Paying for a website monthly

Paying for a website every month can mean buying it in installments, renting it, subscribing to a service or renting a tool to build it yourself. Here is what these options cost in Switzerland, who owns the website at the end and what to check before you sign.

Goodbye Internet, creative agencyUpdated 25 October 20268 min read10 sources

At a glance

A monthly price alone cannot compare two offers. Ask two questions: how much will you have paid in total, and who will own the website at the end?

Upfront: A purchase paid at once
Installments: A purchase spread over a fixed term
Rental or subscription: A service; the site often stays with the provider
Website builder: A rented tool, tied to its platform

In every case, the contract states which rights to the website and its code you receive, and when. Compare offers over the same period, including start-up fees, hosting and the cost of leaving.

Four ways to pay for a website

“Paying for a website monthly” covers very different contracts. With installments, you buy the website and spread its price. With a rental or subscription, you pay for a service while it runs, and the website often remains the provider’s property, as the Geneva agency bySAMI notes⁸. With a builder such as Wix or Squarespace, you rent a tool and build the website yourself.

The monthly amounts published do not cover the same services: number of pages, changes, hosting, minimum term. The table gathers those from this guide’s sources.

Monthly amounts published in Switzerland, in CHF per month
Published estimate	Range
Rental and subscription
Rented WordPress website, 36-month minimum term⁹	CHF 99 to 119
Subscription with hosting and support⁸	CHF 200 to 600
Doing it yourself
Builder such as Wix or Squarespace, not counting your time⁸	CHF 20 to 40
Hosting only⁸	CHF 10 to 40

Set-up fees not included. Logarithmic scale: each mark is ten times the previous one. Estimates published by each source, not verified by the studio.

Buying and paying upfront

Paying for the website at once remains the traditional agency model. For bySAMI, it makes sense if you have the cash and someone to look after the website afterwards⁸. The price ranges published in Switzerland are in our guide to website costs.

Paying is not enough to obtain the rights. The Swiss Copyright Act protects computer programs as works, and assigning the ownership of a copy does not include the right to exploit the copyright². The contract should therefore state which rights to the code and design you receive, and when. Also have the domain registered in your company’s name.

A website paid upfront keeps costing money after launch: hosting, domain name, updates, changes. bySAMI counts CHF 10 to 40 a month for hosting alone⁸; compare these costs separately, over time.

Paying in installments: a purchase spread over time

With installments, you buy the website and spread its price over a number of payments set in advance. The total paid may differ from the upfront price, and the website may stay with the seller until everything is paid: read these two points first.

For private individuals, the Federal Act on Consumer Credit governs such financing. A contract that finances the purchase of goods or services must state, among other things, the cash price and the price payable under the credit contract, the number, amount and due dates of the payments, and the owner of the goods if ownership does not pass at once, with the conditions for it to pass (Art. 10). The consumer can also revoke their offer or acceptance in writing within 14 days (Art. 16)¹.

The act only protects consumers, however: natural persons who enter the contract for a purpose outside their business or professional activity (Art. 3)¹. A website ordered for your business falls outside this definition. The points of Article 10 remain a good checklist for any contract:

The upfront price and the installment total, side by side.
The number, amount and due dates of the installments.
Who owns the website and code while you pay, and when they become yours.
What happens if you pay late or want to stop.
Costs billed separately, such as hosting or management, and which of them continue after the last installment.

Renting or subscribing: a service while it lasts

With a rental or subscription, the monthly fee covers building the website, hosting it and, depending on the offer, small changes. A rental offer from Basel-Landschaft binds you for 36 months, with a set-up fee of CHF 590⁹; a subscription from Vaud binds you for 12 months, then can be cancelled each month with 30 days’ notice¹⁰.

The end of the contract matters as much as the monthly fee. The Basel-Landschaft offer ends on its own after 36 months: you can then pay CHF 520 a year for hosting and service, order a redesign that extends the rental by 36 months, or take over the website and its domain for half a year’s rent⁹. The Vaud subscription sets a buy-out price in the contract; without a buy-out, the website goes offline 30 days after you stop, and you receive a full copy of your content and data¹⁰.

Without such a clause, leaving can cost you the website. In 2020, the Swiss magazine Beobachter reported on a small business in Aargau that, after cancelling a three-year service contract, got back only its texts and images: according to the provider, the design code belonged to its website supplier and was not part of the content⁷. Warning signs before you sign:

No buy-out or takeover price written in the contract.
A domain registered in the provider’s name, with no transfer date.
Automatic renewal for a new minimum term.
Nothing on what you get back at the end: texts, images, data, code.

