What is website as a service (WaaS)? Pricing and tradeoffs

“Website as a service” is the agency name for a model owners know by other names: the pay-monthly website, the subscription site, the done-for-you website. You describe your business, someone else builds the site, and you pay a monthly fee that covers the hosting and the upkeep for as long as you keep it. This guide defines the model, lists what the plans cost in October 2026, compares paying monthly with paying once, and ends with the questions to ask before you sign. It is one of the 5 routes covered in I need a website for my business. FreeWebGuy runs on this model, so its numbers sit in every table next to the others.

What is website as a service?

Website as a service (WaaS) is a subscription model in which a provider designs, builds, hosts and maintains a website, and the client pays a recurring fee to use it. Kinsta, a hosting company that sells to agencies, describes it as a subscription model for delivering managed websites that bundles hosting, maintenance and support into one monthly or annual payment (Kinsta, April 2026). InstaWP, which sells tooling for the model, defines it as an agency selling a ready-made website that it builds, hosts and maintains while the client pays a recurring fee (InstaWP, October 2026).

Both definitions come from the agency side, where the appeal is recurring revenue. From your side of the table, the model has 3 parts:

1. A provider builds the site, usually from layouts it has used before, and brands it for you.
2. You pay monthly or yearly. The fee covers hosting, SSL, software updates and some amount of support or edits.
3. The platform stays theirs. You use the site while you pay. The design and the software are licensed, not sold.

That third part is the one to understand before you compare prices, and it is where the plans below differ most.

How does website as a service pricing work?

WaaS pricing has 2 numbers: a setup fee, which can be $0, and a monthly fee. Add a domain if you need one, at about $10 to $25 a year from a registrar, and you have the first-year cost. The table lists the done-for-you subscription plans the FreeWebGuy team read on October 14, 2026, at the price each provider shows a US visitor.

Done-for-you website subscriptions, list prices from each provider’s pricing page, October 14, 2026.

Provider and plan	Setup fee	Monthly fee	First-year cost
FreeWebGuy	$0	$15, starts after you approve the preview	$180
Hoot Host	$0	$15	$180
WebsitesForFree.net	$0	$15	$180
UENI Website Launch	$79 (list price $599)	$24.99 monthly, or $20.83 billed yearly ($249.90)	$328.90 yearly, $378.88 monthly
Jottful Let’s Go	$199 if taken within 2 days of viewing the free preview, otherwise $499 for 5 pages	$65 monthly, or $55 billed yearly ($660)	$859 yearly, $979 monthly
99 Web Guys	$0	$99	$1,188
B12 Professional	Not stated	$199 monthly, or $169 billed yearly	$2,028 yearly, $2,388 monthly

The table hides 3 things. First, “monthly” buys different amounts of help, which the next section covers. Second, 2 of the setup fees are promotions: UENI’s $79 is shown against a $599 list price, and Jottful’s $199 becomes $499 if you wait more than 2 days after seeing the free preview. Third, page limits: Hoot Host’s plan covers up to 5 pages and a blog, and Jottful charges $99 for each page past the first 5. FreeWebGuy compared with UENI and FreeWebGuy compared with Hoot Host go line by line.

How does paying monthly compare with paying once?

The alternative to a subscription is a project. You pay a freelancer or an agency once, then pay for hosting and upkeep yourself. WebsiteSetup puts a freelancer build for a small business at $2,000 to $7,600, which is 40 to 80 hours at $50 to $95 an hour, and an agency build at $5,000 to $15,000 (WebsiteSetup, updated November 22, 2025). After launch, the same site costs $40 to $250 a year to host, and WebsiteSetup’s separate maintenance guide estimates $30 to $250 a month to keep a small business site running (WebsiteSetup, March 2, 2026). What website maintenance costs per month breaks that figure down.

Three-year cost by route at list prices, domain excluded. Subscriptions use yearly billing where the provider offers it.

Route	Year 1	Years 1 to 3	Arithmetic
FreeWebGuy	$180	$540	36 x $15
UENI Website Launch, yearly	$328.90	$828.70	$79 + 3 x $249.90
Jottful Let’s Go, yearly	$859	$2,179	$199 + 3 x $660
B12 Professional, yearly	$2,028	$6,084	3 x $2,028
Freelancer build, self-hosted	$2,040 to $7,850	$2,120 to $8,350	$2,000 to $7,600, plus $40 to $250 a year for hosting
Agency build, self-hosted	$5,040 to $15,250	$5,120 to $15,750	$5,000 to $15,000, plus $40 to $250 a year for hosting

The freelancer and agency rows include hosting only. If you pay someone to maintain the site, add $360 to $3,000 a year (WebsiteSetup, March 2026).

A $15-a-month plan takes more than 11 years to reach the lowest freelancer figure. A $65 plan passes it inside 3 years, and a $199 plan passes the $5,000 agency floor early in its third year. The monthly number decides whether a subscription saves money, not the setup fee. The website cost calculator runs your own first-year and 3-year totals by route.

What do you get for the monthly fee?

