Why we ask for a 12-month website contract

"Why a 12-month website contract?" is the single question we get asked most often. It is a reasonable thing to ask. Long contracts have a bad reputation, and most of that reputation is earned. The reason we use one is straightforward, and we would rather explain it up front than have you guess.

The setup-fee problem

Building a small business website properly costs real money. Discovery, design, build, content migration, SEO setup, payment configuration, going-live checks — done by an experienced operator, it runs from roughly 15 000 to 50 000 kr depending on tier. That is the industry norm, and it is what a traditional agency invoices on day one before the site ever goes live.

Charging that as a setup fee creates a problem. Many of the businesses that benefit most from a managed site — a small consultancy, a single-location shop, a new e-commerce — cannot or do not want to write a 30 000 kr cheque before they have seen the site work. So the deal never happens, even when it would clearly work out for everyone involved.

The trade we propose instead

We absorb the build cost ourselves. There is no setup fee. You pay nothing until the site is live, and from that point a flat monthly subscription covers everything — build cost amortised over the term, plus hosting, maintenance, and support.

For that to work without prices climbing, we need a minimum period over which the build cost is recovered. Twelve months is that period. It is short enough to be defensible (most managed-hosting contracts in this space are 24 or 36 months), and long enough that the math works at the prices we are charging.

What you get in exchange for the commitment

The 12-month period is not a one-way obligation. We make three commitments back to you for the same window:

Locked price. The monthly rate you sign at is the rate you pay for the full 12 months. Cloudways and other infrastructure suppliers raised prices in 2024 and again in early 2026. We absorbed those increases on existing contracts. If new pricing applies to you, it applies at renewal, not mid-term.

Full delivery, not a sales handoff. The same person who quotes the job runs the build, runs the launch, and runs the operations. There is no point in your relationship with us where you get handed from a closer to a project manager to a junior developer to an account manager.

Ownership from day one. The 12-month commitment is a billing arrangement, not a leash. You own the domain, the design, the content and the data the entire time. If we ever fail to deliver, you are not stuck — you are owed.

What happens at month 12

Three options open up on the day the commitment ends.

1. Continue on a monthly basis. No new commitment. You can cancel any month from then on.
2. Renew for another 12 months. Same price lock, same terms. We typically offer a small discount for clients who renew, because it removes the build-cost concern from the equation.
3. Leave. We hand you a full WordPress export, transfer the domain, send credentials, and stay on call for two weeks. No exit fee.

What we are not asking you to commit to

A clear list, because vagueness is where contract anxiety lives:

• We are not asking you to commit to a specific tier — you can change tier within the period.
• We are not asking you to commit to specific features or scope — operations covers what is operations.
• We are not asking you to absorb price increases — yours is locked.
• We are not asking you to give up ownership — your assets stay yours.
• We are not asking you to pay anything if we fail to deliver the live site — billing only starts after go-live.

The commitment is to pay the agreed monthly rate for twelve months once the site is live. That is the whole thing.