Fixed price websites: why one-time beats hourly billing
Most people buying a website know the anxiety: «How much will it actually end up costing?» With hourly billing and open-ended invoices, you don't know until the bill arrives. With a fixed price, you know up front – to the krone. Here's why one-time pricing is almost always the safer choice.
Three ways to pay
| Model | How it works | Risk |
|---|---|---|
| Hourly billing | Pay per hour worked, often with unclear scope | High – the price grows with the job's duration |
| Subscription / «platform rent» | Low entry price, then fixed monthly fees (the equivalent of 500–2,000 kr) forever | Medium – cheapest in month one, most expensive over time |
| Fixed price (one-time) | The price is locked from day one, everything included | Low – no surprises |
Why hourly billing gets expensive
Hourly billing isn't «unfair» – but it places all the risk on you. Meetings take time, emails take time, «a small adjustment» takes time. When the vendor bills per hour, nobody has an incentive to work efficiently. A fixed-price vendor has the opposite incentive: the leaner their process, the more they earn – and you still pay the same.
Why «cheap» subscriptions get expensive
The equivalent of 500 kr a month sounds like nothing. But over three years that's 18,000 kroner – more than an entire Fiks Pro package – and you still don't own the solution. Stop paying, and the website disappears. Do the math: website builders and template subscriptions typically cost more than the one-time price already in year two.
What a fixed-price package should include
- Clear scope: number of pages, design, copy help and images specified up front
- SEO foundation: titles, descriptions, structured data, sitemap and Search Console setup
- Speed: hand-coded (not a heavy CMS), fast on mobile
- Ownership: domain and content in your name
- Known delivery time: about a week, not «eventually»
- Secure payment: card via e.g. Stripe, with a receipt
Common questions about fixed pricing
«What if I want something that's not in the package?» Then you get a new fixed quote before anything is done – never a surprise invoice. See the FAQ for details.
«Isn't fixed price more expensive than hourly?» Rarely. Efficient vendors can offer fixed prices precisely because they know how long the work takes – and you get the benefit of their efficiency.
See our packages and prices Get a free quote
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