Pricing: one fair setup, one honest monthly fee
We will not put a flashy number on this page and pretend it tells the whole story, because the headline figure is almost never the real cost of a website. What matters is what you actually pay over the years you run your business, what is genuinely included, and whether you are quietly paying for things you have not noticed yet. So this page explains the model in plain words: how the fees are shaped, what the monthly figure really buys, how it compares honestly against the alternatives, and exactly where you stand if you ever decide to leave. For the current early-access terms, just ask — we would rather give you a straight number in context than a misleading one in a banner.
The model in one breath
There are two parts and no more. First, a one-off setup fee that covers building and launching your site. Second, a single recurring monthly fee that covers everything needed to keep it live, safe, compliant and supported — hosting, maintenance, security, compliance upkeep and your relationship with a real maintainer. That is the entire structure. No per-feature pricing, no à la carte menu where every useful thing costs extra, no separate invoice each time you ask a question.
We chose this shape on purpose because it aligns our interests with yours. A site that keeps working, keeps you happy and keeps you with us is the goal, so the monthly fee buys an ongoing service rather than a one-time handover followed by silence. You are not buying a file and being wished good luck; you are buying a maintained, accountable home for your business online.
What the setup fee covers
The setup fee pays for turning a proven, trade-specific foundation into unmistakably your site. That includes shaping the structure to your trade, putting your services, words, photos and tone into it, configuring the right contact or enquiry mechanism, setting up the everyday-editing forms you will use afterwards, wiring in the compliance and accessibility baseline, and getting the whole thing launched cleanly on your domain.
It is a fair fee, not a token one and not an inflated one. Because we are not designing from a blank page every time, the setup cost is far lower than a bespoke agency build that reinvents the same trade structure from scratch — but it still reflects real, careful work to make the site genuinely yours rather than a thin coat of paint. You pay it once. You do not pay it again next year.
What the monthly fee really buys
This is the part worth slowing down on, because "a monthly fee for a website" can sound like a subscription to nothing if you do not know what sits behind it. Here is what sits behind it.
European hosting you never have to think about
Your site lives on infrastructure we manage inside the EU. You do not rent a server, log into a control panel, renew anything in a panic, or wonder which jurisdiction your customers' data sits under. The hosting is simply handled, and it is handled in Europe, which is a substantive answer rather than a marketing line.
Maintenance that prevents the expensive day
Joomla and its components get regular updates, many of them security fixes, and on a Ready Website those are applied and tested rather than ignored until something breaks. Backups run so a bad day is a quick restore. This is the unglamorous work that quietly saves you from the genuinely expensive scenarios, and it is covered every month by the same fee. The discipline behind it is described in our maintenance service.
Compliance that stays current
Privacy and accessibility law do not stand still, and neither does the web. Keeping your consent handling, privacy notice and accessibility in good order as standards move is part of the monthly arrangement, not a special project you get billed for after a complaint. The thinking is set out in our EU compliance guide.
A human who answers
When something looks wrong, you email a named person who already knows your site, rather than queuing behind a chatbot. That accountability is the single thing a faceless platform cannot sell you at any price, and it is included rather than premium.
The honest comparison with site builders
The builders advertise a tempting low monthly figure, and on the surface it looks like we should struggle to compete. Look closer and the picture changes, because the advertised price is rarely the price you end up paying.
On a typical builder, the headline tier is the start of the bill, not the end of it. The features a real business needs — removing the platform's own branding, connecting a custom domain properly, decent forms, bookings, the analytics and marketing add-ons — tend to live on higher tiers or in paid apps that stack up quietly month after month. Then there is the cost that never appears on any invoice: your own time. The evenings spent learning the editor, fighting a layout that keeps shifting, redoing the cookie banner because it was never actually compliant, and worrying about whether anything has broken. Your time is the most expensive ingredient in a do-it-yourself site, and the builders' pricing conveniently ignores it.
Set against the real, all-in cost of a builder plus its apps plus your unpaid hours, a Ready Website is not the extravagant option people assume. It is frequently the calmer and, over the years, the more sensible one — and it comes with EU-jurisdiction compliance and a maintainer that the builder simply does not include at any tier.
