Have you been thinking about developing your website by purchasing a subscription website? Subscription websites have aggressive marketing campaigns. So you’ve probably heard of a few. But are any of them a good option for you to use to build your website?
Defining a Subscription Website
A subscription website is a website that you have to pay a monthly fee to use. This goes beyond simple server fees. A subscription website wraps everything up into a single package. This may seem like a good idea if you want to keep things simple, and if you have the means to pay a premium. But a subscription website is expensive over the long term, and it requires you to give up your freedom to mix and match different services and features.
It’s important to mention that the subscription websites that I’ll be referencing are referring to subscription websites that are used to create websites. I am NOT referring to subscription websites that people pay a subscription fee to visit. Those kinds of sites are often referred to as membership websites.
Subscription Services Versus Subscription Websites
Not everything that is paid for with a subscription fee ought to be considered a full blown subscription website. For example, many services charge a subscription fee for using software. This may or may not be a good idea depending on the quality and services provided by the software distributors. But if you are applying the software to a website that you own, then you should not consider yourself a user of a subscription website. You are only a user of subscription software.
Managed Hosting Versus a Subscription Website
I discussed managed hosting in an earlier article. You shouldn’t consider this a subscription website. However, subscription websites tend to include managed hosting which gives them another reason to charge you more money.
Buying Your Website Versus Leasing Your Website
Subscription websites don’t really allow you to own your website. When you build a website yourself or with a developer, you can own all of the software that makes it run. And you aren’t forced to use templates that force you to add content you don’t want, and/or don’t allow you to use content that you want to use.
Breaking Down the Long Term Costs of Different Web Builds
In the short term, a subscription website might not seem so bad. But if you add up the costs over time, then you might get a different impression.
Anecdotally, my research has shown me that a cheap subscription website will run you at least sixteen dollars a month while the most expensive sites run as high as two hundred and fifty dollars a month plus a set up fee. It’s also worth noting that the low end of the subscription website price range is about the same price as a low end managed hosting service. So you can imagine that the low price subscription service probably provides pretty minimal quality.
But suppose you were only going to pay sixteen dollars per month for the minimal service. After five years, you’ll have paid almost a thousand dollars. And then you still have to keep paying. That means even if you paid a thousand dollars total for a custom website built by a developer (and your site would probably work a lot better than a sixteen dollar a month subscription website), you would still end up paying less than you would for a subscription website if you owned your custom website for over five years.
If you own your custom website for over ten years, then your price would eventually get cut in half even after server fees. Don’t forget that your monthly fees for your subscription website are likely to rise. You should also consider that if you don’t need a large website, you can probably get a nice custom site for a lot less than a thousand dollars.
Subscription Website: Lost Ownership
If you own your business, then why wouldn’t it be important to own your website. When you don’t own your website, then you’re at the mercy of the true website owner. Your owner can charge you whatever amount that they deem to be appropriate. And your only recourse is to build a completely new website. If you own your website’s content and most or all of its software, then you won’t need to rebuild it from scratch.
Losing Control of Supporting Services
Does your business require an ordering service or a shop? Who owns that? What if you want to update your shop without updating your primary website or vice versa? How much control do you have? When you own your base website, you may also own your commerce software, or you may pay a subscription fee for the software (like for a pizza shop). In either case, the software can operate independently from the rest of your website. So you can update your supporting service vendors without it affecting the rest of your website.
But if you have a subscription website, then you can get stuck with the same vendor for all of your software. And this minimizes your vendor’s competition because of the increased expense of you changing vendors, thus incentivizing you to keep your subscription website.
How Much Control Over Your Website’s Design Do You Have?
If you like the way your subscription website looks, then there is something to be said for that. But if you want any creative input, then subscription websites can be cumbersome. Subscription websites have a lot more room to either push back or gouge you on prices. If they know that you are afraid to own your website, then what is your recourse if they tell you no?
Subscription Website: The Cost of a Major Overhaul
When you own your site, you can compartmentalize parts of your site, so you can avoid ever having to completely rebuild from scratch. But if you want to leave your subscription website, then starting over from scratch may be your only choice. Your subscription site may have proprietary software that doesn’t transfer. And more likely than not, they’ll try to talk you into overhauling your website by staying with them, requiring you to continue to pay their higher prices.
Do You Need Help Setting Up Your Website?
Setting up your website yourself can seem overwhelming. It can be helpful to work with a professional. Check out my custom development services to lean more.
Questions?
If you have any questions, then please post them in the comments section.