WordPress is free. A WordPress website is not.

WordPress runs a very large share of the web and it is free to download. That is completely true and it is also the most misleading fact in this whole category, because nobody has ever been handed a working business website by downloading WordPress.

What free actually means

WordPress is free the way an engine is free. It is a real, powerful, endlessly flexible piece of software, and if you or somebody you trust knows it well, you can build almost anything with it and you should.

What it is not is a website. Downloading it gets you software with no home, no design, no words and no contact form. Everything that turns it into a business website is a separate decision, and most of those decisions cost money every month.

The bill nobody quotes you

These are the pieces a normal local business site ends up needing. Ranges rather than prices, because they vary enormously by who you buy from.

Add the unavoidable lines only and a self-run WordPress site is realistically $10 to $40 a month before anybody has written a word of your services page. That is genuinely cheap. It is just not free, and the gap between those two ideas is where a lot of half finished websites live.

The part that catches people out

Every builder has the problem where nobody updates your prices in March. WordPress has that one too, plus a second one the hosted builders do not have: it is your software to keep patched.

• Updates are yours. Core, theme and every plugin, forever. Skip them and you are running known holes. Apply them carelessly and something breaks, usually the contact form and usually silently.
• Security is yours. WordPress is the most attacked platform on the web precisely because it is the most used. A neglected install is a real target, not a theoretical one.
• Backups are yours. Until the day you need one, at which point they are extremely yours.
• Plugins fight. Two plugins that each work fine can break a page together, and nothing tells you except a customer who could not send the form.

What we do instead

We build the site for you before you pay anything, and then we keep it. You tell us your business name and what you do, we build the real thing, and we send you a live link.

For $47 a month you get the website built for you, on your own domain, with hosting included. A CRM behind the forms so every enquiry is saved with a name and a number. An alert the second one arrives, by email, text or Telegram. Basic analytics. And 8 changes a month: you text what needs changing and we make it.

What it does not include is a booking calendar, automations, an AI that replies to your leads, or Google review management. Those sit on higher plans. We would rather say that here than in an email after you have paid.

Head to head, question by question

Is WordPress cheaper?

On the monthly bill, usually yes, if you run it yourself. $10 to $40 against our $47. The moment you pay somebody to build it or maintain it, the numbers cross over quickly, because a maintenance retainer alone is typically $50 to $200 a month.

Is WordPress more powerful?

Yes, by a long way, and it is not close. Anything you can imagine, somebody has built a plugin for. If you need something genuinely unusual, WordPress or a developer is the right answer and we are not.

What about SEO?

WordPress with a good SEO plugin gives you more control than anything else here. That control is worth exactly as much as the time somebody spends using it. We write and fill in the basics for you, which beats powerful tools nobody touches.

Can I move my WordPress site to you?

We rebuild rather than migrate. Your domain and your content come with you and the domain stays in your name. Keep the old site up until the new one is live, so there is never a day where customers land on nothing.

Do I own anything with you?

Your domain, in your name from day one, and your contact list, exportable whenever you want. The site itself is built on our platform, the same way a Wix or Squarespace site is built on theirs. We say that plainly because it is the honest trade for not having to run any of it.

Who this is not for

If you know WordPress, or you have somebody who does and who will still be around in a year, use it. It is more flexible than we are and cheaper to run. We are not going to pretend otherwise to win a $47 sale.

If you need something genuinely custom, a members area, an unusual booking flow, a store with real inventory, that is a developer's job and it is worth paying for.

We are the right answer for a local service business that needs a good website which stays true, and does not want to become a part time system administrator to get one.

WordPress is a trademark of the WordPress Foundation. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by the WordPress Foundation or Automattic. The WordPress software itself is free and open source; the costs above are typical market ranges for hosting, themes, plugins and maintenance bought separately, not prices charged by WordPress. We keep this page current. If anything here is out of date, tell us and we will fix it.