When it comes to getting a website, most small businesses face one of two options: pay a designer or agency a one-off fee to build something you own outright, or pay a monthly subscription for an ongoing managed service. Both are legitimate approaches. The right choice depends on your budget, your priorities, and how much you want to be involved after launch.
Here's an honest comparison of both models.
What “buying outright” actually means
When you commission a website from a freelancer or agency, you pay a build fee - typically £1,500 to £8,000 for a small business site - and in return you receive a finished website. In theory, you own it and can do with it as you wish.
In practice, "owning" a website is more complicated than it sounds. The site still needs hosting (typically £10-£30/mo), a domain (£10-£15/year), ongoing updates to stay secure, and someone to make changes when your services or phone number change. Most of these costs are additional to the build fee and are often not made clear upfront.
You own the design and the files, but the ongoing cost of running a website doesn't go away just because the build is paid for.
What a managed service actually includes
A managed website service bundles everything into a single monthly fee. At GetOnWeb, that's £34.99/mo - and it covers:
- Professional website design tailored to your business
- All content written by us (you answer a brief, we write the copy)
- Hosting on fast, reliable servers
- Your domain name included
- SSL certificate and security
- One hour of updates per month
- Ongoing technical maintenance
No setup fee. No long-term contract. If you cancel, you keep your domain name.
The ownership question
The most common objection to managed services is "but you don't own it". This is technically true - the design and code live on our infrastructure - but it's worth examining what that actually means in practice.
If you commission a website and pay £3,000 for it, you "own" it - but it sits on someone else's hosting, runs on a CMS (like WordPress) that has its own licence terms, and requires someone with technical knowledge to maintain it. Most small business owners don't have that knowledge, and can't easily move their site if they fall out with their hosting provider.
With a managed service, you own your domain name (the most valuable asset) and your content. The infrastructure is handled by the service provider. For most small businesses, this is a perfectly acceptable arrangement - comparable to using any other SaaS product for your business.
The domain is the most important thing to own. At GetOnWeb, your domain is always registered in your name and is yours to keep regardless of what happens to the service. This is the non-negotiable part.
The cash flow comparison
For many small businesses, the upfront cost of a custom build is the decisive factor. Paying £2,000-£4,000 before you've seen a single page - before you know if the investment will pay off - is a significant risk, particularly for a new or growing business.
A monthly subscription spreads the cost, aligns payment with value received, and means you're not betting a large sum on a decision you can't easily reverse.
| Agency build (typical) | GetOnWeb managed | |
|---|---|---|
| Month 1 cost | £2,000 – £5,000 | £34.99 |
| Month 12 total | £2,360 – £5,480 | £419.88 |
| Month 24 total | £3,200 – £6,800 | £839.76 |
| Month 36 total | £3,800 – £7,800+ | £1,259.64 |
| Content writing included | Rarely | Yes |
| Monthly updates included | No (charged extra) | Yes (1hr/mo) |
The managed service is cheaper than an agency build for roughly the first three to four years - even before accounting for the content writing, which with an agency typically adds another £500-£1,500 to the project cost.
When buying outright makes more sense
There are situations where commissioning a custom build is the better choice:
- You need specific functionality that a managed service can't provide (e-commerce, booking systems, member portals)
- Brand design is critical and you want complete creative control
- You have in-house technical resource to manage and maintain the site after launch
- You have a reasonable budget and prefer a one-off cost to an ongoing commitment
For these cases, a custom build with a reputable agency makes sense. Just go in with clear expectations about the total cost of ownership, not just the headline build fee.
No large upfront bill. Just £34.99/mo.
Professional design, all content written for you, hosting and domain included. Cancel anytime.
Get my website →When a managed service makes more sense
A managed service is the better choice when:
- You want a professional result without a large upfront investment
- You don't want to write your own content or manage the technical side
- Predictable monthly costs suit your cash flow better than a large one-off payment
- You want everything handled in one place - no juggling separate hosting, domain, and maintenance providers
- Speed matters - a managed service can have you live in days, not weeks
The bottom line
Neither model is universally better. The right choice depends on your situation. But for most small UK businesses - tradespeople, sole traders, local service providers - a managed service delivers a better outcome per pound spent, removes the friction of a large upfront cost, and means everything is handled by someone who knows what they're doing.
If you've been putting off getting a website because the cost felt prohibitive, a managed service at £34.99/mo removes that barrier entirely.