A lot of our clients come to us after unsuccessfully doing marketing on their own, and aren’t sure whether it makes sense to outsource marketing. We’ve actually done some math (not one of our favorite things) and when we did our research, we found in most instances, it is actually cheaper to build a website with our team in the long run than it is to build and maintain one yourself – even if paying one flat monthly fee seems more palatable than paying our team to build your website. It’s true: your cheap website is costing you money.
Because most of our sites are built in WordPress, most of the extra things you pay for when using an all-in-one solution are just that – extras. If they aren’t things that will be useful for your business, you don’t need to be paying a premium price for a solution that overserves your needs. Let’s break it down so you can see.
With any website, you’ll be paying for your domain name + hosting costs. Think of your domain name as your street address – it’s the place where people access to find you. For example, flamingoconsultingllc.com. Depending on the popularity of your domain, you’ll pay anywhere from $6.99-19.99, unless someone already owns your name – in which case you may have to pay thousands through a 3rd party broker to release your name, or come up with a creative workaround. It’s important when you come up with a company name to Google it to make sure someone already hasn’t taken your ideal domain – if there’s already an organization using your name, you’ll have a hard time optimizing your website to appear at the top of search engines.
Your hosting cost is the fee that it costs to take up space in the cloud where your site exists. It’s like paying your rent for your house or apartment. Plan on about $75/year for hosting – although we frequently find deals for as low as $40. Both your domain and your hosting costs can be renewed monthly, annually, or for multiple years. The longer you purchase them, the cheaper the cost is per year.
We’ll break down the costs of building a website in Wix, Squarespace, and Google – these are the most common website builders are clients use.
WordPress vs. Wix Website Costs
Upon writing of this blog post (July 2022) the cheapest Wix website plan available is $16/month, or $192/year. While that price decreases to $11/month with a 3-year commitment ($132/year), that price still is not as cheap as a WordPress plan, which typically costs about $85 at most per year. Wix charges extra for e-commerce functionality. By comparison, you can use the WooCommerce solution on WordPress for free, with unlimited transactions.
WordPress vs. Squarespace website costs
While Squarespace provides a more optimized website management product, its costs are similar to that of Wix. The Business-level plan does include a free Google email address (which typically runs at least $6/month), but also misses out on several e-commerce solutions such as customer account access, online checkout, and analytics. Furthermore, Squarespace charges a 3% transaction fee for use of their e-commerce platform.
WordPress vs. Google Sites Costs
Sometimes, you get what you pay for. Google Sites is a free website management system that comes with a Google Workspace account. If you’re looking for a simple-to-build solution to host content, it will work for you. However, the design options are incredibly limited. Anyone who comes to your website will be able to tell it is a Google site immediately because there are only a few templates available. In addition, you will still need to pay for your domain name as listed above.
Outsource your WordPress website
What about working with us? It’s true that outsourcing your website can be a significant upfront cost. However, just like building a house can cost more than your rent, building your site in WordPress grants you a smarter foundation. It’s easy to create a whole new look in just a couple of hours worth of work, while all your information you’ve already added to your site doesn’t need to get re-created.
Furthermore, building your own site means you you have to research solutions and learn how to do most of the work yourself unless you’re already a website design expert. Our developers are experts in the platform, so they can work nimbly and already have most of the solutions you’ll need at hand, because they’ve used them before!
Chat with us today to get started building your WordPress website because one flat monthly fee seems more palatable than paying our team thousands of dollars to build your website because your cheap website is costing you money!
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