Kit Digital vs. a custom website: an honest comparison for SMBs

If you run a business in Spain and used the Kit Digital programme to get a website, you are probably in one of two situations: either the website generates no enquiries at all, or you have realised you need someone to maintain and rank it, but the Kit Digital provider no longer replies.

You are not alone. The pattern repeats because the subsidy pays for building the website, not for the work that keeps it alive afterwards. In this article we compare both options: the Kit Digital website and a custom website with ongoing content and maintenance.

What Kit Digital actually includes

Kit Digital is a Spanish government subsidy programme for SMB digitalisation. Segment I (10-49 employees) offers up to 12,000 EUR, and Segment II (1-9 employees) up to 6,000 EUR for web presence.

What you typically receive:

• WordPress website with a commercial template (Divi, Elementor, Avada)
• 5-8 standard pages (home, services, about us, contact)
• Basic text, often generic and minimally adapted
• Contact form
• SSL certificate
• .es or .com domain

What it does NOT include:

• SEO strategy or keyword research
• Content optimised for search engines
• Blog or content plan
• Maintenance once the covered period ends
• Long-term security updates
• Multilingual support (most are Spanish-only)
• AI search engine positioning (ChatGPT, Perplexity)
• Performance optimisation (many score below 50 on PageSpeed)

Real cost to the client: 0 EUR, because the subsidy covers it. But the website’s value reflects exactly what was invested in strategy and content.

What happens when the subsidy ends

This is the part almost nobody explains before you sign, and it is where most of the calls we get come from. There are three scenarios, and they often happen at once.

1. You do not have access to your own website

The provider registered the domain, bought the hosting, and set up WordPress under their own account. You have a website, but you do not have the keys. When you want to change a phone number, add a service, or simply move to another provider, you have to ask permission from someone who no longer has any incentive to answer.

What to check today: whose name the domain is registered under (this is public record), who holds the hosting administrator account, and whether a copy of the code exists that you can download. If those three answers are not you, that is the first problem to fix, before the second.

2. The provider disappears

Many Kit Digital websites were built by digitalisation agents that scaled up very quickly during the programme and have since shrunk or closed. Email bounces, the phone goes unanswered, and the website stays online with nobody behind it.

What to check today: whether your provider still replies within a reasonable time, and whether you have documented where the site is hosted. A live but orphaned website keeps working until it stops, and at that point nobody knows where to look.

3. Nobody maintains anything

This is the quietest one. The website is still up, everything looks fine, but no updates are being applied. WordPress plugins accumulate known vulnerabilities, there are no tested backups, and the content is the same as on launch day.

What to check today: the date plugins were last updated, whether automatic backups exist, and when new content was last published. A website with no fresh content loses ground slowly: it is not a sudden drop, it is erosion you notice months later.

What a custom website with content and maintenance includes

The alternative is not “paying more for the same thing”. It is a different approach: the website is built for your business, and afterwards somebody looks after it.

The build:

• Custom design, not a template
• Development with Astro and Vercel, built for speed and security
• Professional multilingual content when the market calls for it
• Initial SEO blog articles so the site starts ranking
• Schema.org and structuring for AI search engines
• Optimised Google Business profile
• A 95+ PageSpeed target, measured before going live
• Domain registered in the client’s name from day one

What comes after:

• Content published on the agreed cadence
• Technical maintenance (updates, security, performance)
• Positioning and metrics reporting
• Content changes and updates within the agreed scope
• Performance and security monitoring
• AI search engine positioning (GEO)

Scope and investment are defined after a discovery session, because they depend on the sector, the competition, and what the website actually has to do.

The comparison point by point

The cost of doing nothing

This is where the comparison gets interesting. The Kit Digital website costs 0 EUR, but what is the cost of having a website that generates no business?

Let us run the numbers with an example from the renovation sector. This is an illustration, not a measured case: run the figures with your own numbers.

A renovation company with a Kit Digital website receives zero online enquiries. A competitor, with a website that gets worked on, receives 8 to 12 a month. At a 20% conversion rate and an average project value of 3,000 EUR:

• 10 enquiries x 20% conversion = 2 projects per month
• 2 projects x 3,000 EUR = 6,000 EUR per month in additional revenue

The relevant question is not what the website costs, but what it costs to leave it not working. In sectors with high ticket values and competition on Google, the gap between those two situations is far larger than the investment needed to close it.

Obviously, not every sector has the same potential. A business that runs on referrals may not notice the difference. One that competes on search will.

When Kit Digital is enough

Let us be honest: not every business needs a website that generates leads. If your business:

• Runs exclusively on referrals and word of mouth
• Does not depend on the internet to win new clients
• Only needs a page with the address, phone number, and opening hours
• Has no significant online competition

In that case, a basic Kit Digital website may be sufficient. What you should still do is make sure the domain is in your name and that you have access to the content manager.

When a custom website pays off

If your business:

• Receives (or should receive) client enquiries through the website
• Competes with other companies that do appear on Google
• Needs a presence in more than one language
• Wants to reduce its dependence on paid advertising
• Needs the website to convey professionalism and trust
• Is looking for measurable results and sustained growth

In that case, the website stops being a presence expense and becomes an acquisition channel. And an acquisition channel needs maintenance, like any other.

How the transition from Kit Digital works

The process is simpler than it looks:

1. Discovery session: we review your current website (performance, SEO, content, security) and where the access credentials sit, then pin down what is worth changing.
2. New website from scratch: we design and build a new site with modern technology, rather than patching the existing WordPress.
3. Content migration: we recover the useful content from the old site and optimise it.
4. URL redirects: we make sure Google does not lose the indexation you already have.
5. Continuity: from launch, new content on the agreed cadence and ongoing maintenance.

The old website can stay live while the new one is built, so there is no window in which the business has no presence at all.

If your website came from Kit Digital

At serpixel we build custom websites and take care of what comes next: content, technical maintenance, and positioning on Google and AI search engines. A large share of the sites we rebuild come from exactly this situation, subsidised projects left with nobody behind them.

The domain and the data belong to the client, always. If you want us to look at your case and tell you whether it is worth rebuilding the site or improving what you already have, book a 30-minute discovery call.