Plans & Pricing

Two ways to buy a website

You can pay $349 / month and we build the site, host it and maintain it — with no project fee up front, and with the site remaining ours while the plan runs. Ongoing SEO and GEO management is charged separately either way, from $750 / month plus a one-time $1,500 foundation engagement. Or you can commission the build on its own for $4,500, own it outright on final payment, and still put it on a monthly plan afterwards so we manage the hosting and maintenance, with SEO, GEO, analytics and email added at their own prices, while the site stays yours. Both figures are starting prices; scope moves them up. Owning it and having it managed are not alternatives. The real difference between the two is who owns the site, and the five-year arithmetic for both is further down this page.

The two arrangements compared

Built, hosted and managed From $349/mo

Monthly Plan

One monthly fee covers the build, the hosting and the maintenance. There is no separate project fee, so there is no capital outlay to get started and no invoice for small changes. Ongoing SEO and GEO management is not included — it is the separate retainer, and it can be added to this invoice. Cibbster Designs owns and retains the site; you hold a licence to use it for as long as the plan is running.

  • The build itself
  • Managed hosting
  • Maintenance and content edits
  • The SEO and GEO foundation, built in
  • One point of contact
Can be added
  • Ongoing SEO and GEO management — the separate retainer
  • Analytics and conversion tracking
  • Email design and marketing automation
  • An accessibility audit and remediation
  • Custom application work — portals, booking, quoting tools
We own it. You hold a licence for as long as the plan runs.
Yours on final payment From $4,500

Commissioned Build

A one-time project fee. You commission the build as its own engagement and it transfers to you on final payment — the custom code, the design and the content we write. Owning it does not mean looking after it yourself: you can put the site on a monthly management plan afterwards covering hosting and maintenance, with SEO and GEO, analytics and email added at their own published prices, all on one invoice. You pay for the site up front, you own it, and we keep running it.

  • Ownership on final payment
  • The same build
  • Launch and handover
  • Thirty days of defect fixes
  • A management plan afterwards, if you want one
  • No recurring commitment either
Can be added
  • Managed hosting, backups, monitoring and security patching
  • Ongoing SEO and GEO management
  • Analytics and conversion tracking
  • Email design and marketing automation
  • All of it on one monthly invoice, with the site still yours
You own it outright once the final invoice is paid.

Both figures are starting prices for a straightforward five-to-eight page business site, and scope moves them up — there is no published ceiling because a large build has no natural one. Smaller than this? A single-page site or a landing page starts at $1,800 as a commissioned build and can go on a management plan like any other. Tell us what you actually need and we will quote the real scope.

Who owns what

This is the real difference between the two, so it is worth stating without decoration. On the monthly plan, Cibbster Designs owns the site and you hold a licence to use it for as long as the plan runs. Cancel and the licence ends: the site comes down and stays with us. On a commissioned build, the site transfers to you on final payment and is yours permanently, whatever you do next.

In both cases your domain, the text and photographs and logos you supplied, your customer data and your analytics property remain yours. We never claim ownership of anything you brought with you, and we never hold a domain to make leaving harder. In both cases our underlying framework and components stay ours, coming with a commissioned build under a perpetual licence rather than as a transfer.

You are told which arrangement you are in before you sign, in the quote, in these words. The full position is in the terms of service.

Own it and have it managed

This is the option people most often assume does not exist, so it is worth its own heading. Buying the site outright does not mean being handed a folder of code and left to it. You can pay for the build up front, own it outright, and then put it on a monthly management plan — hosting and maintenance as the base, with ongoing SEO and GEO, analytics and email added at their own published prices — arriving as one invoice.

The difference is that the site remains yours throughout. Stop the management plan with 30 days' notice and nothing happens to the site: it does not come down, it does not revert to us, and you take it wherever you like. You are buying the service month to month rather than renting the asset.

Managing an owned site is priced from the same published figures as everything else, all of them starting prices — managed hosting from $149 / month, the SEO and GEO retainer from $750 / month plus a one-time $1,500 foundation engagement, analytics and email from their own pages. Take the pieces you want. A typical fully managed owned site, hosting plus the SEO retainer, starts at $899 a month and rises with scope, after the one-time $1,500 SEO foundation engagement.

The Arithmetic

What each costs over five years

Our own pricing guide tells you to multiply any monthly fee by sixty before signing anything. It would be a poor guide if we did not run that multiplication on ourselves.

At its starting price of $349 / month, the plan costs $20,940 over five years. Both routes below are costed from starting prices, so both totals are floors rather than finished numbers.

A commissioned build at its starting price, over the same five years:

  • The build: $4,500
  • Managed hosting for sixty months, from $149 / month: $8,940
  • Total: $13,440 — and the site is yours at the end of it.

