A monthly fee feels small. That is the point of it. CA$30 or CA$50 a month never looks like a big decision, so nobody adds it up. Let’s add it up.
The three-year test
Take any monthly price and multiply it by 36. That is roughly how long a small business keeps a site before a redesign.
- A builder plan at CA$30 a month is about CA$1,080 over three years, before apps.
- An agency “care plan” at CA$100 a month is CA$3,600.
- Add a booking or forms app at CA$15 a month and that is another CA$540.
And prices rarely stay put. Builders raise their plans every few years, and you have no say in it.
What you are actually paying for
Most subscriptions bundle three things:
- Hosting. Keeping the site online. For a small business site built the right way, this can cost nothing: modern static sites run on free plans from providers like Cloudflare.
- The tool. The builder’s editor, templates and apps. You pay for it every month, whether you open it or not.
- “Up to X hours of edits.” Many care plans include an hour or two of changes a month. Most owners don’t use them. A small business typically needs a handful of edits a year: new prices, holiday hours, a new photo.
If you only need a few changes a year, a monthly plan means paying for eleven months of nothing.
The alternative: pay once, then per task
Here is the model we use, and why:
- The build is paid once. Half to start, half at launch. No renewal.
- Hosting is free, on a Cloudflare account in your own name.
- Changes are paid per task. You message us, we tell you how long it takes, you say yes. CA$45 an hour, and most small edits take well under an hour.
Over three years, a business site at CA$450 plus four hours of edits a year comes to CA$450 plus about twelve hours of work, with nothing to cancel and nothing that goes up while you’re not looking.
When a subscription does make sense
To be fair, monthly plans fit some businesses:
- You change the site every week, like a restaurant with a daily menu.
- You want someone to run ads, social media or reports for you each month.
- You enjoy editing the site yourself and like the builder’s tools.
If that’s not you, add up your own three years. The number usually speaks for itself.
Who owns the site at the end?
The last question to ask any subscription: what happens when you stop paying? With most builders, the site goes offline and you can’t take it with you. With a site you own, the domain, the code and the hosting are already in your name, so nothing happens at all. It just keeps working.