When you start shopping around for a website, the first thing you’ll notice is how much the prices vary. One agency quotes a few hundred pounds, another a few thousand. It’s tempting to go with the lowest number and move on.
The trouble is that the headline price is often just the starting point. What matters is what you’ll actually have paid a year or two from now.
Where the extra costs hide
A lot of website quotes cover the build and not much else. The rest turns up later, usually as a monthly add-on:
- Hosting. Sometimes free for the first year, then charged on top.
- Maintenance and updates. Security patches, backups and keeping things running, often billed monthly.
- Changes. A new photo, updated opening hours or a new page, each charged by the hour or as a separate job.
- SEO. The site gets built, but helping people actually find it is a separate package.
- Security and SSL. The padlock in the address bar that tells visitors your site is safe.
None of these are unreasonable things to pay for. You need all of them. The problem is when they aren’t in the price you were first shown, so you can’t compare like for like.
A quick example
Say you’re offered a website for £495. It looks like a bargain. Add maintenance at £49 a month and the first year comes to £1,083. From year two, hosting gets added on top, and any help being found on Google is quoted separately.
Now compare that with our Basic plan: a £350 design fee and £60 a month, which comes to £1,070 for the first year. That already includes hosting, security, SSL, changes made for you, and a site built to be found on Google from day one. In year two, it’s still £60 a month.
The two prices looked very different on day one. By the end of the year they’re about the same, and only one of them has everything included.
The price you see is the price you pay
This is why our pricing is all-inclusive. Every package covers the design, the build, SEO, accessibility and, on monthly plans, hosting, security, SSL and your changes. There are no add-ons, no upsells and no surprise invoices.
The only thing you’ll pay for separately is your domain name, the yourbusiness.co.uk part, which usually costs around £20 a year. You buy it and you own it, so it’s always yours. If you’d rather not deal with it, we can register and set it up for you for a small one-off fee, and it stays in your name.
If you choose a one-off build instead of a monthly plan, you pay once and the site is handed over to you to host wherever you like. Again, no extras.
What to ask before you compare quotes
Whoever you end up working with, these questions will help you see the real cost:
- Is hosting included, and for how long?
- What happens when I need a change made, and what does it cost?
- Is SEO included, or is it a separate package?
- Who keeps the site secure and up to date?
- What will I have paid in total after one year, and after two?
If the answers are clear and nothing is hidden, you’re in good hands, whoever it is.
Have a look
You can see exactly what’s in each package, with the prices published up front. If you’ve got a quote from somewhere else and want a second opinion, send us a message and we’ll happily talk you through it. 😺