Over five years, a website you own usually costs less than a subscription site, and at the end you still have the site, the domain and the content. The subscription wins on cash flow in year one and loses from about year three on, and its exit terms can leave you with almost nothing.
Every few weeks a business owner shows us a website deal that went like this: no upfront cost, a monthly fee, a minimum term, and a site that looked fine at launch. A few years later they want to leave, and discover they’re leaving with nothing but their logo.
Subscription websites aren’t a scam. Some are reasonable value for the first year or two. The problem is that the cost is spread so thinly that nobody adds it up, and the exit terms are buried in an agreement nobody reads.
So let’s add it up.
The worked example
These numbers are illustrative, not anyone’s actual price list. They’re in the shape of the subscription deals we see clients bring in, and our own published rates for the owned option. All figures are before GST.
Option A: subscription site. No setup fee. $149 a month, 24-month minimum term. Hosting, updates and “unlimited small changes” included. The provider registers the domain and builds the site on their own platform.
Option B: owned site. A one-off build of $3,800 (where our own ownership rebuilds start). Hosting at $25 a month. Then an allowance of $400 a year for plugin licences and the odd paid change, since you’re now responsible for those.
| Option A: subscription | Option B: owned | |
|---|---|---|
| Year 1 | $1,788 | $3,800 + $300 + $400 = $4,500 |
| Year 2 | $1,788 | $700 |
| Year 3 | $1,788 | $700 |
| Year 4 | $1,788 | $700 |
| Year 5 | $1,788 | $700 |
| Five-year total | $8,940 | $7,300 |
| What you hold at the end | Nothing transferable | The site, files, domain and content |
In year 1 the subscription looks like the obvious winner. By the end of year 3 they’re nearly level. By year 5 the owned site is about $1,600 cheaper, and the gap keeps growing every year after that, because the subscription never stops.
Change the numbers to suit the quote in front of you. Some subscriptions are $79 a month, some are $300. Some owned builds cost more than $3,800. The shape almost always holds: rental wins early and loses later.
The case for renting
There are real reasons to rent:
- You’re brand new and can’t spare a few thousand dollars upfront.
- You’re testing an idea and might not be trading in two years.
- You want someone else to handle everything and you’ll never touch the site.
If that’s you, a subscription can make sense. Go in knowing the exit terms, and have a plan to move to something you own once the business is established.
What you lose when you leave a rental
The monthly fee is the visible cost. The bigger cost is what stays behind when you cancel.
The domain name
This is the one that hurts most. If the provider registered your domain in their name, your web address, your email addresses and every printed van, card and sign that points to them might not be yours to take. For .au domains, the holder of the licence is the registrant, and the rules are set by auDA. A .au WHOIS lookup will show you who the registrant is. If it isn’t your business, fix that first, whatever else you decide.
The design and the build
Most subscription sites are built on the provider’s own system or a locked-down account. You can’t export the site and hand it to another developer. At best you’ll get the text and images; at worst you’ll be copying and pasting from the live site before it switches off.
Content and photos
Check who owns the copy and any photos the provider supplied. Licensed stock photos often can’t move with you, and some agreements say the provider owns content they wrote.
Google rankings
Your rankings are tied to the pages at your domain. If you keep the domain, you can rebuild and redirect old page addresses to new ones, and most of that search history carries over. If you lose the domain, you’re effectively starting a new website from scratch.
Email and everything connected
If your business email runs through the provider’s domain or hosting, leaving can mean a messy cutover. Moving business email to Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace under your own account before you leave takes most of the risk out of it. The same goes for booking systems, Google Analytics or Search Console accounts set up under their login.
Questions to ask your current provider
Send these by email so the answers are in writing:
- Whose name is the domain registered in, and will you transfer it to us at no charge if we leave?
- Can we get a full export of the site (files and database), or only the text and images?
- Who owns the copy, the design and any photos you supplied?
- What is the minimum term, the notice period, and is there an exit fee?
- Who has admin access to our Google Analytics, Search Console and Google Business Profile?
- If our email runs through you, how and when would that be handed over?
- Once our term ends, what does the monthly fee pay for that we couldn’t get elsewhere for less?
If the answers to 1 and 2 are “no”, you’re renting, whatever the agreement calls it.
What owning means
Owning isn’t free of responsibility. Someone has to keep WordPress and its plugins updated, keep backups running and renew the domain. You can learn it, or pay for it through a hosting and care plan (ours start from $79 a month). Either way, the important part is that the decision is yours, and you can change providers without losing the site.
It also helps if the site is built in something you can edit yourself. Our guide to editing an Elementor site without breaking it shows what day-to-day changes look like once you own it. And for the wider picture of what websites cost upfront, see our honest breakdown of website costs in Australia.
If you decide to move
Do it in this order, so nothing goes dark in between:
- Get the domain transferred into your business’s name first, while you’re still on good terms.
- Export or copy everything you can: text, images, reviews, form submissions, blog posts.
- Make a list of every page address on the current site, so the new site can redirect them.
- Build the new site somewhere private and get it signed off.
- Point the domain at the new site, set up the redirects and test your email and forms the same day.
- Only then give notice on the old subscription, timed with the end of your minimum term if you can.
Getting step 1 done early matters most. Everything else can be recovered; a lost domain often can’t.
Your decision
Pull out your current agreement and work out three numbers: what you’ll have paid by the end of five years, what it would cost to leave today, and whether the domain is in your name. Those three tell you whether to stay put or plan a move.
Rental agreements are hard to read on your own, and the exit clause is usually where the surprises sit. Our website ownership page covers how we move businesses off rented sites, with a free website review, and you’re welcome to bring the agreement along when you get in touch.