BIG difference. While you can make the site look fairly decent usually with a DIY type site, you likely will not rank well on the engines. DIY sites are typically designed to be rather cookie cutter. They don't always follow engine protocol and are not designed for the engines with specific things that engines look for when they send a robot to your site. This is why Custom designed sites by real professionals, who know what they are doing, will always be a big winner over any DIY software.
Don’t settle when it comes to your website. Free website builders are not all they are cracked up to be. They miss the boat when it comes to coding that the engines are looking for. So while you might get the site looking halfway decent, you will have a really tough time marketing the site on the engines. The engines look for specific things and cookie cutting free website designers just to cut it when you get right down to it. Here at Quantum, we spend time with you personally in order to understand your business so that we can create the best custom website for you which can then aid in branding and increased sales.