Refresh is enough when…
- The underlying WordPress theme is modern and well coded.
- Core Web Vitals pass, or are one speed pass away from passing.
- The information architecture broadly makes sense — menu, page structure, URLs.
- SEO is working; you don't want to risk rankings.
- The brand is evolving, not changing.
If most of the above are true, a refresh — restyled components, new imagery, updated copy, better CTAs, a component-level speed pass — will produce most of the business outcome at a fraction of the cost.
You need a rebuild when…
- The theme is a heavy page-builder template that can't be made fast.
- The URL and page structure is broken — thin pages, orphans, cannibalising keywords.
- Your commercial intent has shifted and the site can't express it.
- The admin experience is so painful that content stops getting updated.
- Custom functionality needs replacing end-to-end.
Don't wreck your SEO doing either
Rebuilds lose rankings when teams skip redirect mapping. We run a full pre-launch URL audit, map every old URL to its new home, and monitor Search Console after cutover. See the technical SEO case study for the pattern.
Rough pricing difference
A refresh typically lands 30–50% of the cost of a rebuild, for 60–80% of the outcome when the underlying site is still sound. Past that threshold, rebuild wins on every axis.
Not sure which camp you're in?
Send us the URL. We'll give you a blunt refresh-or-rebuild recommendation, in writing, within a day.