Most businesses treat a website or app as a one-time purchase. Pay for it once, get it built, move on.
The problem is that software doesn't work like that. It needs maintenance, it needs updating, and when something breaks - which it will - someone needs to fix it. The question isn't whether you'll spend money on it after launch. It's how much, and on what.
What "cheap" actually buys you
When a development studio offers a price significantly below market rate, something has to give. Usually it's one of these:
Speed over quality. Code gets written quickly to hit a deadline and a price point. It works on launch day. Six months later, when you need to change something, the person doing the work charges you twice as much because the existing code is a mess to work with.
Templates and shortcuts. A lot of "custom" websites are WordPress theme installations with a logo swapped out. They look fine. They're also impossible to customise properly, slow to load, and break every time a plugin updates.
No handover, no documentation. You get a website but no real understanding of how it works. When the original developer disappears - and they often do - you're starting from scratch with whoever you hire next.
The cost that doesn't show up in the quote
Technical debt is a term developers use for the shortcuts and compromises that make future work harder and more expensive. Think of it like a loan - except you didn't choose to take it out, and the interest rate wasn't disclosed upfront.
It shows up as:
New features taking twice as long to build because the existing code is tangled
Bugs that keep coming back because the underlying cause was never properly fixed
A full rebuild after 18-24 months because the original build can't support what the business now needs
We've worked with clients who came to us after spending what felt like a reasonable amount on a website, then spent significantly more over the following year on fixes, patches, and eventually a rebuild. The total cost was two to three times what a proper build would have cost from the start.
How to think about it before you buy
Before committing to a quote, it's worth asking a few questions:
What does the handover look like? Will you have access to everything - the code, the hosting, the domain - and documentation that explains how it works?
Who maintains it after launch? Is there a support arrangement, and what does it cost?
What happens if you need to change something in six months? Get an honest answer about what that process looks like and what it typically costs.
Is this built on a platform you'll outgrow? Some tools are fine for a small site but become limiting quickly. Others are overkill for a simple business website.
We're not the cheapest option. We're also not the most expensive. What we try to be is the option that costs less over time - because the build is done properly in the first place, handed over clearly, and set up so that future changes are straightforward rather than painful.
If you're weighing up quotes and want an honest perspective on what you're looking at, get in touch. We're happy to look at what you've been sent and give you a straight answer.