Do you really have to pay every month for your website?
Not always. For most service businesses, the only must-pay item is the web address, about $15 a year. Here's what you're really paying for, and when a monthly plan is worth it.
Website builders made it easy to get online, and they made monthly fees feel normal. But a simple business website doesn't need a monthly plan to stay online. Here's what the pieces really cost.
What a website actually needs
- A web address, like yourbusiness.com. About $15 a year, paid to a company called a registrar. Make sure it's registered in your name.
- Hosting: the computers that show your site to visitors. For a simple, fast business site, hosting can cost $0. Cloudflare, for example, doesn't charge for serving a site's files.
- The website itself: the design, the words and the photos. That's work you can pay for once.
- Business email is separate. Services like Google Workspace, Microsoft 365 and Zoho usually charge per person, and some have free options for very small teams.
What website builders charge in 2026
Builders like Wix and Squarespace bundle all of that into one monthly plan. As of fall 2026, paying for a year up front:
- Wix: about $17 to $39 a month for its common plans, more if you pay month to month.
- Squarespace: about $19 to $49 a month after its July 2026 price increase.
That's roughly $200 to $600 a year, every year, for as long as you have the site. If you stop paying, the site goes offline, and you usually can't take the design with you to another company.
The 5-year math
Say you pay $30 a month. Over 5 years, that's $1,800. A website you pay for once, like my Business plan at $899, plus about $15 a year for the web address, comes to about $974 over the same 5 years. Try your own numbers with the savings calculator.
When a monthly plan can still make sense
A monthly builder can be worth it if:
- You want to change your site yourself every day.
- You need a feature that comes built into the platform, like online courses or memberships.
Selling products? An online store doesn't have to mean a monthly plan either. I can build you one that's yours, with payments going straight to your own Stripe or Square account. Send me what you pay now, and I'll show you for free how much you could save.
Five questions to ask before you pay anyone for a website
- Is the web address registered in my name, with my email?
- Who owns the design and the files? Can I take them to another company?
- What happens if I stop paying?
- Who has the passwords, and will I get them?
- What will I pay in year 2, 3 and 5, not just the first month?
Good answers to all five mean you're buying, not renting.
Want a website that's yours?
From $399, paid once. $0 a month to keep it online. Everything in your name.