Business Model
I offer a different model than you'll find from others in the industry. I'll build you a website for no money up front, then you pay a monthly fee until you decide to buy it out (which you may never choose to do and aren't required to).
Why?
The main reason I do it like this is because I want to help small business owners that may not otherwise be able to afford high-quality tech services. I've been there. I started my first business before I knew how to code. I did as many of us do, I built it myself. I used a DIY website builder called WordPress. It was...fine...I guess, but really only if I lied to myself. It was slow, I couldn't customize it the way I wanted, and a host of other issues. I'm thankful for WordPress because it served my need at the time, but I am here to provide an alternative option to people like me in that situation.
Transparency Matters
Transparency is just kind of a personal policy for me. My goal is to not have to "sell" anything to you. I want to be clear about the benefits I see from this model for both you and me, and let you decide if you're interested.
Benefits for You
-
Low risk - No money paid until website is fully complete - If you're not happy with my work, you won't be responsible to pay a dime - Low capital investment - You're never on the hook for a large sum of money if you stay on monthly payments
- Flexible - You have the option to forgo monthly payments at any point if you opt the buyout
- No contract - If you somehow become unhappy or want to go another direction in the future, you can cancel at any time
Benefits for Me
- Long-term value - If you stay on monthly payments for a long period of time (say 4+ years), I will end up making more money in total than if I billed a one-time hourly rate
- Passive income - After your site is launched, I will have very little to no work to maintain the site, but I'll still be making a small income if you remain on monthly payments
- Fulfillment - The satisfaction of knowing I'm helping other business owners
Monthly Rate
After we decide what high-level features are to be included, I'll be able to determine what the monthly cost for you will be. I do this up front before I do any development because I want to protect both of our time in case you don't like that number.
The monthly cost is directly proportional to the amount of effort I'll have. The main things that increase the effort for me are number of pages and the types of integrations needed (like database, content management system, backend functions like accepting online payments, etc).
On the low end, for a simple site (a few pages) that is basically information only and isn't updated very often will likely be $40/month. On the other end, if you have something like an e-commerce store, you'll drift into the $100/month range. Each project has its own considerations, so these numbers are only guidelines. I include them here because I really don't like services that don't advertise at least rough cost figures so you can know up front if this is worth pursuing.
Buyout Option
As I mentioned, there is a buyout option you can choose at any point, but is never required. This means that you can pay a one-time fee (roughly $2,000) to buy the website and take over all of the responsibilities of keeping it running. If you do this, you can always reach out to me for help, but we would be under a new working relationship that would require hourly billing or some other arrangement.
The whole idea of this is that it gives flexibility to you as the business owner and also protects me by making sure I will make a minimum amount of revenue on any given project (unless you cancel monthly payments early and shut the site down - which is a risk I accept).
