Custom or Pre-designed WordPress themes, what to use

With WordPress, there are two options regarding using a theme. There are custom themes and pre-designed themes. Which is best and what are the advantages and disadvantages?

Custom WordPress theme advantages:

1. More closely meets the needs of the user.
2. All the clients requirements are taken into account during the design phase and implementation with such things as layout, fonts and function. What they want is what they get.

1. They are considerably more expensive as the designer will need to code the theme.
2. Will usually require more expense to maintain as the original designer would usually maintain the website.
3. May be harder to update or change to a different theme at a later stage.

1. Pre-designed themes are usually quite cheap and in some cases may even be free.
2. Most premium themes have a large range of layout and are quite flexible in their design look and feel.
3. More easily maintained. Updates are usually just a click on the theme update or at worst a file (ftp) upload.
4. Many are well designed an allow a good level of customisation often without needing a knowledge of coding.
5. There are thousands of quality and well maintained themes to choose from.

It all comes down to what do you want and how much are you willing to pay.

WordPress is great for building small business and personal websites and if you can find a pre-built theme that is coded by a company that keeps  it well maintained, it is hard to go wrong.