Website builders: a rented tool

Wix or Squarespace are also paid monthly, but you build the website yourself. bySAMI counts CHF 20 to 40 a month, plus 30 to 60 hours of your time for a decent result⁸.

The website stays tied to the platform. Wix states that the content you build belongs to you, but that its architecture does not support hosting the site elsewhere; you can only connect a domain bought and managed with another provider⁴. Squarespace exports part of the content to a file meant for WordPress, without style settings, custom CSS or product blocks⁶.

Ending the subscription does not make the website disappear. At Wix, the plan stays active until the end of the paid period; the site then moves to a free Wix address with Wix ads, and the domain or email addresses are cancelled separately⁵.

Comparing offers over the same period

A low monthly fee says nothing about the total cost. For each offer, work out what you will have paid after the same period, for example 36 months, and what it then costs to keep the website, in this order:

Add up the first payment: upfront price, first installment or set-up fee.
Add every monthly payment of the minimum term.
Add hosting, management and the domain if they are billed separately.
Add the cost of leaving: buy-out, takeover of the website or cancellation fee.
Check whether each price includes VAT; the standard rate is 8.1%³.
Finally, compare what you get: pages, languages, changes, and who owns the website, the code and the domain.

CHF 4’154paid over 36 months for the smallest package of the Basel-Landschaft rental, with one content page: a CHF 590 set-up fee, then 36 monthly payments of CHF 99. Taking over the website afterwards costs half a year’s rent, another CHF 594⁹.

How the studio’s 36 installments work

Our offer

At Goodbye Internet, you pay for a custom website upfront or as a purchase in 36 monthly installments. Our terms put it this way: “This financing makes the purchase easier; it is not a rental.” You commit to paying all 36 installments.

The first installment is paid with the order, the next 35 each month, and financing stops after the 36th; it is never extended automatically. The installment total, which differs from the upfront price, is shown before you agree, and you accept the terms before you pay.

On ownership, our terms are clear: “The website code belongs to the studio until the website purchase has been paid in full.” A request to stop does not remove the obligation to pay the 36 installments, and unpaid invoices remain due; no collection of the outstanding balance or cancellation fee is added automatically. If you have difficulty paying, write to the studio.

Management is billed monthly, separately from the website price, from the start of website creation, and continues after the 36th installment. It includes the domain, Vercel Pro and one small information change per month, Sanity from the Entreprise package and Supabase Pro for Premium and E-commerce. It is required unless you can configure this infrastructure yourself and manage and pay for its subscriptions directly. Each package’s amounts are on the service page; E-commerce goes through a quote.

Send these answers to the studio

Questions

How much does a website cost per month?

It depends on what the monthly fee covers. In this guide’s sources, a builder such as Wix or Squarespace costs CHF 20 to 40 a month without counting your time, and a subscription with hosting and support CHF 200 to 600⁸; one rental offer lists CHF 99 to 119, plus a CHF 590 set-up fee⁹. Always compare the total over the minimum term.

Is it better to rent or buy a website?

Renting spreads the cost and often includes hosting and support; the risk, according to bySAMI, is paying indefinitely for a website you do not own⁸. Buying, upfront or in installments, costs more at the start or commits you for a period, and the contract can transfer the website and its rights to you. Compare both over the time you expect to keep the website.

Can I stop monthly payments early?

It depends on the contract: check what remains due if you stop. With us, the purchase in 36 installments is a binding commitment: a request to stop does not remove the obligation to pay them, but no collection of the outstanding balance or cancellation fee is added automatically.

Does the Consumer Credit Act protect a business?

No, by its own definition: it covers natural persons who enter the contract for a purpose outside their business or professional activity (Art. 3)¹. For a website ordered for your business, check the contract yourself for the upfront price, the total payable, the installments and when the website becomes yours.

Do monthly payments include VAT?

Check whether each offer’s prices include VAT; the standard rate is 8.1%³. Our prices are final in CHF: Goodbye Internet is not registered for VAT.

What happens after the 36th installment?

At Goodbye Internet, financing stops. Under our terms, the transfer of the code requires payment of all installments, and unpaid installments remain due even after financing has stopped. Only management continues each month, unless you manage and pay for the domain and required subscriptions yourself.

Custom website

Landing page, business website, custom tools or shop, according to your package.

from1’290CHF

upfront

or 36 monthly installments from CHF 39

Management billed separately, from CHF 24/month

Service details Write to the studio

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Sources

This guide is written by Goodbye Internet, which also sells logos and websites. The facts and figures it cites come from the sources below; sections about our own offer are marked with a coloured dot.