Every plan in the table includes hosting. After that, the fee buys different amounts of work, and the differences matter more than a few dollars a month:

• Hoot Host ($15): up to 5 pages and a blog, 1 design option, and a note that update limitations apply and some updates incur an hourly rate (Hoot Host, October 14, 2026).
• WebsitesForFree.net ($15): a one-page design, up to 3 revision rounds, and the source files if you cancel (WebsitesForFree.net, October 14, 2026).
• UENI Website Launch ($24.99): a custom-designed site, domain and SSL, hosting, professional email and 30 days of done-for-you edits. The $59 Plus plan adds unlimited done-for-you edits and Google Business Profile management (UENI, October 14, 2026).
• Jottful Let’s Go ($65): hosting, SSL and a self-serve editor. Jottful makes your content updates for you for $90 a month more (Jottful, October 14, 2026).
• B12 Professional ($199): a team of copywriters, designers and project managers builds and launches the site. Monthly website updates come with the $399 Advanced plan (B12, October 14, 2026).
• FreeWebGuy ($15): hosting with SSL, your domain connected, a layout built for phones first, SEO basics (page titles, descriptions and structure), a contact or request form that emails you, the AI builder for your own edits, and the platform’s 24/7 chat support. Reasonable revisions before launch are included. What the $15 a month includes has the full list and what costs extra.

When you compare plans, ask about edits specifically: how many are included, how fast they happen, and what an hour of work costs past the limit. That line item separates a $15 plan from a $59 one more than anything in the brochure.

What are the tradeoffs?

Website as a service trades ownership and flexibility for a low entry price and someone else’s labor. In detail:

1. You rent the platform. With FreeWebGuy, your domain, logo, photos and text stay yours; the site design and the hosting platform are licensed to you while your $15 plan is active. Hoot Host says its sites cannot be exported or moved to another host. WebsitesForFree.net says it hands over source files on cancellation. Read this line in any provider’s terms before anything else.
2. Cancelling takes the site offline. That is true of every subscription here. If you cancel a FreeWebGuy plan, the site goes offline, we can help you gather your text and images on request, and SMBcrm keeps account data for about 30 days after a plan ends.
3. The scope is standard. Subscription sites are built from layouts the provider has used before, for a small number of pages. Custom software, complex integrations or a large catalog are quoted separately, and at FreeWebGuy any such work is approved before it starts.
4. The monthly number compounds. At $199 a month, 3 years costs $7,164, which sits inside the agency range for a one-time build.
5. You cannot take the design with you. You can take your domain and your content, and rebuild elsewhere. You cannot move the site itself.

What you get in return: no $2,000 check up front, someone else keeping the site running, and a first version fast. FreeWebGuy sends a first version within 48 hours of your brief. UENI advertises 7 days to launch, Jottful one week, and Hoot Host 2 to 3 weeks (their pages, October 14, 2026).

When does website as a service make sense?

Website as a service makes sense when these are true:

• You want someone else to build the site and keep it running, and you would rather not learn an editor.
• Cash this month matters more than the total over 5 or more years.
• Your business needs a standard site: services, service area, photos, a form, a way to book or call.
• You have read the exit terms and can live with them.

Choose a one-time build when you want the files and the code, when the site needs custom software, or when you plan to run it for 10 years with few changes. A freelancer-built WordPress site that you host yourself can move between hosts, which most of the subscriptions in this guide are not built for.

Choose a DIY builder when you enjoy the work and have the evenings. Wix Light costs $17 a month billed yearly and Squarespace Basic $19 a month billed yearly (their pricing pages, October 14, 2026), and you do everything yourself. DIY compared with done for you lays out that choice.

How does FreeWebGuy’s version work?

FreeWebGuy is website as a service with the payment moved to the end. You send a brief, which takes about 3 minutes. We build the full site and send a private preview, with a first version within 48 hours of your brief. Bigger sites, or briefs missing key details, take a few days more. You look at every page, tell us what to change, and decide. Hosting is $15 a month and starts only when you approve the site and set up your SMBcrm plan. Sending a brief charges nothing and commits you to nothing.

We use AI to build fast. A person checks every first version before you see it. There is no setup fee and no contract. You cancel the $15 plan any month in your SMBcrm account, and FreeWebGuy charges no cancellation fee. What costs extra: a new domain, payment-processing fees, new pages or a redesign after launch, and optional SMBcrm plans from $97 a month. How it works walks through each step, and website examples by industry show what the sites look like.

If that is the shape you want, send your website brief. About 3 minutes. No credit card. Pay nothing until you approve it.

What should you ask a provider before you sign?

Seven questions settle most of the surprises in this model. Ask them of any provider, FreeWebGuy included, and keep the answers in writing:

1. What is the setup fee, what triggers it, and is today’s price a promotion?
2. Is the plan month to month, or does the price depend on a yearly or multi-year term?
3. How many edits are included each month, how fast are they made, and what does work past the limit cost?
4. How many pages does the plan cover, and what does each extra page cost?
5. Whose name is the domain registered in?
6. What happens to the site, and to my data, on the day I cancel?
7. What can I export, in what format, and for how long after I cancel?

A provider that answers all 7 without a sales call is telling you something about how the next 3 years will go.