Framer vs. Custom Code: Choosing a Website Stack for a Growing B2B Company
The short answer: for a site with several languages, many CMS collections and A/B testing, custom code run with Claude costs about $720–925 a year instead of about $2,400 on Framer, loads faster and gives you full control over SEO and AEO. Your marketing team runs it day to day in plain language, without a developer. For a small site that a designer edits visually every week, Framer is still a sound choice.
The decision growing B2B companies face
Many B2B companies start on Framer or Webflow for a good reason: marketing can ship pages without waiting for developers.
Then the company grows. At Series A–B, the website grows with it. More languages. Fifteen or more CMS collections. Gated content. A/B tests on the homepage and pricing page. Framer’s add-on pricing climbs with each of these, and page speed and SEO control reach a ceiling.
So more of these companies are moving to custom code. The old reason not to, “every change needs a developer”, no longer holds. AI tools like Claude now do the technical work, and marketers request changes in plain language.
We know this from our own work. Allsite builds and sets up these sites for clients, and the person writing this runs custom-code websites with Claude every day without being a developer.
One point matters more than any feature comparison: make the stack decision early. Once a site is built deep into one platform, switching means a rebuild.
Framer vs. custom code at a glance
| Area | Framer | Custom code + Claude | What it means |
|---|---|---|---|
| Yearly running costs | From about $2,400/yr for a large site | About $720–925/yr | Save about $1,500+ per year |
| Hosting and security | Included, nothing to maintain | Cloudflare (hosting, CDN, SSL, firewall) and GitHub (history, backups). Set up once, runs itself | You own everything, no lock-in |
| Page speed and accessibility | 90+ on mobile is hard to reach and hold | 95–100 achievable | Keep third-party scripts lean |
| SEO and AEO | Basics built in, limited control of HTML and schema | Full control: schema, semantic HTML, hreflang, llms.txt | Easier for Google and AI to read. No ranking guarantees |
| Blog and content | Built-in CMS | Ask Claude, check the preview link, approve | Same effort; SEO and translation included |
| Design flexibility | Visual canvas, drag and drop | New sections and features by prompt, no platform limits | Ship new ideas faster |
| Design system | Shared components in Framer | Colors, type, spacing, components defined once; Claude only uses those | Brand stays consistent by default |
| Developer dependence | None for routine edits | None: edits, new pages and big features run through Claude | No developer needed after launch |
| Collaboration and approvals | Live co-editing, roles, staging | Every change gets a preview link and an approval; full history, one-click rollback | Name one approver in marketing |
What each stack costs per year
Prices below are list prices as of November 2026, in USD, excluding VAT, with annual billing where offered.
The example is a typical site for a Series A–B B2B client: 3 languages, 20 CMS collections, A/B testing and 3 people editing.
Framer: about $2,400 per year
| Item | Price | Per year |
|---|---|---|
| Pro site plan | $30/mo | $360 |
| 10 extra CMS collections (Pro includes 10) | $40/mo per 10 | $480 |
| 2 extra languages | $20/mo each | $480 |
| A/B testing add-on | $50/mo per 500k events | $600 |
| Editor seats | $20/mo designer, $10/mo content editor | ~$480 |
| Total | ~$2,400 |
Custom code + Claude: about $720–925 per year
| Item | Price | Per year |
|---|---|---|
| Claude Team, 3 seats | $20/seat/mo annual ($25 monthly), min. 2 seats | $720 |
| Cloudflare hosting | Free, or $5/mo paid plan | $0–60 |
| GitHub | Free, or Team $4/user/mo for required approvals | $0–144 |
| CMS, languages, A/B tests | No per-item fees | $0 |
| Total | ~$720–925 |
Three things stand out:
- Costs scale differently. On Framer, every language, collection, test and seat adds to the bill. With custom code, costs grow only with the number of people using Claude.
- The Claude seats do more than run the website. The same seats cover writing, research and analysis across the team.
- Domains cost the same either way, so they are left out.
To compare for your own site, count four things: languages, CMS collections, A/B tests and editors.
Speed and accessibility
A well-built custom site, for example on Astro, can realistically score 95–100 on Google PageSpeed. In our experience, Framer sites are hard to push above 90 on mobile. These are typical results from our projects, not guarantees.
The reason is how much code each page carries. Framer ships its own JavaScript runtime on every page for animations and interactivity. A custom site ships plain HTML and adds JavaScript only where a feature needs it. Less code means faster loading, better Core Web Vitals and fewer layout shifts.
On either platform, the score is decided by the same few things:
- Third-party scripts. Analytics, cookie banners, chat widgets and tag managers can each cost several points on mobile.
- Media. Large hero videos and uncompressed images. Custom code can resize and convert images automatically at build time.
- Fonts and heavy scroll animations.
- Content added later. Custom code can block a publish that breaks a speed or accessibility check.
Both platforms can meet WCAG 2.2 AA. Custom code gives direct control over headings, labels, focus states, contrast and keyboard navigation, and automated checks run on every change. In Framer, accessibility depends on how each component was built.
