No. A business website does not automatically require a large monthly fee.
You will usually have at least one recurring cost — your domain name — and some websites genuinely need paid hosting, software, maintenance or ongoing support.
But the idea that every small-business website naturally comes with a €30, €50 or €100 monthly charge is simply not true.
This is one of the strongest differences in how I approach websites at Built by Gavin.
I do not believe in creating a subscription just because the industry has trained customers to expect one.
If there is a real ongoing service, charge for it.
If there is not, do not disguise recurring revenue as a technical necessity.
What recurring costs are genuinely unavoidable?
Your domain name
A domain such as yourbusiness.ie or yourbusiness.com normally renews annually.
That is a genuine third-party cost.
Ideally, the business itself should control the registration.
Any paid software you choose to use
If the website relies on a paid booking platform, e-commerce system, CRM, newsletter service or another commercial product, that product may have recurring fees.
Those charges exist because you are continuing to use the service.
Infrastructure when the site genuinely needs it
More complex dynamic websites may consume server, database, storage or compute resources that have real ongoing costs.
Again, that is legitimate.
The problem is not recurring costs.
The problem is recurring costs that are poorly explained or unnecessary for the project.
The underlying components are worth separating: website hosting costs, domain renewal costs and genuine website maintenance costs are three different things.
What does a €50 monthly "website fee" actually include?
It could include something valuable: hosting, software updates, backups, technical support, security monitoring, content edits, priority support, plugin licences, and analytics reporting.
That may be a perfectly reasonable package.
But it could also mean:
We built you a relatively simple website, the underlying hosting costs very little, and we charge €50 every month because that is our business model.
Those are two very different propositions.
The client deserves to know which one they are buying.
Why are monthly website charges so common?
Older hosting models
Historically, websites commonly required paid server hosting.
Charging a hosting fee therefore became normal.
WordPress maintenance
WordPress sites have an application, database, themes and plugins that may need updating and managing.
A real maintenance service can justify ongoing fees.
Support
Clients sometimes want somebody available to make changes whenever required.
A retainer can be convenient for both sides.
Recurring revenue
And then there is the obvious commercial reason.
Businesses like recurring revenue.
Web agencies are no different.
A client who pays €50 every month is worth €600 every year after the initial build.
There is nothing inherently unethical about selling a subscription.
But it should be sold as a service with value, not presented as though websites mysteriously stop working unless a monthly invoice is paid.
Why modern static sites can be different
Many ordinary business websites are primarily content: home, services, about, work, contact, photographs, and forms and calls to action.
They may not need a traditional always-on application server or database.
Modern platforms can distribute those finished files extremely efficiently.
Cloudflare Pages currently charges nothing for static asset requests, including on its free plan.
That radically changes the economics for a straightforward website.
If the website's core hosting bill is effectively zero, the question becomes:
What ongoing service would the monthly charge actually pay for?
If the answer is "none", I do not think the charge belongs there.
Gavin's take
Monthly website fees are not automatically bad. I would happily recommend paying monthly when the business is receiving something useful every month: active support, software licences, managed updates, ongoing changes, SEO work or infrastructure the site genuinely needs. What I dislike is turning the website itself into a subscription by default, especially when the client cannot explain what would stop working if the monthly payment stopped.
Gavin’s perspective
Built by Gavin's position
My model is deliberately different.
I build custom websites. I do not use generic off-the-shelf templates, and I do not automatically lock a client into a monthly hosting plan.
For a straightforward small-business website, the aim is: pay for the design and build, own/control the domain, use lean infrastructure, pay only for third-party services the business actually needs, and add paid support later if there is real work to be done.
This is not complicated.
It is simply a more transparent separation between building the website and operating services that genuinely cost money afterwards.
"But my current agency says the monthly fee covers maintenance"
It might.
Ask what maintenance means in practice. Find out how often anything is updated, whether backups and security are actively managed, whether content changes or software licences are included and what level of support you can actually expect.
If those things are happening and you value them, keep the service. The point is not to eliminate recurring costs; it is to make them legible.
The point is not to cancel legitimate support.
It is to understand what you are buying.
What about WordPress?
WordPress changes the equation because WordPress itself has ongoing maintenance considerations.
A typical installation can include: WordPress core, a database, themes, multiple plugins, PHP/server requirements, and security updates.
That does not make WordPress bad. It makes it a platform with a different operating model.
If your business needs a CMS and WordPress solves that requirement well, paying for managed hosting and maintenance can make perfect sense.
But if your five-page website changes twice per year, it is worth asking whether you needed that architecture in the first place.
What if I want regular website changes?
Then paying somebody regularly can be sensible.
Suppose every month you need: promotions updated, projects added, staff profiles changed, landing pages created, and content published.
That is active work.
You can pay by the hour, per change or through a retainer.
The difference is that you know what the money pays for.
What if I stop paying my web designer?
This is a question to ask before the project begins.
Find out whether you still own and control the domain, whether you can access or move the hosting, whether you can take the website elsewhere and what happens to the site if the subscription ends. In other words, understand whether you bought a website or are effectively renting access to one.
There are valid website-as-a-service models where ongoing payment is part of the deal.
But that arrangement should be completely clear.
A business should not discover two years later that it cannot leave a provider without losing its entire website.
How much can unnecessary monthly fees add up to?
Even apparently modest charges compound.
€50 per month becomes €600 per year, €1,800 over three years and €3,000 over five.
If that €3,000 bought five years of useful support, updates and maintenance, fine.
If it bought little beyond keeping a simple static site online, the business should question the value.
What I'd do
Take the monthly figure and multiply it by 36 or 60. Then ask whether the three- or five-year total still makes sense for the service being provided. €50 per month sounds modest; over five years it is €3,000. That can be perfectly reasonable for five years of real support and maintenance. It is much harder to justify if it is essentially a label attached to hosting that costs the provider very little.
If you want to look at the full ownership picture rather than the monthly line item alone, see my guide to hidden website costs.
Questions to ask before agreeing to monthly fees
- What exactly is included?
- Which costs go to third-party providers?
- How much active support do I receive?
- Is maintenance actually required for this technology?
- How many content changes are included?
- Who owns the domain?
- Who owns the website?
- Can the site be moved?
- What happens if I cancel?
- Is there a cheaper option without ongoing support?
Transparency makes the decision easy.
The bottom line
Monthly website fees can be legitimate. They are not automatically necessary.
Pay for real hosting costs, software you use, maintenance you need, support you value and work somebody actually performs.
Do not assume you need an expensive monthly package simply because that is how a provider prefers to sell websites.
That distinction can save a small business thousands of euro over the life of a site.
Want a website without an invented subscription?
My current website pricing is published here.
For straightforward projects, I aim to keep ongoing infrastructure costs extremely low and let the client decide whether they actually need paid support later.
Get in touch if that sounds closer to how you want to buy a website.
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