The hidden costs of website software subcriptions

According to Freshbooks, an invoicing software provider, the average hourly rate for a web developer is $75 and the average price for a website is about $5000. Both clients and developers can easily find the going rate for web development and use this information to get the best outcomes during contract negotiations. Though sometime ago, clever people started offering subscription based service where you pay a certain amount per month and get access to general purpose website builder software. This approach allowed developers to have a small yet steady stream of income and offload the cost and time of desining a website directly to the clients themselves.

More frequently, our proposals for traditional websites are rejected for low cost website builder platforms. So as the industry changes we are also looking for ways to adapt. Given our status as a small agency, its difficult to build and maintain the economies of scale it takes to maintain a service to hundreds or thousands of customers paying a monthly subscription and frankly its not where we see ourselves thriving. We love the hands-on approach of seeing the visions of our clients come to life and the personal connections that fuel our creativty.

So would you rather pay $5000 upfront or $35/mo for a few years? Its seems like an easy answer, but remember the time it takes to actually build a fully working website is completey hidden from subcription based pricing. Our job lately is showing the value we provide in comparison to a low cost SAAS provider. We see ourselves similar to craftspeople or artisans who provide detailed hands-ons work and subscription platsforms as providers of mass produced goods. What type of service would bring the most value to a project? There are situations where you absoutely need an experience woodworker to build a customized set of furniture and there are cases when an off the shelf table from a big-box store would do the job. Its not necessarily a matter of luxury versus convneience. Its more about what best fits the needs of a project and the goals one is seeking to accomplish.

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