What a Website Really Costs: Fixed Price or Plan

The three quotes cannot be compared because they describe different things. A fixed price describes a result: a finished website with a scope agreed in advance. An hourly rate describes effort: the working time someone spends on your project, without the total being fixed. A subscription describes use: the right to fill someone else's system with content for as long as the payments continue. Placing those three figures side by side compares a piece of work with a timesheet and a rental.

At heart the difference is a question every landscaping firm knows from its own trade: who carries the risk if the job turns out bigger than expected? With a fixed price the supplier carries it. They build in a buffer, and that buffer is the price of knowing in advance what the final invoice will say. With an hourly rate you carry the risk. If everything runs smoothly you pay less than the fixed price. If the coordination drags on you pay more, and you notice only when the invoices arrive.

With a subscription nobody carries the risk at first, which is exactly what makes it attractive at first glance. There is no large amount falling due at once, and leaving appears possible at any time. You still pay, just in sixty small amounts instead of one large one. The real difference does not show up in the cost but at the end of the term: with a fixed price or an hourly rate you have something afterwards, with a subscription you had something for five years.

An hourly rate has a legitimate place, but not for the initial build. It works where the scope is open by nature: ongoing work, small additions across the year, an analysis where the first look raises a second question. Demanding a fixed price for that would mean writing a quote for every half hour, and that costs both sides more than the work is worth.

For the initial build, time billing derails at one particular point: coordination effort. When three people in the business have different ideas about the home page, when text is rearranged over several rounds, when photographs are supplied and then swapped again, hours accumulate that nobody planned. With a fixed price that effort is priced in. With an hourly rate you pay for it, and you pay for decisions being made inside your own company.

So if you engage on a time basis you need two things stated in the quote: a ceiling above which work pauses for a conversation, and an invoice that names activities rather than merely totalling hours. A timesheet with the line web work is as informative as a construction stage payment with the line garden work. Neither can be checked.

One-off costs are the part people talk about. Running costs are the part that surprises, usually in the second year, when the first invoice arrives for something the build price did not include. Four items continue after the build regardless of the chosen model. Individually they are small; over five years they add up to more than some build prices.

A fifth item generates no invoice and costs money anyway: your own working time. Someone in the business has to select photographs, report changes, supply new references and update the job ad. Those hours occur whether or not they are recorded, and they occur in spring, when they are at their most expensive.

Bundling these items into a flat rate makes them plannable: upkeep and hosting can be budgeted from 39 euro per month (project experience), and preparing a set of photographs starts at 290 euro (project experience). What matters is less the amount than whether the item appears in the budget at all. A website without budgeted maintenance does not age slowly but in jumps: it works, works, works, and then one day the form stops accepting enquiries.

Five years is a realistic horizon for a website (project experience). Rebuilding earlier is rare, and much later the structure becomes a burden both technically and in content terms. Within that period the three models can be compared, because every item occurs at least once: build, images, running costs, changes and your own working time.

The worked example below assumes a business covering four trades, with a reference gallery and an enquiry form, at the same page count in all three models. The amounts come from our own projects (project experience) and are net. They are not a quote but an order of magnitude against which you can place your own figures.

Two things stand out. First, fixed price and hourly rate sit closer together than the quotes suggest: the hourly rate is cheaper to build and recovers the difference over five years through changes, because every small item is billed separately. Second, the subscription is the smaller figure as long as you only count invoices, and the larger one as soon as your own working time is given a value.

The line without a figure turns out to be the most important: what does the business own after five years? With a fixed price or an hourly rate, a website that can be moved, extended and reused. With a subscription, a stock of text and images and the task of paying for the build a second time. Anyone wanting a fair comparison adds that second build to the subscription total and runs the numbers again.

Not every business can tie up several thousand euro over winter, especially with a machine purchase due in spring. The answer is rarely the cheapest quote but a smaller first stage. A website from 1,490 euro (project experience) with few but complete pages achieves more than an extensive site whose content stays half finished because the input never arrives.

The sensible order follows effect: first the pages that generate enquiries, meaning the home page, the two or three most important trades, the service area and an enquiry form that asks the questions otherwise settled on the phone. Further trade pages, the full reference gallery and the careers page follow later. A more extensive build from 2,900 euro (project experience) pays off once photographs and text genuinely exist.

What rarely pays off is refreshing an existing site only superficially because a rebuild seems too expensive. If structure, loading behaviour and mobile presentation do not hold up, the refresh is spending without effect that falls due again two years later. Whether a relaunch is worthwhile or upkeep is enough is decided on those three points, not on the age of the site.