The honest comparison with agency quotes
At the other end sits the traditional agency: a bespoke project, a substantial up-front quote, a timeline measured in months, and then — very often — a site handed over with no ongoing care, so that a year later it is out of date, unpatched and quietly rotting. You paid a great deal for the launch and nothing for the longevity, which is precisely backwards.
A Ready Website inverts that. The up-front cost is a fraction of a bespoke build because the trade-specific groundwork is already proven, so you are not funding the reinvention of how a dentist's or a roofer's site should work. And the part that actually keeps a site valuable over time — maintenance, security, compliance, a human — is built into the monthly arrangement rather than forgotten the moment the invoice is paid. You get the professional result without the professional-project price tag, and you get the ongoing care that most agency projects never include. Where you genuinely do need bespoke work, our development service is the honest place for that conversation, and we will say so rather than stretching a productised site to fit.
Why there are no surprise charges
One of the most common complaints about both builders and agencies is the drip. Every useful thing is another upgrade, another app, another line on next month's bill, until the "cheap" website is anything but. We deliberately do not work that way.
The everyday things — editing your prices, hours, photos, team and offers — you do yourself through simple forms, so they cost you nothing but a minute of typing. The keeping-it-running things are in the monthly fee. The only time money enters the conversation again is for genuinely new work you ask for, such as an additional service line or a seasonal redesign, and in those cases we tell you plainly and in advance what it involves before anything happens. No quiet meter, no nickel-and-diming, no invoice you did not see coming.
Ownership and leaving terms
This is the question that separates a fair arrangement from a trap, so we answer it directly: you own your website. The monthly fee buys you a managed, maintained, compliant home and a real maintainer. It does not buy you permission to keep your own work, because that was always yours.
Should you choose to move on at some later point, you depart with the website and everything inside it, and we assist with a clean handover rather than throwing up barriers to keep you. There is no holding your files hostage, no refusing to release your own work, none of the ugly behaviour that gives the industry a bad name. We would far rather earn your staying by doing the job well than trap you into it with the small print. An arrangement you are free to leave is one we have to keep deserving, and that is exactly the pressure we want on ourselves. The full journey from first conversation to live site, for context on what the setup actually delivers, is laid out on the how-it-works page, and the broader story sits on the Ready Websites overview.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why won't you just put the price on the page?
Because a number with no context misleads more than it informs, and because early-access terms are exactly that — current. Ask us and we will give you a straight figure framed against what it includes, so you can compare like with like rather than headline with headline.
Is the monthly fee really everything, or are there hidden extras?
The monthly fee covers hosting, maintenance, security, compliance upkeep and support. Everyday content edits you do yourself at no cost. The only thing billed separately is genuinely new work you specifically request, and we always tell you what that involves before starting.
How can this compete with a cheap builder subscription?
Compare the real totals, not the headline. A builder's advertised tier usually grows once you add the apps a real business needs, and it never includes your own unpaid hours, EU-jurisdiction compliance or a maintainer. All-in, a Ready Website is often the more sensible long-term cost.
What if I need a custom feature later?
You ask, and we tell you plainly whether it is a quick adjustment within your existing arrangement or a separate piece of development work, with the implications spelled out in advance. There are no surprises and no quiet meter running.
Do I own the site, or am I renting it?
You own it outright. The fees pay for building it and then keeping it live, safe and supported — not for the right to keep your own work. If you leave, the site and content go with you.
What happens to the monthly fee if I leave?
It simply stops when the arrangement ends, and you take your site with you. We assist with the handover rather than obstruct it, because we would rather you left well than felt trapped into staying.
Get the current pricing in context
The model is simple, the inclusions are real, and the terms are fair — but the only way to get a figure that means anything is to ask, so we can frame it against your actual situation and the current early-access terms. It takes one short, pressure-free conversation. If you would rather begin by gauging where your present website stands, book a free review and we will give you a frank assessment of which elements perform and which are silently draining money.