Part 1 · Year one
Start with year one.
Doing it yourself is cheap on paper, until you count the hours and what a site that looks like everyone else's costs you in lost customers. A larger agency does excellent work, at five to ten times the price. With us you can own it outright, or let us run everything for one monthly price. Here's roughly how year one shakes out.
- Upfront$0
- Monthly~$18 platform
- Your time40–60 hrs
- TurnaroundNights & weekends
- DesignGeneric
- You own itTied to platform
- Upfront$0
- Monthly$199, all-in
- Your time~2 hrs
- Turnaround~7–10 days
- DesignBuilt around you
- You own itAfter 12 months
- Upfront$999 once
- Monthly$0 (care optional)
- Your time~2 hrs
- Turnaround~10 days
- DesignBuilt around you
- You own itEverything
- Upfront$6k–15k
- Monthly$150–500 retainer
- Your timeMonths of meetings
- Turnaround2–4 months
- DesignCustom
- You own itOften locked in
Illustrative first-year estimates based on typical market rates. Your actual numbers will vary. The point isn't that we're the cheapest option; it's that we're the best value: professional design, delivered fast, and fully yours to keep.
Part 2 · Five years
Now follow it to year five.
Year one leaves out the costs that keep coming: platform fees, retainers, the redesign that builders and agencies push every few years, and your own hours. Here’s what each option adds up to by year five.
Total cost over time
Hours of your time over five years
Building a site yourself isn’t free. It’s paid in evenings and weekends.
Year by year
The assumptions, in full
- DIY website builder. $18 a month, the entry plans on annual billing in 2026 (Wix Light is $17, Squarespace Basic is $19), plus about $20 a year for a domain. The plans most small businesses end up on run $29 a month, which would add about $660 over five years. We used the cheaper tier. Your time: about 50 hours to build (40 to 60 is typical for a first site), then about 2 hours a month keeping it current.
- Pale Blue, own it outright. Our $999 Horizon package (10+ pages), paid once, plus about $20 a year for a domain registered in your name. Hosting runs on free static-hosting tiers. Your time: about 2 hours of input up front, then about 4 hours a year for small updates you make or request.
- Pale Blue + Care Plan. The same site, plus the optional Care Plan at $790 a year (annual billing), covering updates, security, backups, and up to an hour of edits a month. Your time: about 1 hour a year.
- Pale Blue Orbit. $199 a month ($2,388 a year) with no upfront build fee, covering a custom site, hosting, care, and lead follow-up: missed-call text-back, automatic replies, appointment reminders, and review requests. It’s the only scenario here that includes lead follow-up, so it’s doing more than the others, not just costing more. Texting and calling usage is billed at cost and not included. Your time: about 2 hours up front, then about 1 hour a year.
- Typical agency. A $7,000 build and a $175 monthly retainer, near the low end of common ranges ($6,000 to $15,000 builds, $150 to $500 monthly retainers). At the high end, five years passes $45,000. Your time: about 20 hours of meetings and reviews up front, then about 4 hours a year.
- Left out, for everyone: redesigns (builders and agencies often push one every three to five years), paid apps and plugins, e-commerce transaction fees, and the customers a weak site quietly loses. Leaving them out keeps the comparison conservative.
These are illustrative estimates, not quotes. Your numbers will vary.
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