Okay. So, this is kinda weird to say out loud and I know that it’ll make some designers feel kinda awkward – but the truth is sometimes the uglier the website is, the better the conversion. Not ugly like 1997 GeoCities chaos. Not that blinking text of course or the dreaded autoplay MIDI nonsense. But it is the kind of ugly that feels like nobody sat through a wireframing meeting like ever. No brand guidelines, no concern for whitespace. It is just raw, messy, maybe even loud to say the truth. And yet… conversions go up.
It’s not supposed to work like that, right? Design is supposed to be clean. Pretty. Cohesive. Sleek. But then, you see something like Craigslist, and all your fancy theories fall apart one by one. That site looks like it was printed off a dot matrix and it is still minting money like nothing has changed.
Ugly as a Feature, not a Bug
Have you ever landed on one of those glossy, full-bleed image websites and just thought, maybe it is time to bounce back? Happens to me all the time. It’s too polished for my taste. Feels sterile. Like it was made by a committee that loves Figma too much. There’s no grit. No soul. It’s almost suspicious.
That’s where the ugly ones get you. They’re beautifully chaotic, sure. But oddly believable. Like, “yeah this guy is just trying to sell me discount car parts, not run a design studio.” That honesty – unintentional as it might be – builds trust. Maybe this trick does not with everyone. But with some buyers for sure.
As ConversionXL once put it:
..Ugly sites that looked like they were “built by a 10 year old” tended to convert exceedingly well. Major sites like Walmart and CVS use exceedingly plain websites. It may seem counterintuitive to purposely create an “ugly” site but the nearly forgotten affiliate marketing strategy of “ugly sites sell” might be useful to revisit.
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/do-ugly-sites-sell/342203/
I remember this Shopify store. That store was selling tactical gear. The fonts were everywhere. Backgrounds clashed. Product photos were… ugh. But strangely enough the guy had insane conversion rates. Like, better than stores that looked like Apple knockoffs. Why? The reasons are quite obvious. Because his customers weren’t design nerds. They were dads in their 40s or 50s just trying to buy some decent quality flashlights.
Beauty is a Bias
Most of us tend to assume that clean automatically means trustworthy. Or that a vast majority of users prefer minimal layouts. Maybe they say that in surveys. But when it comes to behavior, things change drastically.
There was a study I saw once – maybe Baymard, I think – showing how over-designed sites tend to make people feel a little queasy. When encountered with a polished website, most people tend to take a bit long to decide. You can put the blame squarely on Information overload to some extent. Too many animations. Everything whispering “hey look at me.”
Users often perceive highly polished, professionally designed websites as corporate or sales-driven. In contrast, less polished sites can feel more genuine, relatable, and transparent… When a website doesn’t appear overly commercial or polished, people tend to trust it more.
https://raw.studio/blog/how-ugly-websites-are-winning-the-conversion-game/
And here’s the uncomfortable truth that we simply can’t put under the rug: sometimes ugly websites are easier. Most ugly websites have Fewer moving parts. They tend to flaunt large text. Obviously large and obnoxious buttons. It’s like those late-night infomercials – no production value, but direct message.
“Click here to buy.” That’s the magic.
Conversion by Confusion
Now this might be a stretch, but stick with me for few more seconds please. There’s this theory I have heard somewhere – those ugly layouts confuse users just enough that they stop thinking and just act. Like, “I don’t wanna deal with these confusions anymore, let me just checkout fast.”
It’s wild, right? But maybe it’s not even confusion. Maybe it’s all about speed. A basic site loads faster unlike a polish website that tends to have loads of heavy graphics and tons of animations. Basically, simple websites have fewer stuff to process. Your brain just goes: yes, or no? Buy or bounce? Things become easier when there are fewer things involved.
I mean… it makes sense. Who has time anymore?
When Ugly Stops Working
But alright, let’s pump the brakes for the time being. To be honest with you all, not all ugly convert like crazy. If you’re selling luxury skincare products, and your site somewhat looks like a 2003 blog, believe me no one’s going to trust you with their face. If your target market is designers, or millennials with aesthetic trauma, they are going to ghost you in one way or the other.
It’s contextual to some extent. Ugly website can sell products when the expectations are somewhat low. Or when the product is the king. Or when the audience just doesn’t care much about the design.
I once helped a friend to rebuild his small electronics repair website. I did not say that to his face but to be honest, his old site was honestly gross – lime green backgrounds, Comic Sans, broken nav. But despite that, he used to receive multiple calls every single day. It just blew my mind. We did what any other web design agency would have done. We redesigned it and made it look gorgeous. We used flat icons, muted colors, super tight typography and lots of amazing animations.
And guess what? Leads dropped like a stone. People thought it was some fancy new place. They would feel that they are dealing with the same guy who’d been fixing PlayStations for 15 years. The visual upgrade erased the familiarity that they have grown so familiar with. Finally, we actually had to bring back some of the ugliness just see a slight spike in the conversion rate. Like, literally put Comic Sans back on one section; yeah, we did that! Guess what, calls came back almost immediately.
Wild.
Ugly is Fast. Fast is Money.
Every kilobyte matters when it comes to page speed. When your beautiful page takes 6 seconds to load, your user is already gone. Now, imagine landing on a simple static website with barebone structure. It would load almost instantaneously.
Ugly sites are usually lighting fast. They don’t have any image slider which is a big plus. No hero video that autoplays with the sound on and makes everyone hate you.
Maybe Ugly Is Just Honest
Ugly sites feel like real people have made them. Not brands. Not boards of directors. But a simple dude who is trying to make a living with his trade. A person who’s trying to sell you dog treats or refurbished air conditioners or custom mugs.
And the weird thing is… sometimes we trust ugly more. Not always of course. But often enough to mess with your design beliefs that you have developed over the years.
So does ugly convert better? Sometimes. Often. Maybe even most of the time if you’re selling a thing, not an experience. If your user just wants results, not vibes in that case, these ugly websites will perform like a charm.
Last modified: July 20, 2025