Rent or buy your website? Five questions before you sign

The price on the invoice is not the price

A website builder, a shop system or a CRM on subscription costs a modest amount every month. That is why it looks cheap. A custom-built website with its own CMS costs one larger sum. That is why it looks expensive.

Neither tells you much. Five questions show what it really costs you. Ask them of every provider, including us.

1. What does it cost over five years?

Multiply the monthly fee by 60. Add every add-on you actually need, not just the starter plan. Add the per-user cost for when your team grows.

For a purchase, you count the one-off price plus maintenance. Ours works like a workshop: regular checks, free diagnosis, repairs only against a fixed-price quote, no subscription.

Put the two numbers side by side. The subscription gets more expensive with every month. The purchase gets cheaper with every month you use it. At some point the lines cross. The question is whether that happens before or after the point at which you would rebuild anyway.

2. Who owns the data, and how do you get to it?

Do not just ask whether you can export your data. Ask in what form. A spreadsheet of contacts is not the same as the whole website with pages, images, forms and the history of every customer enquiry.

If your data sits on your own server, the question does not arise. You already have it.

3. What happens if a payment fails?

An expired credit card, a returned direct debit, a mistake in accounting: it happens to every company at some point. Check in the contract what then happens to your website, your shop and your customer data, and after how many days. With some services, a core function stops as soon as a single add-on is unpaid.

4. What does it cost when you grow?

Many subscriptions charge per user, per contact or per revenue. Then the bill goes up exactly when business goes well. Work out what the subscription costs when your team is twice the size.

In Kepler, user accounts are unlimited. The team grows, the bill stays the same.

5. What happens when you switch provider?

Ask what you can take with you: only the texts, or also the design, the page structure and the forms. With a website builder, the design is usually tied to the platform. When you switch, you start over.

With a custom-built website, the code belongs to you. You can change provider or move to another server and simply carry on.

When renting is the right choice

A subscription is not always wrong. If you are only testing an idea and do not know whether it will still exist in a year, a website builder is a sensible start. You pay little and are online quickly.

The sums change once the website brings in enquiries, you rely on the customer data and the team grows. From then on, you pay every month for something that will never be yours. What our systems cost as a one-off is on the pricing page.