When we build a website for you, you get the source code. It's yours. You can take it and host it yourself, or you can have us manage it for $50/month (or $500/year).
Either way is fine with us. Some of our clients are technical and prefer to run their own infrastructure. Others would rather focus their energy on their actual business. This page is here to help you figure out which camp you're in.
What Self-Managing Actually Looks Like
Running your own website involves a few moving pieces. None of them are impossibly hard, but they do add up.
| Task | In Plain English | Difficulty |
|---|---|---|
| Create accounts | Sign up for GitHub (stores your code) and Cloudflare or Vercel (runs your site) | Easy |
| Connect your domain | Point your domain (e.g., yourcompany.com) to your hosting. Involves changing DNS settings at your registrar. | Medium |
| Deploy the site | Connect GitHub to your hosting platform. Usually a few clicks if you follow the tutorial. | Medium |
| Set up SSL | The padlock icon (https). Usually automatic with Cloudflare/Vercel. | Easy |
| Monitor uptime | Check that your site is online. Set up alerts or check manually. | Ongoing |
| Make content updates | Changing phone numbers, hours, service areas. Requires editing code or having someone do it. | Harder |
| Renew your domain | Expires yearly. Miss the renewal and your site disappears. | Easy (just pay) |
The Real Costs
The dollar cost of self-hosting is genuinely low. The trade-off is your time and attention.
Dollar Costs
- Domain renewal$12-20/year
- Cloudflare/Vercel hosting$0 (free tier)
- GitHub$0 (free tier)
- Total~$15/year
Time Costs
- Initial setup2-4 hours
- Learning curveVaries
- Troubleshooting when things breakUnpredictable
- Mental loadOne more thing to manage
When DIY Works Great
Self-managing is a perfectly good option if any of these describe you:
- You have a tech-savvy family member or friend who can help with the initial setup
- You're comfortable with technology and enjoy learning new tools
- You have someone on your team who handles this kind of thing
- You want complete independence and don't mind the learning curve
If that's you, we'll hand over everything you need and help you get set up. You own it completely.
What $50/Month Gets You
For most of the businesses we work with, management is less about hosting and more about having a partner who's paying attention to your site so you don't have to.
The basics: your site stays up and current
- Hosting and uptime monitoring
We host it on reliable infrastructure and keep an eye on it so you don't have to.
- SSL and security
The padlock icon, https, all the security basics. Always configured, always working.
- Content updates
New phone number? Changed hours? Updated service area? Added a certification? Just let us know and we'll update it.
- Someone to call
Something seems off? You have a direct line to the person who built it.
Monthly check-ins
Once a month, we check in to make sure everything is working the way it should. We look at the numbers that actually matter for your business, hear any feedback you or your customers have had, and make sure nothing needs attention.
- Are visitors turning into calls?
How many people used your site to contact you. The number that matters most.
- What are people doing on your site?
Which pages they visit, what they click on, whether they're finding what they need.
- Anything need to change?
Customer feedback, seasonal updates, something that's not quite right. The monthly check-in is a natural time to catch these things.
Bigger projects (adding new pages, redesigns, new features) are billed separately. But you'll always know what something costs before we start.
Making the Call
The honest version: most of our clients choose the managed plan because they'd rather spend their time on their actual work. $50/month is a pretty low bar to never think about website infrastructure and to get a monthly picture of how your site is performing.
But if you're technical (or have someone who is), self-hosting is genuinely straightforward once it's set up. We'll walk you through the initial setup and you'll own everything from day one.
Either Way, You Own It
This is the part we want to be clear about: you own your website. Domain, code, everything. Whether you manage it yourself or we manage it for you, that doesn't change. There's no lock-in. If you start with management and later decide to take over (or vice versa), that's a conversation, not a contract negotiation.
We're here to make your online presence work for your business. How we do that together is up to you.