Templates have closed a lot of the gap. A well-chosen template, filled with good content and decent photography, will beat a bad custom build every time. So the honest question is not custom versus template — it's where the marginal money is best spent.
Templates win when the goal is speed, budget is tight, and the business is still figuring out its positioning. There is no point pouring money into a bespoke system for a proposition that will change in six months.
Custom wins when the website is a primary commercial asset — when small differences in conversion, perception, or differentiation translate into real revenue. At that point, the constraints of a template start costing more than the build would have.
The clearest signal is differentiation. If your market is crowded and everyone is using the same three templates, a custom system is one of the few places you can visibly out-execute. We take on custom work where it actually moves the numbers, and we'll say so when it doesn't.