Do you need a website if your Instagram already works?

A café owner with a full Instagram grid asked r/business a question that comes back every few months in some form: does he really need a website, "considering he uses Facebook, Instagram, and a few other social media sites for his business"? The most useful reply had nothing to do with design: "your friend does not own his facebook page, his instagram page or any other social media. He can lose those pages for literally any silly reason." If your Instagram already brings in customers, you still need a website, and ownership is only half of why. Instagram is very good at making people want you and poor at answering what they check right before they book. The account it all runs through can also be switched off, and getting a person at Meta to look at it is slow.

TL;DR: Yes. If Instagram already works, you still need a website, and a small one is enough. Keep Instagram for attention. Put the facts a buyer checks before acting (services, prices or price ranges, hours, location, how to book) on a site you control, point your bio at it, and take enquiries through a form that needs no Meta login.

What can a website do that an Instagram profile can't?

A website answers the questions a buyer asks in the minute before they act, while Instagram answers the question before that one. The feed proves the work is good and the place feels right. Then the buyer wants a price, a menu, opening hours, whether you cover their area, and a way to book that doesn't depend on you replying to a DM. Highlights, pinned posts and the contact or booking buttons on a business profile help, but on most profiles the answers still end up spread across a pinned post from last spring, a highlight and a caption, and some are nowhere.

One commenter in the same r/business thread described what that costs. They find a café on Maps and need the menu: "I seriously got to poke around and happen to bump into it on the FB page? It's obviously not going to be found on Instagram. What about the hours and contact info?" Their conclusion: "I'm done trying to deal with this nonsense and look for another cafe."

That commenter isn't an outlier. In SOCi's 2026 Local Discovery Index, a survey of more than 1,000 US consumers published on 5 October 2026, 43% said they preview a business on social media before committing, and 63% had walked away from a business that couldn't answer a question they needed answered. Instagram gets you into the shortlist. Whether the question gets answered is a separate job.

A feed is ordered by date and a website by question. That's why a busy Instagram makes the missing website more expensive: every extra person the feed persuades arrives at a profile that can't tell them what they need to know.

What happens to your business if Meta locks the account?

In June 2025, TechCrunch reported that Instagram users had complained "for weeks" about a significant increase in accounts being mistakenly banned or suspended, and that some appeals got no response at all. Businesses were caught in it. A gym owner wrote that the ban "has directly affected my business and all of the hard work and branding that I've spent countless hours pouring into my business, my gym, and my students." The same report said affected users had no other way to directly contact a member of Meta's support team unless they paid for one of Meta's subscriptions that offer priority access to customer service, and Meta offered no on-record statement at the time.

When the profile is your only home online, a lockout takes the shop window and the enquiry inbox at the same time, along with every DM conversation with a customer. You can appeal, but you can't open a parallel account and expect anyone to find it.

A website on a domain you own keeps the address, the facts and the enquiry form working while you sort the account out. Customers who search your name still land somewhere that says you're open.

Doesn't Instagram show up on Google now?

Partly. Since 10 July 2025, Instagram lets search engines show public posts from professional accounts of adult users, switched on by default under Settings → Privacy. So a Reel or a carousel can now appear in Google results.

That helps a post get discovered. Someone searching "lash extensions Lisbon price" or "boiler repair Saturday Lisbon" wants a page that answers that query, and a post only answers whatever its caption happened to say on the day it went up. Prices change, a service gets added, the Saturday hours stop; the old post keeps ranking with the old facts.

For local searches, your Google Business Profile does more work than either. It also has a website field. Point it at an Instagram profile and the person who just searched for you by name lands on a feed instead of your hours and prices.

When is Instagram alone enough for a small business?

Instagram alone is enough when new customers come almost entirely through people who already know you, and the DM queue never slips. A fully booked barber with a waiting list of regulars won't feel much difference from a new website next month. In the r/business thread one commenter knew cafés in a large capital city whose websites got "a whopping 12 unique visitors per month". If that's you, spend the money elsewhere.

You've outgrown Instagram-only when any of these start happening:

• you answer the same price, hours and availability questions in DMs every day;
• an enquiry got lost because it arrived on a busy afternoon and sank under newer messages;
• customers ask whether you're still open, because the last post is three weeks old;
• you want buyers who don't use Instagram. As one commenter put it, "I deleted my facebook and instagram... There are countless of people like me."

What should a small website for an Instagram business include?

A small website for a business that already sells through Instagram needs fewer pages than most owners expect, and every one of them answers a question the feed can't:

• What you do and where: one sentence a stranger understands, plus the area you cover.
• Prices, or honest "from" ranges. A missing price is a DM you'll have to answer.
• Hours and address, kept current.
• Real photos of the work and the place. Your Instagram already has the best ones.
• One way to book or enquire: a form or booking link that lands somewhere you check every day, with a clear reply expectation. Our post on contact forms covers where those enquiries go missing.
• A link back to Instagram for the latest work.

Then change one setting: point your Instagram bio at the website instead of a page of nine links.

How we split the work between Instagram and the website

We're SharpHaw, a Lisbon web agency, and we run our own content on the split this post recommends. Our Instagram Reels end by sending viewers to the full article on sharphaw.com, where the newsletter signup and the contact form sit on pages we control. If the account went dark tomorrow, the articles and the form would still be there. For a café or a salon the same split is simpler: the feed shows today's work, and the site holds the menu, the prices, the hours and the booking form.

For a business in that position we have a plan called Foundation: the website on its own, built to a scope we agree before any work starts, hosted and kept up, with small text and photo changes on request. The domain is registered in your name and the content is yours to export, and enquiries from the site's form land in SharpOS, our client workspace. It doesn't include content or ads work, so it suits a business whose Instagram is doing its job and whose website is missing.

Frequently asked questions

Can I use my Instagram profile as my website?

You can link to it, but it can't do a website's job. A profile can't hold a price list, opening hours and a booking form in the order a buyer looks for them, and you don't control the account. Use Instagram for discovery and a small website for the facts and enquiries.

Is a link-in-bio page enough instead of a website?

A link-in-bio page is a list of links, so it moves the question somewhere else without answering it. It also usually sits on the tool's own domain, so it disappears if you stop paying or the service closes. A one-page site on your own domain does the same job and stays yours.

Will a website take followers away from my Instagram?

A website and Instagram do different jobs, so they rarely compete. Instagram brings strangers to you, and the website turns the interested ones into bookings or enquiries. Add a link from the site back to your feed and visitors who want to see recent work can follow you from there.

The short version

If Instagram already works, keep it and give it somewhere to send people: a small site, kept current, with the facts a buyer checks before booking and a form that still works if the account is ever locked. If your feed is doing its job and the website is the missing piece, book a 30-min call and we'll look at what your Instagram sends you today and what the site needs to answer.