So at that size the plan is not cheaper. It costs about $7,500 more across five years, roughly $125 a month. That difference is not buying you extra services — both routes include the same hosting and maintenance, and neither includes ongoing SEO. It is the cost of starting with nothing down. Spreading a build you cannot pay for up front has real value, but it is a financing decision, and you do not own the site at the end of it.

The larger the build, the more that flips. The two routes cost the same over five years at a build of about $12,000; above that the plan is the cheaper of the two, because the monthly fee does not rise with the size of the site. You still do not own it, which is the trade that does not change at any size.

Note what that comparison is not about. Both routes include the same managed hosting and maintenance, and every other service — the SEO and GEO retainer, analytics, email — is charged separately at the same published price whichever way you buy. Adding them moves both totals by the same amount, so they cancel out of the comparison entirely. A commissioned build put on a full management plan is still a commissioned build, and the site is still yours. The figures above differ for two reasons only: when you pay for the build, and who owns it afterwards.

What the plan is actually for: getting a properly built site live when you do not have $4,500 or more to hand, with one predictable invoice and a single party responsible for it. What it is not for: saving money, or coming out the other end owning an asset. If you can fund the build, commission it and put it on a management plan afterwards — you get the identical monthly service and keep the site. We will tell you that if you ask us which to pick, and we tell people that regularly.

Either Way

What can be added to either

Every one of these is available whichever way you buy, at the same published price. On the monthly plan they join that invoice; on a commissioned build they form the management plan that runs afterwards. Because they cost the same either way, they do not change which route works out cheaper.

Managed hosting and maintenance is already inside the monthly plan. On a commissioned build it starts at $149 / month and forms the base of the management plan, with anything above added to the same invoice. See all services and pricing.

Questions

The things people actually ask

Which one is cheaper?

Over five years the commissioned build usually is, and the arithmetic is on this page rather than hidden. The plan is not sold on being cheaper. It is sold on there being no capital outlay at the start, one predictable invoice, and one party responsible for the whole thing.

What happens to my site if I cancel the plan?

The licence ends with the plan and the site comes down. We export your content, images and database so nothing you supplied is lost, and your domain stays yours throughout. What we do not do is hand over a site that was not bought outright.

Can I switch from the plan to owning the site?

Yes. We quote a buy-out case by case, taking account of how long you have been on the plan. It is neither automatic nor free, but it is never refused, and asking costs nothing.

Does the monthly plan include SEO?

No. This is worth being blunt about, because "we handle your SEO" is the vaguest promise in this industry. The plan covers the build, the hosting and the maintenance. The site ships with the SEO and GEO foundation in place — structured data, heading structure, on-page SEO, an XML sitemap and llms.txt — because that is part of building it properly, not an upsell. But ongoing SEO and GEO work, meaning keyword targeting, content production, earning links, Search Console monitoring and Google Business Profile management, is the separate retainer and starts at $750 / month, plus a one-time $1,500 foundation engagement. It can be added to the plan invoice, and it costs more than the plan does.

Can I buy the site outright and still have you manage it?

Yes, and it is the most common arrangement here. You pay for the build up front and own it, then put it on a monthly plan afterwards covering managed hosting and maintenance, SEO and GEO, analytics and email — whichever of those you want, on one invoice. Ownership and management are separate decisions: buying the site does not oblige you to look after it yourself, and taking the management plan does not hand the site back to us. It stays yours the whole time, and you can stop the plan with 30 days' notice without the site being affected at all.

What does managing an owned site cost?

It is built from the published service prices rather than being a separate mystery number, and like every figure here those are starting prices. Managed hosting and maintenance starts at $149 / month, the SEO and GEO growth retainer starts at $750 / month plus a one-time $1,500 foundation engagement, and analytics and email are quoted from their own pages. Take the pieces you want and they arrive as a single monthly invoice. A typical fully managed owned site — hosting plus the SEO retainer — therefore starts at $899 a month once the one-time $1,500 SEO foundation engagement is paid, and scope moves it up from there.

Can I add services to either arrangement?

Yes, to both, at the same published prices. Analytics, email marketing, an accessibility audit, custom application work and the full SEO retainer are available whichever way you buy. Because they cost the same either way, adding them does not change which route is cheaper — it only changes how much of the work you are outsourcing.

If I buy outright, do I have to host with you?

No. Nothing recurring is required, ever. Most clients take the management plan because they would rather not think about backups and patching, but the site is yours and you can host it anywhere, move it later, or maintain it in-house. Hosting should be earned monthly, not enforced by making departure painful.

Ready to scale?

Not sure which way to buy?

Tell us what the site needs to do and what your cash flow looks like. We will tell you which of the two actually fits — including when the answer is the one that earns us less.

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