When you’re planning a new website, one of the decisions you’ll need to make is how you’re going to pay for it.

Traditionally, a professionally designed website has been treated much like any other piece of commissioned work: agree the specification, pay a deposit, have the website designed and developed, then pay the balance when the project is completed.

That still works perfectly well. But it isn’t the only option.

Pay monthly website design allows businesses to spread the cost of a professionally designed website over an agreed period, often combining the website itself with hosting, maintenance and ongoing technical support.

Neither approach is automatically better. The right choice depends on your budget, cash flow, how involved you want to be in looking after the website and what happens once it goes live.

What is pay monthly website design?

Pay monthly website design spreads some or all of the cost of creating a website across regular monthly payments rather than requiring the full project cost upfront.

Exactly what those payments include varies considerably between providers.

Some are effectively finance arrangements for the initial website build. Others operate more like website subscriptions, where the website remains tied to the provider for as long as you continue paying.

A fully managed website can be different again.

With my own fully managed website plans, the monthly cost isn’t simply paying for the original website in instalments. It also covers the services required to keep the WordPress website running, maintained and supported.

That’s an important distinction when comparing prices.

A £100 monthly website that includes hosting, maintenance, backups and ongoing support isn’t directly comparable with a £2,400 website that still requires you to arrange and pay for those things separately.

Is a pay monthly website the same as renting a website?

You’ll sometimes see pay monthly websites described as website rental.

In fact, that’s how I used to describe my own monthly website packages.

But rental can give the wrong impression. It suggests that you’re simply borrowing a website and that the moment you stop paying, somebody arrives with a metaphorical van and takes it away.

Different providers have different terms, so this is something worth checking carefully before signing up.

Ask who owns the website, whether there is a minimum term, what happens when that term ends and whether the website can be moved elsewhere in the future.

A good pay monthly arrangement should make all of this clear from the outset.

Pay monthly website design vs paying upfront

The biggest and most obvious difference is the initial investment.

Commissioning a bespoke business website might require several thousand pounds to be budgeted for at the beginning of a project. For an established business with the available budget, that may be the simplest option.

For another business, keeping more money within the business while spreading the website investment across predictable monthly payments may make considerably more sense.

But initial cost shouldn’t be the only consideration.

Paying for your website upfront

Buying a website outright is the traditional approach and, for many businesses, remains a very good one.

You know the cost of the design and development project from the beginning and, once the final balance is paid, that part of the expenditure is finished.

There will still be ongoing costs.

Your website needs somewhere to live, so there will be hosting. A WordPress website also needs software updates, backups, security monitoring and occasional technical attention.

You can handle some of this yourself, pay for it as required or use a WordPress website care plan to have it taken care of for you.

Paying upfront therefore doesn’t necessarily mean one payment and never another bill. It simply separates the cost of creating the website from the cost of running and maintaining it.

Paying monthly for your website

The principal advantage of paying monthly is that it reduces the initial financial hit.

That can be particularly useful for a newer business, a company investing in several areas at once or simply a business that would rather maintain predictable cash flow than commit a larger amount of capital to its website immediately.

With a fully managed arrangement, it can also make budgeting considerably simpler.

Rather than separately paying for the website, hosting, maintenance and technical support, these can be brought together into a regular monthly cost.

There’s also less for the business owner to manage.

The website isn’t handed over on launch day followed by a cheery wave goodbye. Hosting, WordPress updates, backups, security and the technical side of keeping the site healthy continue to be looked after.

I’ve covered that side in more detail in Why a Managed Website Can Save Your Business Time & Money.

Is paying monthly cheaper?

Not necessarily — and it shouldn’t be sold on that basis.

The real benefit is usually cash flow and convenience rather than a lower total cost.

When comparing the two approaches, look at the complete cost rather than simply comparing the upfront figure with the monthly payment.

An upfront website may appear cheaper over a particular period, but add hosting, maintenance, backups and support and the difference can become smaller.

Equally, if you’re comfortable managing WordPress yourself and already have suitable hosting, paying for a website upfront could prove more economical over the longer term.

This is why the cheapest-looking option isn’t necessarily the best value, and the lowest initial cost doesn’t necessarily result in the lowest overall cost.

What’s included in the monthly price?

This is where comparisons can become surprisingly difficult.

A headline monthly price doesn’t tell you very much unless you know what sits behind it.

Depending on the provider, a monthly website package could include:

• Website design and development
• Managed website hosting
• SSL security
• WordPress, theme and plugin updates
• Regular backups
• Security monitoring
• Technical maintenance
• Content updates
• Ongoing support

Or it could simply include little more than the website itself.

Check what’s included, what’s charged separately and whether there are limits on support or content changes.

The boring details are often the important ones. Nobody buys a website because they’re excited about backups, but they’re considerably more valuable on the day you actually need one.

What happens at the end of the agreement?

This should be established before you enter a pay monthly website agreement, not discovered two years later.

Find out whether there is a minimum term and what happens once you’ve completed it.

Can you continue with the managed service? Can you switch to hosting only? Can the website be moved to another hosting provider? Are there additional fees involved? And, most importantly, who owns the website?

There isn’t necessarily anything wrong with agreeing to a fixed term. Spreading the cost of creating a website requires commitment on both sides.

What matters is knowing what you’re agreeing to.

Do you own a pay monthly website?

There isn’t a universal answer because different website companies structure their services differently.

Some subscription website services only provide access to the website while you’re a customer. Stop paying and the website effectively disappears.

Others transfer ownership after an agreed period.

With a WordPress website there is also an important practical distinction between owning your website and being permanently locked into a proprietary platform.

One of the reasons I use WordPress for business websites is its flexibility. A WordPress website isn’t inherently tied to one particular hosting company or website builder and can be moved if circumstances change.

Whatever system you’re considering, ownership and portability are questions worth asking.

Which businesses benefit from paying monthly?

Pay monthly website design can make particular sense for businesses that want a professionally designed website without committing the full project budget at the outset.

It can also suit businesses that don’t want responsibility for the technical side of running a website.

That might include a new business preserving capital for other startup costs, an established company replacing an ageing website or a small business without somebody internally who wants to spend their afternoon updating WordPress plugins.

The attraction isn’t simply a cheaper way to get a website.

It’s having a professional website built and then knowing that somebody continues to look after it.

When is paying upfront the better choice?

Sometimes the traditional approach is the obvious answer.

If the budget is available and you’d rather pay for the project immediately, there may be little reason to spread the cost.

It may also suit businesses that already have their own hosting arrangements, internal technical resources or an existing maintenance agreement.

Larger or particularly complex website projects may also be better suited to a conventional project structure rather than a standard monthly package.

This is why I don’t believe every business should automatically choose one model over the other.

The website needs to fit the business, and so does the way you pay for it.

Look beyond the monthly figure

Whether you’re paying upfront or monthly, ultimately you’re investing in the same thing: a website that needs to represent your business properly and do its job.

Don’t choose a pay monthly website purely because the monthly figure looks attractive. Equally, don’t assume that paying everything upfront automatically represents better value.

Look at what is being designed, what’s included after launch, how the website will be maintained, what support you’ll receive, how long you’re committing for and what happens at the end.

A well-designed business website should last considerably longer than the invoice used to pay for it.

I offer both traditional website design and fully managed website plans, so the starting point doesn’t have to be which one can I sell you?

It’s simply which approach makes the most sense for your business?