Going live feels like a finish line, but it is a starting line. From now on the website has to stay online, secure and current, and this is where the costs arise that nobody mentions beforehand. Here they are, item by item, with honest Swiss reference figures.
Why this matters: many SMEs compare offers only by the build price. Calculated over five years, upkeep often makes up half the total cost. Knowing it means comparing quotes properly and avoiding surprises.
Item 1: hosting and SSL
Hosting keeps your website reachable, the SSL certificate encrypts the connection. Solid Swiss hosting for an SME website costs CHF 10 to 40 per month. Three-franc bargain hosting exists, but takes its revenge with slow load times, and speed is a ranking factor today. SSL is included with good providers; anyone billing it separately is running an outdated model.
Item 2: domain
The smallest item: a .ch domain costs around CHF 10 to 20 per year. What matters is less the price than the registration: the domain should be registered in your name, not the agency's. Otherwise your own address does not belong to you, and switching providers becomes painful.
Item 3: technical updates and security
Content management systems like WordPress need constant updates for core, plugins and themes. Having that done professionally costs CHF 20 to 80 per month. Skipping it means collecting open security holes: outdated WordPress installations are among the most common entry points for hacked SME websites. Statically built websites, as we use at getyoursite, have a structural advantage here: no plugin zoo, minimal attack surface, less maintenance.
Item 4: backups
A backup costs almost nothing and saves everything when it counts. Check whether your provider backs up daily and whether restoring is included in the price. If an offer lists backups as a paid extra, treat it as a warning sign.
Item 5: content care, the underestimated giant
New opening hours, a staff change, a new offer, current photos: content changes are the item that costs the most over five years, and the one most often missing from quotes. Agencies bill per request, usually CHF 100 to 150. Four small changes a year quickly add up to CHF 500. And when every change costs money, it gets postponed until the website is visibly out of date. A stale website costs no money, but it costs trust, and with it customers.
The alternative: everything in one price
Precisely because these five items are hard to plan together, we bundle them at getyoursite: the subscription from CHF 59 per month includes hosting, domain, SSL, security, backups and, depending on the plan, several change requests per month. With the one-time purchase, the hosting and care plan from CHF 19 per month covers the technical side, and changes are billed by effort. Either way, you know the cost in advance.
Checklist for every quote
- Are hosting, SSL and domain included, and whose name is the domain registered in?
- Who performs technical updates, and how often?
- Are there daily backups including restoration?
- What does a small content change cost, and how quickly is it done?
- What does all of it add up to over three years?
Ask these five questions and you will suddenly compare offers correctly, and quickly.