What a Website Really Costs to Own
The build price is what you pay once. The ownership cost is what you keep paying — the domain, the hosting, the software, the care, and the usage fees a low build quote conveniently leaves out. Knowing the second number is what stops the first from being a surprise.
A build quote is not the cost of owning the site.
A website has a build cost and an ownership cost, and a lot of expensive confusion comes from treating them as the same thing. The build is a one-time fee for designing and launching the site. The ownership cost is everything that keeps the site running, correct and useful for the years after — and it is almost never the number on the first quote.
A service business that pays $1,800 for a build and then $40 a month for the platform, $25 a month for the form tool, $15 a month for the calendar and an unspecified amount every time something needs changing is paying a real ownership cost that the build quote did not describe. Add it up over three years and the ongoing fees exceed the build. That is normal. What is not normal is finding out after the fact.
The honest version separates the build from the ongoing services, names each recurring cost, states who owns each account, and explains what happens if you want to move. The goal is not to make the site sound expensive — it is to make the cost legible so you can choose the right setup instead of the cheapest setup that turns out to cost more.
The recurring costs behind a working site.
These are the components that make up a website's real yearly cost. A transparent proposal names each one; a vague one bundles them and hopes you don't ask.
Annual registration through a registrar in your business's name. A modest recurring cost — and the one providers most often hold in their own account. Confirm who owns it.
The technical environment that serves the site. If the site already lives inside a platform you pay for (a website builder, a CRM subscription), that provider already charges for the environment. A separate hosting line should correspond to a genuinely separate service.
The CMS, plugins, form tools, calendar and CRM the site depends on. Some are bundled with hosting; others are billed per seat or per usage. These are real, recurring, and frequently left out of the build quote.
The human work of keeping a site correct: updated hours, a fixed form, a new service page, a replaced photo. Cheap to neglect, expensive to discover broken at the worst moment.
SMS for reminders, email delivery, AI voice minutes, ad spend — billed by the vendor, often passed through. These scale with use and should be stated without markup before activation.
SSL, plugin updates, backups and monitoring. Un glamorous and quietly essential. A site that is not maintained is a site that is slowly breaking.
Ask these before you sign anything.
Who owns the domain and content? The domain, the hosting account and the written content should be in your business's name. If they sit in the provider's account, a future move becomes a rebuild.
Who pays the software vendor? If a subscription is billed to the provider and recharged to you, ask for the actual invoice. Markup is one thing; opacity is another.
Who fixes the site and the workflows? When the form breaks at 7pm on a Friday, who is responsible — and is that included, billable, or nobody's job?
What happens if you change providers? A clear answer means a clean exit. A vague one means the site, the accounts and the history you paid for stay hostage to the relationship.
The ongoing services we quote — separately.
At BGE the build and the ongoing services are quoted as different purchases. The figures below are starting points; the exact scope is confirmed before any service starts, and the final agreement governs — not a resource page.
Hosting
The technical environment — separate from care, and only when it is a genuinely separate service.
Website Care
Human responsibility for agreed maintenance and changes — not unlimited, and honestly scoped.
Connected Platform
Forms, calendars, records and reminders as part of your workflow — with the operational responsibility that comes with them.
Want the ownership cost before you own the site?
We'll scope the build and the ongoing fees in the same proposal — so the number you see is the number you pay, and the accounts stay in your name.