Can you have a website with no monthly fee

Yes. A website without a monthly fee is possible, and it is how every site I build works. The monthly fee on a builder like Squarespace, Wix or Showit pays for the editor you log into and the hosting that keeps the site online. A site built as plain files does not need that editor, and plain files can sit on free hosting

Some costs never go away. The website name is about $11 a year, and if you pay somebody to make changes after launch, that is a cost too. A site that needs logins or payments also needs a server, which really does cost money every month. On my full build, I pay that one

What a monthly fee actually pays for

When you pay a builder every month, you are paying for the tool that makes your site as much as the site itself. You get an editor where you drag in photos and type over a template, and the servers that keep the pages online. Some yearly plans add the website name free for the first year

That editor is worth something. With it you can change a price at midnight, add a gallery or rewrite your about page yourself, any time, at no extra cost. If you want to do that often, the fee is buying you a real thing

The fee also ties the design to the builder. Squarespace exports only in a WordPress format, and your style settings do not come with it. Wix says a site has to be hosted on its own servers to work properly, and Showit designs are not offered for use with any other host. If you stop paying, you cannot take the design somewhere cheaper

How a site runs with no monthly fee

Underneath, a website is a folder of files: the pages, the photos and the styles. A builder keeps those files inside its own system and charges you to use it. I write the files directly, so there is no editor to rent and nothing running in the background

A site made of plain files is called a static site, and it can be hosted on a free hosting account. I set that account up in your name, so you hold the login. On our first call you buy the website name in your own name, and it points at the site. That is the whole setup, and nothing in it sends you a bill each month

That is how a one time payment website works. My three prices are $500, $1,000 and $1,800, paid once. You can pay half up front and half at launch, or split it over four months at no extra cost, and nothing comes after it from me unless you ask for it

Do you have to pay for a website monthly

Not for most sites an artist or independent pro needs. A portfolio, your services, your prices and an inquiry form all work as plain files. A site only needs a monthly cost when it has to remember something between visits, like these

• Client logins, where somebody signs in to see their own booking
• Payments taken on the site itself rather than through a booking app
• A dashboard where inquiries collect and contracts go out to be signed

Those need a server running all the time, and a server costs money every month. My full build is the one that has one. It costs about $5 a month, and I pay it rather than passing it on, so you still have no monthly fee

What still comes round every year

The website name is the one cost nobody can remove. Cloudflare sells a .com at cost, $10.46 a year, and renews it at the same price. Some registrars price the first year low and the renewal higher: Namecheap renews a .com at $18.48 a year plus a 20 cent ICANN fee. Check the renewal price, not the first-year one

Changes are the honest trade-off. On a builder you edit everything yourself for nothing. On a site from me, the first month of fixes is free, and after that an hour of changes is $70. Most changes are a photo, a price or a date, so one hour covers several of them. If you know you will want to change things every week, say so on our first call, because it changes what I would recommend

When a monthly plan is the right choice

I would rather you pick the right thing than pick me. A monthly plan is the better choice when one of these is true

• You want to change the site yourself every week, and you enjoy doing it
• You sell products online and want a store built in, which is what the bigger builder plans are for
• You want booking, deposits and a simple page in one app, which is what GlossGenius and Vagaro do well
• You are testing an idea and would rather spend $17 a month than a few hundred dollars up front

If none of those sounds like you, and you want the site written, built and owned outright, a one time payment is usually the cheaper road after a few years. I put every option side by side in what a makeup artist website costs over five years, and how a build works walks through the one to two weeks from our first call to launch

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