The offer is always framed the same way: no big upfront cost, we handle everything, just 800 dirhams a month. For a business watching cash, that is a genuinely attractive sentence. It is also, over three years, more expensive than buying the site outright — and at the end of it you own nothing.
What the monthly fee usually covers
Hosting for a small business site costs a few hundred dirhams a year. A domain is around a hundred and fifty. SSL is free. Updates on a well-built site take an hour or two a year. Add it up honestly and the real running cost of most business websites is under a thousand dirhams annually.
The rest of the monthly fee is financing — you are paying for the build in instalments — plus a margin for the fact that leaving is difficult. There is nothing wrong with financing. There is something wrong with financing that never ends and never transfers ownership.
What lock-in costs you when you want to leave
- The domain is registered to the agency, so moving means asking the company you are leaving for a favour.
- The site runs on a proprietary builder that only they can operate, so nothing can be moved — it has to be rebuilt from zero.
- Content and photos exist only inside their system, with no export.
- Analytics history — years of data about your own customers — belongs to their account.
None of this is usually malicious. It is simply what happens when nobody insists on the alternative at the start. And it is entirely avoidable with one conversation on day one.
How we do it instead
One fixed price for the build. Every account — domain, hosting, analytics, search console — created in your name from the first day, not transferred to you later. The code and source files are yours once the final invoice is paid. Thirty days of support are included, and after that maintenance is a separate, optional agreement you can cancel at the end of any month.
We still offer maintenance, and plenty of clients take it — because they would rather not think about updates and backups. The difference is that it is a choice, not a condition, and their site keeps working perfectly if they stop.
When a subscription genuinely makes sense
To be fair to the model: if you need a real application with ongoing development, a team maintaining infrastructure, or software that is genuinely a product, a monthly fee is the honest structure. A five-page brochure site for a local business is not that. Charging for it like it is one is the part we object to.
Pay for work, not for permission to keep using what you already paid for.
In short
- Real running costs for a small business site are under 1 000 dh a year.
- Ask what you keep if you stop paying — the answer defines the relationship.
- Every account should be in your name from day one, not transferred later.
- Maintenance is fine. Maintenance you cannot leave is not.
Hamza El Ghad
Runs Step to Begin, a small studio in Tangier building websites, automation and video since 2019.