SEO and AEO
| Element | Framer | Custom code + Claude |
|---|---|---|
| Titles, descriptions, social images | Built in, per page and CMS item | Built in via templates; Claude fills them on every new page |
| Semantic HTML (headings, articles, lists) | Partly controlled, generated by Framer | Fully controlled |
| Structured data (schema.org) | Manual, custom code per page | Automatic per page type: Organization, Article, FAQ, Product |
| Sitemap and robots.txt | Automatic | Automatic, fully editable |
| Redirects | Built in on Pro | Built in, managed as a file |
| Localization and hreflang | Automatic, not editable | Automatic, fully editable, localized URLs |
| Internal linking | Manual | Manual, or Claude suggests related links on each article |
| AI-readable content (llms.txt, AI crawler rules) | Readable, little extra control | Full control |
Neither platform guarantees rankings, or mentions in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini or Google’s AI Overviews. Those depend mainly on content quality, authority and links.
What custom code changes is the cost of acting on advice. It removes technical obstacles, and an SEO or AEO recommendation becomes a prompt, not a ticket.
How a marketing team runs the site without a developer
The setup uses four essential tools and two optional ones:
- Astro (essential): the website framework. It builds fast, plain HTML pages and holds the design system, templates and blog.
- GitHub (essential): stores code and content, with every version and who changed what. Reviews and approvals happen here.
- Cloudflare (essential): hosting, global CDN, free SSL, DDoS protection and firewall, plus a preview link for every change.
- Claude Team with Claude Code (essential): where the team requests changes in plain language. Claude edits, opens a change for review and explains what it did.
- A visual CMS such as Keystatic or Decap (optional): a form-based editor for people who prefer fields over chat.
- Light analytics such as Cloudflare Web Analytics or Plausible (optional): visitor stats without heavy scripts.
Publishing a blog article in 6 steps
- Request. A marketer opens Claude in the browser, desktop app or on their phone and writes: “Publish this article as a blog post. Translate it into German. Use the attached image as the cover.”
- Preparation. Claude builds it from the blog template: headline, summary, author, tags, SEO title and description, image alt text, structured data, related links and translation.
- Preview. Within about a minute, a private preview link shows the article exactly as it will look.
- Feedback. “Shorten the intro and use the second image.” Claude updates it and the preview refreshes.
- Approval. The approver checks the preview and clicks Approve.
- Live. The article is published automatically. The sitemap, blog overview and language switcher update themselves.
Guardrails that keep the brand consistent
- A rules file tells Claude to build only from approved components and design tokens, never one-off styles.
- Page templates fix the structure. People fill in the content.
- Automatic checks run on every change: broken links, missing alt text, accessibility and a speed budget.
- Nothing goes live without a preview and an approval. Every version is kept, and rollback is one click.
Working as a team
Several people can work at once. Each request is its own separate copy, combined only when approved. A shared Claude Project holds brand voice, messaging and product facts, so everyone’s Claude writes the same way. Cloud sessions run on Anthropic’s servers and connect to GitHub, so nobody installs developer tools.
Security is simpler too. A static site has no database or login page to attack, which removes the most common attack paths. Cloudflare adds DDoS protection and a firewall.
When Framer still makes sense
Custom code is not the right answer for every company. The design and content work is the same either way. The difference is who controls the platform and how changes get made.
Custom code + Claude fits when you:
- want top Google and AI-search performance and full technical SEO control
- plan several languages, many pages or custom features such as calculators, integrations or gated content
- want to own your website, with no platform lock-in
- already use Claude across the team, or want to
Framer fits when you:
- want a designer to adjust layouts visually by hand every week
- want zero technical setup and one vendor for everything
- need several people editing the same page live at the same time
- have a small site where add-on costs stay low
Decide the stack before the build
Three takeaways:
- Decide early. Switching after you have invested deep in one platform means a rebuild.
- Run the numbers for your own site. Count languages, CMS collections, A/B tests and editors.
- Custom code no longer means developer dependence. The marketing team runs it with Claude.
Talk to us before the build starts
Choosing your website stack? Talk to Allsite before the build starts. We’ll run the numbers for your site, recommend Framer or custom code, and set up the stack so your marketing team can run it from day one. Request a project.
Sources (prices as of November 2026)
- Framer pricing: plans, seats, CMS collections, localization, add-ons
- Claude pricing: Team plan, seats, Claude Code
- Claude Code on the web: cloud sessions, GitHub connection
- Cloudflare Workers pricing and preview URLs
- GitHub pricing: Free and Team plans, required reviewers
Performance figures are typical results from our own projects, not vendor guarantees.
Related reading
- Framer vs Webflow vs custom code
- When to leave Framer
- Framer pricing in 2026
- How to migrate a website without losing SEO
Allsite is a Berlin design and development studio for funded tech companies. We build marketing websites in Framer and custom code, with one senior team from positioning to launch.
