Website Subscription or One-Off Price? Both Models Costed

A website subscription is not automatically the more customer-friendly option just because the number looks smaller. It converts capital requirement into predictability, and you pay for that over time. Whether it is worth it hangs on a single question: how often does your website change after launch. Here are both models costed out, ours included.

Our own numbers, in full

Our model costs 349 EUR net per month on a 12-month term. That is 4,188 EUR net in the first year. After that, 49 EUR net per month covers hosting and maintenance, so 588 EUR net per year. The website belongs to you from launch, not at the end of the term.

Over five years: 4,188 EUR plus four years at 588 EUR, giving 6,540 EUR net. Over three years it is 5,364 EUR net. That includes the custom build, hosting, domain, maintenance, ongoing text and image changes, a GDPR-compliant setup and an initial round of technical SEO. The full scope is on the pricing page.

That is the figure you should hold every one-off quote against. Not the 349 EUR, but the total across the period you are actually planning for.

The items missing from one-off quotes

A one-off price is rarely the final price, and that is not down to dishonest providers. It is because a website is an ongoing operation. Four items nearly always follow.

Hosting and domain. Recurring, varying with requirements, but never zero.

Maintenance and security. Updates, backups, uptime checks. Not commissioning it does not save the cost, it defers it. On WordPress installations this item is regularly the largest, as the article on WordPress or a custom build shows.

Changes. The most underestimated item by far. Without an agreed arrangement, every small adjustment becomes an hourly charge, and the predictable result is a website nobody touches any more.

The rebuild. After three to five years, a site that has not been developed is technically and editorially out of date. Then you pay again. What that costs is covered in the article on relaunch costs.

When the subscription is the worse deal

That last row is the real point, and it argues against us. If you have the capital for a one-off project and your website will stay largely unchanged for years after launch, a one-off price is cheaper over time. You pay once for the build, organise hosting and maintenance leanly, and leave the site alone.

That applies to more companies than subscription providers like to admit. A law firm with a stable client base, a supplier with no new business coming through the website, a trades business already at capacity: in those cases a website is a credential, not a channel. A monthly amount for ongoing development that nobody calls on is money given away, and we say so in the first conversation.

The reverse also holds: if you regularly add content, change services, test landing pages or want to build visibility, the subscription pays for itself several times over, because in a one-off model exactly that work would have to be commissioned and paid for every single time.

The three questions that carry the decision

• How often does your website realistically change? More than four times a year argues for a subscription, fewer than twice argues against
• Is the website a sales channel or a credential? Channels need continuous work, credentials do not
• How does the capital look? If you can put up 4,000 to 5,000 EUR today without pain and rarely change anything, do it
• One extra question for every provider: who owns the source code, the content and the domain, and what happens on cancellation

Why we publish these figures rather than writing "price on request" is set out in the article on pricing pages. Briefly: a hidden price does not filter out the wrong inquiries, it prevents the right ones.

What a subscription contract has to settle

With subscription models, the contract decides the difference between a fair offer and a tie-in. Four points belong in writing before you sign: what happens once the minimum term ends, what notice period applies, whether and how the price can be adjusted, and which services the monthly amount actually covers.

The real warning sign is none of those four, but a fifth answer. If a provider will not state clearly that the source code, the content and the domain are yours, they are not selling you a website, they are selling you the use of one. In that case the monthly amount is not financing, it is rent with an exit fee attached.

Concrete steps for the next 90 days

• Days 1-15: count the changes made to your existing site over the last two years. That number largely settles the model question
• Days 16-30: project your current one-off quote across five years, including hosting, maintenance, changes and one rebuild
• Days 31-45: hold that total against 6,540 EUR net over five years and compare the scope, not just the number
• Days 46-60: get every provider to confirm in writing who owns the code, the content and the domain
• Days 61-90: decide on change frequency and capital position, not on the smaller number in the quote

Conclusion

Both models are sound as long as both are costed in full. The subscription sells predictability and continuous work. The one-off price sells ownership on a fixed date and lower total cost when nothing changes. Our model is set out openly on the website as a service page, with everything it includes. If your answer to the change question is "almost never", we will tell you so in the conversation and point you towards a one-off project. Realistic orders of magnitude for that are in the article on what a website costs.