Pay-monthly vs one-off websites

The two models in plain terms

One-off (pay once). You pay for the website to be built, usually in two or three stages, and then own it. After launch you pay separately for hosting and, if you choose, a maintenance or care plan. You can usually move it to another provider whenever you like.

Pay-monthly (subscription). You pay little or nothing up front and a fixed monthly fee instead. The fee usually covers the build, hosting and some changes. There is normally a minimum term, often 12 to 24 months, and the provider may own the site itself.

Neither model is a scam and neither is automatically better value. They suit different situations.

What the totals look like

The fairest way to compare is the total you pay over a set period. Here is an illustrative example over three years. The pay-monthly figures are hypothetical prices in a typical range, not any particular provider’s.

The one-off columns use our Bronze and Silver prices with our Bronze and Silver care plans. You could also run a one-off site on basic hosting alone, often from around £10 a month, which would bring the totals down considerably.

The honest reading of that table: over three years, the totals can be fairly close. Pay-monthly is clearly easier on cash flow in year one. One-off usually pulls ahead in years four and five, because the build is paid for and only the running costs remain. And the two columns are not always comparing the same thing: a £75-a-month site may be a template, while a £2,495 site may include custom design and copywriting.

Ownership: the question that matters most

Price differences are often small. Ownership differences can be large.

Ask any provider, pay-monthly or not, these four questions:

1. Who owns the domain name? It should be registered in your name or your business’s name, with you able to log in. This is the most important one. If you lose your domain, you lose your address, your email and your search history.
2. Who owns the design and code? With many pay-monthly deals, the provider keeps ownership and licenses it to you while you pay.
3. Who owns the content? Your text and photos should always be yours, and you should be able to get a copy.
4. What happens when I leave? Can you take the site with you, buy it out, or does it simply switch off?

There is no right answer to question 2, as long as you know the answer before you sign. A cheap monthly fee in exchange for a licence can be a sensible trade. The problem is finding out at the end.

When pay-monthly makes sense

Pay-monthly is a good fit when:

• Cash flow is tight and a £1,500 to £3,000 bill would hurt, especially in a business’s first year.
• You want one bill for everything: build, hosting, security and small changes.
• You see the website as a service rather than an asset, much like a phone contract.
• The contract is fair: a reasonable minimum term, a clear exit route and your domain in your name.

For a new business testing an idea, a modest monthly fee can be a sensible way to get something professional live without tying up cash.

When one-off makes sense

Paying once is usually better when:

• You plan to keep the site for several years. The longer you keep it, the more a one-off build tends to save.
• You want to own the site outright and be free to move host or developer.
• You want a site built around your business rather than adapted from a template.
• You prefer to choose your own support level, from no maintenance at all to a monthly plan you can cancel.

This is how we work at Waltham Websites. Our builds are fixed price, from £1,295 for Bronze to £4,995 for Gold, and you own your domain, content and site from the day it launches. Care plans are £45, £95 or £175 a month and are rolling, so you can stop them at any point. Some clients take a care plan; some host elsewhere and only call us for occasional changes. The web design page explains what each package includes.

Contract terms to read twice

Whichever way you pay, check these before signing:

• Minimum term and what happens at the end. Does it roll over automatically, and for how long?
• Early exit fees. Some contracts charge the remaining months in full.
• Price rises. Can the monthly fee go up during the term, and by how much?
• What “unlimited changes” means. Usually small text and image updates, not new pages or features.
• Buy-out options. If you can buy the site at the end, at what price?
• Domain transfer. Will they hand over the domain promptly if you leave?

For more on vetting a provider, see questions to ask a web design agency.

A middle route: one-off build plus a rolling plan

The choice is not strictly one or the other. Many businesses pay for the build once and then add a monthly plan for the parts that genuinely are ongoing: hosting, backups, security updates and small changes.

This gives you some of the convenience of pay-monthly without the lock-in. The difference is in the contract. A rolling care plan can usually be cancelled with short notice, and cancelling it does not switch your website off, because you already own it. You simply take over the hosting yourself or move it somewhere else.

If you go this way, check what the plan includes in practice: how many hours of changes, how quickly they are made, and whether hosting and backups are part of it or charged separately.

If you are already in a pay-monthly contract

If you are mid-contract and unhappy, start by finding out what you own. Get a copy of your content, confirm who controls the domain and note when the minimum term ends. A new site can be built and ready to switch over the week the contract finishes. Moving to a new site also means setting up redirects from the old page addresses, so you keep any Google rankings you have. Our guide to redesigning without losing rankings covers that, and our website redesign packages start at £995.

The cheapest option of all

If your budget is very small, neither model may be right yet. A DIY builder at around £10 to £40 a month gives you a site you control, with no build fee and usually no long contract. It will not do everything a professionally built site does, but it is a perfectly reasonable place to start. Our guide to how much a website costs in the UK compares all the options side by side.

Next step

If you would like to compare a one-off build with what you are paying now, get in touch and we will set out the numbers plainly. Our fixed prices and care plans are all on the prices page.