Renting a website
looks cheaper.
No investment up front, a fixed monthly fee, hosting and maintenance included. For a small site that can be the cheapest route, and I will say so. For most businesses it is the most expensive way to have a website, and you only see the difference once you work it out over three years.
What the offer page does not say.
The site is not yours
On most subscriptions you rent. Stop paying and it goes offline and you are left with nothing: no files, no code, sometimes not even the copy in usable form.
The build cost is still in there
You pay for the build anyway, just in instalments and usually with a mark-up. The amount does not disappear, it gets spread out.
Changes come with a limit
Often a few a year are included, with a ceiling you discover at the moment you cross it.
Your position weakens every year
After three years of paying you start from zero if you want to leave. Both parties know that, and it shows in what a renewal costs.
Licences leave with the subscription
The themes and plugins your site runs on are rented through your provider. When the subscription stops, so do they.
The domain is in their name
This is the one part you cannot buy back later. Check it today, even if you change nothing else.
How it works here.
You pay for the build once
One fixed project price, known up front. No reconciliation afterwards, no amount spread over sixty months with interest nobody calls interest.
Maintenance is separate and cancellable
A fixed yearly fee for updates, backups and monitoring. Cancellable yearly, and your site stays online if you stop.
Everything is in your name
Code in your GitHub, domain in your name, hosting on your account. From day one, not after the last instalment.
Leaving is allowed
I want you to stay because it works, not because leaving costs you your website. That is the whole difference between these two models.
- ✓Fixed project price, known up front
- ✓Maintenance per year, cancellable yearly
- ✓Code, domain and hosting in your name
- ✓No cap on what you change yourself
- ✓No platform holding your site hostage
On top of that only hosting at cost and optional maintenance per year. No ongoing commitment.
What a site costs in your case depends on the number of pages and whether functionality is involved. After a half-hour call you get an indication, and within 24 hours a proposal with scope and planning.
Work it out once and the discussion is over
Providers in this corner of the market charge somewhere between nineteen and a hundred and fifty euros a month, sometimes with a lump sum on top. Put that side by side over three and five years and the picture usually tips.
On a hundred euros a month you pay three thousand six hundred over three years and six thousand over five, and you still do not have a site that is yours. A one-off build plus hosting and maintenance often lands in the same order for an ordinary business site, with the difference that something is yours at the end.
The full story, with the three questions to ask your provider, is in paying monthly for a website: what you actually get.
€ 19 a month
€ 1,140 over five years, which is less than the € 1,500 a site of your own costs here. You usually get a template with your logo in it and changes at extra cost. For a business card of a site this can simply be the better choice.
€ 50 a month
€ 3,000 over five years. This is where it tips: for that money you could have had two sites of your own built here, and they would have been yours.
€ 149 + € 35 a month
€ 2,249 over five years, plus the entry fee. The low starting number hides that you end up paying more than the € 1,500 a site of your own costs, without owning one.
One-off plus maintenance
One amount up front, then only hosting at cost and optional maintenance per year. Stop the maintenance and your site simply stays up.
When a subscription genuinely is the better choice
For a very small site a subscription can work out cheaper over three years. That is the honest outcome and it does not change because I do it differently.
Need a three-page site, nothing on it ever changes, and you mainly want someone else to worry about it? Then a subscription is live sooner and cheaper than what I do. Say so in the first call; I will point you elsewhere rather than talk you into a quote.
The tipping point is the moment your site has to do something: a form wired into your admin, more than a handful of pages, or findability that goes beyond your own company name.
Already in a subscription?
First ask what you get on leaving: the files, the domain and the database. If you are locked into the platform, switching is a rebuild rather than a move. That is perfectly doable — copy and design carry over, the technology does not.
Make sure your domain is in your own name at the very least, even if you change nothing else. It is the one part you cannot buy back later.
On a switch every old URL gets a redirect to the new page, so your positions in Google move with you. Why that is the step that goes wrong most often is in what a migration costs you in rankings.
- ✓Domain in your own name
- ✓Request files and database
- ✓Secure your copy and imagery
- ✓Check notice period and renewal date
- ✓Redirects from every old URL
Websites in the real world
Can I pay you monthly for a website?
What does a website subscription cost on average?
Is a website on subscription cheaper?
Who owns my website if I stop paying?
Can my subscription site be migrated?
Can I pay for the build in instalments?
What does the maintenance cost per year then?
Tell me what you
want to build.
A half-hour call. You get an honest answer about what it costs, how long it takes and whether building it is smart at all.