Why pay for web care every month if my site is already built?

Your site is paid for. It is online. It looks good. So why keep paying every month? It is one of the most legitimate questions we get, and it deserves a real answer — not a sales pitch.

What happens to a site left alone

A website is not a sign screwed to a wall. It is software running on a server, connected to the internet, around the clock. And like any machine left powered on, it degrades when nobody looks after it.

Here, in order, is what we see happen to an abandoned site:

• The security certificate expires. Three to twelve months. The browser then shows a big red warning: “This site is not secure.” One customer in two closes the tab.
• The domain name expires. A reminder in an inbox nobody watches, and the site disappears overnight. Worse: someone else can buy your address.
• The information goes stale. A new number, a service you no longer offer, changed hours. The customer calls a dead line and assumes you closed.
• Nobody notices the site is down. That is the worst case. A site offline for three weeks, discovered by accident because a customer finally mentioned it on the phone.

What you are actually paying for

It is not disk space. Gigabytes are worth almost nothing, and any company selling you gigabytes is selling you the wrong thing.

What you pay for is that someone stays responsible for your site:

• Monitoring. We are alerted when the site goes down, often before you notice. We fix it without you having to call.
• Automatic backups. If something breaks, we restore yesterday's version. Without a backup, rebuilding a lost site costs as much as a new one.
• Certificate and domain. Renewed before expiry, without you thinking about it once.
• Your edits. A price that changes, a photo to swap, a number to fix: you write, it is done. Included every month from the Signature package up.
• Someone to call. That is probably the real piece. When something goes wrong with your site, you do not have to track down who built it and hope they still answer.

The honest question: is it mandatory?

No. And we say that plainly, because plenty of agencies let people believe otherwise.

Your site is yours as soon as it is paid for. We hand over the files, the domain is in your name, and you are free to host it wherever you like — with a five-dollar-a-month host, or with your nephew who knows computers. That is entirely your right.

What you lose is not the site: it is the person looking after it. It is up to you to judge whether you have the time to watch a certificate, renew a domain and fix a page that stopped loading on a stormy Tuesday morning.

The calculation to make

Ask yourself one question: what is an average contract worth in your trade?

If your site is offline for a week and you miss a single customer in that time, you have already lost more than web care costs you for the year. And unlike your other expenses, this one you never see go by — because a customer who cannot find you does not call to tell you.

At ganolyk, Web Care starts at $29 a month, with a twelve-month term and two months free if you pay the year up front. It is an option — never a condition for keeping your site.