Full Transcript
Lauren: So my neighbor keeps telling me she's gonna build her own website. She's like, "I'll just use Wix, it's easy, it's cheap." And I'm wondering... is she right? Should she just do it herself?
Honor: Welcome to the 805 Web Minute with Lauren and Honor... We make interwebs and website stuff make sense... Let's get into it.
Honor: Okay so... Wix looks cheap. The ads say like 17 bucks a month. But that's just the starting price. Most small businesses actually need the 29 dollar plan minimum. And then... the fees start piling up.
Lauren: Wait, what fees? I thought the whole point was that it's all included.
Honor: Yeah, that's what they want you to think. But you need apps for everything. Booking? That's extra. Forms? Extra. Live chat? Extra. Email marketing? Extra after 200 emails a month.
Lauren: Oh no...
Honor: And those apps can be anywhere from 3 to over 100 dollars each... per month. So that 29 dollar website? Realistically ends up costing 50 to 100 dollars a month once you add the stuff you actually need.
Lauren: That's like going to a hotel that advertises 50 bucks a night, and then you get there and it's 20 bucks for WiFi, 30 bucks for parking, 15 for the mini fridge... and suddenly you're paying 120 a night.
Honor: Exactly! The resort fee model. And here's the part nobody talks about... your time.
Lauren: Oh, right. Because you have to actually build the thing.
Honor: The average DIY website takes 20 to 40 hours to build. That's just to get it live, not counting updates and maintenance.
Lauren: Twenty to forty hours?!
Honor: Yeah. So if you bill 50 bucks an hour for your actual work... that's over a thousand dollars of your time. And get this... 64 percent of small business owners find updating their own website a major challenge.
Lauren: Sixty-four percent! That's like two out of three people struggling with something that was supposed to be easy.
Honor: Right. And it doesn't end after you build it. Security updates, broken links, slow loading, stuff breaks. You're on the hook for all of that... forever.
Lauren: So it's like... you bought a car thinking it was cheap, but now you have to be your own mechanic. And you don't know anything about cars.
Honor: And 43 percent of cyber attacks target small businesses. So there's real risk if you don't keep up with security.
Lauren: Oh, that's scary.
Honor: It is. And look, if someone genuinely enjoys building websites and has 30 plus hours to spare... DIY can work. But most business owners I talk to? They don't have that time. They have a business to run.
Lauren: So the real question is... is your time worth more than 79 dollars a month?
Honor: That's exactly it. Because that's what you're trading. Hours you could spend serving customers or, you know, having your weekends back.
Lauren: So the moral of the story is... DIY sounds cheap until you count your hours. Before you sign up for Wix, ask yourself if your time is actually worth less than what you'd pay someone else.
Honor: Right. And if the answer is no... maybe don't torture yourself.
Lauren: And if you want a website without the DIY headache... give YouGrow a call!
Honor: Yeah. 79 dollars a month. Everything included... hosting, security, updates, all of it. No setup fee. Month-to-month, cancel anytime. Your site goes live in days, not months. And you never have to log into anything... we handle it all. Call us in Arroyo Grande, real person picks up.
Lauren: Alright, this has been 805 Web Minute. Thanks for listening.