3,000 custom build is not going to suddenly become honest because you asked nicely.

Third, decide what outcome you actually want. A refund is unlikely unless you escalate. A goodwill credit toward future work is more realistic. Or you can simply accept it, learn from it, and move on with someone who will not pull the same trick twice.

Moving on without paying twice

Here is the thing about templates - they are not actually a problem. A well-built template site can be fast, attractive, and effective. The problem is being charged custom prices for one. If you are happy with how the site looks and works, you do not need to rebuild it. You just need to stop overpaying to maintain it.

That is where I come in. I am SkipTheAgency - a solo developer who looks after small business websites without agency overhead. I am happy to take over your existing site, template or not, and look after it properly. The Maintained plan starts at £65/month, against the £150/month most agencies charge for the same thing. No design fee, no rebuild, no penalty for what the last lot did.

If you do eventually want a proper custom build, I quote those separately from £600 - and you see wireframes and mockups before a line of code is written.