First off, let’s discuss terminology as well as how we do things at Good Marketing Group.
Terminology
- Own: By own, we mean that you pay up front (or over the course of the development) for a company to build you a website. Although you might have hosting fees after the website launches, you have paid for the whole website upon launch.
- Lease: By lease, we mean that when you hire a company to build you a website, you agree to pay them a flat fee every month (or whatever the terms of the agreement are) for a designated time. In essence, you are leasing the website until you pay it off or leave.
How Good Marketing Group Does Things
We sell website development packages. When a client purchases a package from us, after the project is finished and the website is launched, the client owns the website. Although they pay us a fee to host the website for them (store it on our servers and oversee the maintenance of the website), they own that website. They have access to their own website. If they wanted to leave us, we would hand them over the files, databases, and everything associated with the website.
This is how we do business.
Pros and Cons
Understanding how we do business when it comes to websites, it’s worth looking at the pros and cons of both ways.
Lease Pros
- The most obvious pro for leasing is that it has a low cost of entry. You are paying a smaller fee per month than if you just outright bought the website.
- Your hosting fees might be part of the overall lease.
- Your website could be upgraded with each new lease.
Lease Cons
- You don’t own your website. If you leave, you probably will not be able to take your website files and database with you.
- While you may be paying less per month, the overall cost of leasing the website could cost you more in the long run.
- There might be other costs that come along during the lease that creep up the overall cost.
- You might have to undertake certain tools and technology that the developer requires of all websites.
- You’re data might also be accessible and used by the company that you are leasing to.
- The developer is not incentivized to do more business with you since they are already getting a payment from you regularly.
Own Pros
- You own the website.
- Should your relationship with your developer not work out, you can leave and hire another developer to do work.
- You can help shape the tools and technology that go into your website.
- The developer is incentivized to build a long-term relationship with you because they want to sell you new tools and solutions.
Own Cons
- Initial cost to develop and launch a website.
- There is a monthly hosting fee.
