Frequently Asked Questions

You’re signed up for the first 12 months, then it’s month-to-month — cancel whenever you like after that.

Your monthly covers everything that keeps the site running: hosting, maintenance, security updates, and edits when you need them. Think of it less like buying a file and more like any software you subscribe to — the service includes the site, so when the subscription ends, the site winds down with it. That’s also why we can keep the upfront cost as low as we do.

If you ever want to move on, just say the word. We’ll help you get your content, images, and domain sorted so you’re not left scrambling.

You start a new twelve month term at whatever the price is then.

If it has only been a month or two I can usually put the site back up in a day. If it has been a couple of years, expect a rebuild rather than a relaunch — a site that old is not the one you want representing you.

You settle the balance of the build — $3,500 minus everything you’ve paid so far — and the site becomes yours to keep.

At month six that’s $2,450. At month eleven it’s $1,575. It is not a penalty; you are buying the site at its published price with credit for what you’ve already paid.

Your first invoice is due within 7 days of the issue date. After that, payments run automatically on the card you have on file — if one fails, you have 7 days before a $25 late fee applies. Either way you’ll hear from us before the fee does anything, because nine times out of ten it is just an expired card.

For subscription clients: if two or more monthly invoices go unpaid for 30 days or more, we reserve the right to cancel the contract, at which point the remaining balance of the full build cost becomes due.

That said, we’re flexible. If something comes up, just let us know and we’ll almost always work something out. These terms only come into play when we can’t reach you at all.

We invoice by email through Stripe. Each invoice includes a link to a secure payment page where you can enter your details.

The first invoice goes out as soon as your contract is signed and covers your first month. Work starts once it is paid. Your second invoice arrives on the 1st of the following month and is the one you can set to auto-pay — after that it looks after itself.

Subscriptions are paid by credit or debit card — we accept all major cards. One-time projects are paid by ACH bank transfer, which keeps processing fees down for both of us.

We don’t accept checks or money orders.

One time. Not recurring.

Three extra pages is $300 and you are done — not $300 a month, which would be absurd. Same with the blog at $250. The only things that repeat are the plan itself and the handful of items on the rate card marked per month.

When you sign a contract — lump sum or subscription — if we can’t design something you’re 100% happy with and you no longer want to move forward, we’ll refund whatever you paid to get started. If we do move forward with building the site, there are no refunds after that point. From then on, refunds are at our discretion.

Yes. The plan runs month to month indefinitely after the first year. It does not stop paying itself off and hand you the site.

That is the trade you made by not paying $3,500 up front. The $175 is what covers the build, the hosting, the edits and the support, and it takes a couple of years of it before I have made what the lump sum would have made on day one.

No — there’s no buyout option on the monthly plan.

The subscription model only works for us over the long haul. It takes a couple of years of monthly payments just to reach what a lump sum project would have brought in up front, so the plan really only makes sense when clients stay for the long term.

That recurring income is also what lets us do the job properly. Because we’re not chasing new sales every month to cover the bills, we can spend that time on our existing clients — answering support emails, taking calls, making updates. It’s the reason we can be more hands-on than most agencies.

If clients could buy out, we’d be back to replacing that income constantly, and the level of service would go with it. So if owning the site outright matters to you, the lump sum option is the better fit from the start.

Yes — $50 a month, on the same twelve month minimum as everything else. It buys exactly what the monthly plan includes: edits and support, by text or email, with no allowance to run out.

It is not a switch to flip on and off between busy seasons. If you end it and want it back later, that is a fresh twelve months. Without it, one-off changes are $125 an hour with a thirty minute minimum.

Who owns it, and when you pay for it.

The monthly is $0 down and $175 a month with hosting, unlimited edits and support already inside it — but the site is not yours. The lump sum is $3,500 once and you own it outright, with hosting ($35) and edits ($50) as add-ons if you want them.

On the numbers: with hosting on top, the lump sum works out cheaper somewhere around the two year mark. Add the edits plan as well and it takes a little over three years to get there. Below that, the monthly is the cheaper way to have the same site.

The site is built to be found, and that isn’t an add-on. Every page is written around what people near you actually type into Google, with the titles, descriptions, image tags and structure to match, and it loads fast enough that Google doesn’t hold it against you.

What that gets you is a site that can rank. What it won’t do is leapfrog a competitor who’s been around fifteen years — that comes down to your Google Business Profile and your reviews, which matter more for a local service business than anything on the website itself. If you do one thing after launch, go get reviews.

A blog is optional on top: $250 to set up, then $200 a month for two posts or $350 for one a week. It helps, slowly. Most clients don’t take it and do fine.

What I don’t sell is a monthly SEO retainer — link building, citations, that world. It’s a full-time job and it isn’t mine. When you’re big enough to need it, I’ll tell you and point you at someone good.

No.

A store is a different animal — payments, inventory, tax, shipping and a support burden that never ends. It cannot be built and carried properly for $175 a month. If you are interested in an e-commerce site, it would be best to reach out directly to chat about your specific needs!

Yes, you always own your domain. We never take hostages!

About a week from the day we have everything we need — that means your first invoice cleared and your onboarding completed, with your photos, service list, and business details in hand.

That last part is what determines the timeline. The build itself moves quickly; it’s waiting on content that stretches things out. If something’s holding you up, we’ll launch with stock imagery and swap in your photos later rather than let the whole project stall.

Not on the monthly plan. The subscription covers the site along with hosting, maintenance, and support — so when it ends, the site winds down with it, the same way any software subscription works.

What stays yours is everything that was yours to begin with: your domain, your content, your Google profile, and every lead the site brought in. We’ll hand those over whenever you ask, no matter the circumstances.

If owning the site outright matters to you, that’s exactly what the $3,500 lump sum is for — you’ll find it right next to the monthly plan on the pricing page.

Up to eight, on either plan. For most service businesses that is home, a services overview, a page for each of your three main services, about, and contact.

Additional pages are $100 each, one time, not recurring. A blog is $250 to set up.

Nope! Everything we make is built with custom written code. No page builders here.

That is what separates us from the others — we put the time and effort to do things differently and it shows in our work and our clients’ online presence after launch.

Mostly because there’s so much less that can go wrong.

WordPress runs on a database and a pile of plugins that all need updating — fall behind and things break, or worse, someone gets in. Our sites don’t have any of that. No database, no plugins, no login page. Nothing to hack and nothing to keep patched.

You get the side benefits too: pages load faster without the extra weight, nothing breaks after an update because there are no updates, and when you need a change made, we just make it.

Yup! If something were to happen to me (the owner and operator), I have colleagues that know how my sites operate and are ready to take the business on. We will always have someone available to continue maintaining your site.

You send an email to ethan@greyhounddesigns.com and it will go into our ticketing system where I can read and fulfill them and mark them as solved.