Website Leasing Good or Bad?
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by: Keyclicks
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Would you lease your company website from its Huddersfield web designers?
In our daily travels across the web we’ve come across one of our
competitors who are prepared to lease websites to their clients.
On the face of it the concept of ‘website leasing’ sounds a good idea.
From the client’s point of view it means they get a large, complex and
potentially costly website for their business for a small monthly fee
without the outlay of a large amount of capital. This is great if your
cash flow is tight or if you’re a new start-up with a limited budget.
As such we can understand why the idea might sound attractive to some
companies.
However, we believe that whilst the ‘leasing’ concept works fine for
commodity capital equipment such as company cars, IT equipment or
office furniture; the ‘leasing’ idea has some inherent flaws as a
method funding a web development project.
If you’re a business contemplating leasing your next website, here’s some food for thought.
The Pitfalls of Leasing
We don’t think websites should be treated as commodity items like a car
or piece of office furniture either of which you can buy like-for-like
from alternative suppliers.
A decent website is a tool for your business that can perform a number
of functions such as enhancing your brand, improving customer
communications, generating leads or creating direct revenue through
online sales.
The needs of each business are individual and as such we believe it’s
more or less impossible to offer a ‘commodity’ that fits a bespoke and
creative business need.
So that’s why websites shouldn’t be treated as a commodity.
As for the flaws with website leasing, consider these factors before entering into a lease agreement:
1. Who owns the website either during or at the end of the lease
agreement? If the arrangement is like leasing a company car, then the
company never owns the car and it is taken back once the lease
agreement ends. Would you want to lose your website once it’s
established?
2. What happens if the website developers leasing your site to you go
out of business? Does you website simply die? Think of the added
expense and inconvenience this would entail.
3. What happens if you default on your payments or if you ‘fall out’
with your developers? Would your website be ‘withdrawn’ costing you
further inconvenience and downtime?
4. How flexible is the leasing agreement. If you own your website you are free to use alternative Wakefield web designers
and developers who may be able to offer you additional or improved
services that your ‘leasing developers’ cannot Under a lease agreement
you’re stuck.
5. How easy or difficult is it to get out of the lease agreement and if
so can you take your website with you? The consequences of not being
able to do so can be costly.
So in short, we would say; think hard before contemplating the leasing of your website.
If cash is tight, why not consider a small business loan through your
bank or even ask your web developers, if like us; they offer some sort
of professional fees financing plan. Such arrangements will help you
with your cash-flow whilst still allowing you to retain ownership and
control of your own website.
About the Author
Keyclicks is a Complete Creative Package, Design Print, Web and
Promotion agency Based near Leeds, West Yorkshire in the UK: we are a
team of highly experienced web development, marketing and graphic
design professionals that offer creative and innovative design and
marketing solutions for both print and web. Leeds Web Design Firm, Leeds Web Development, Leeds marketing Agency.
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