TL;DR
As a way of comparing the economic feasibility of investing in a website (vs an ongoing monthly subscription), we created a Website ROI calculator to get you thinking about the gamut of expenses that go into creating and maintaining your most important business asset (that would be your website). The factors that we use to measure that ROI include:
- The monthly subscription of a DIY platform
- Monthly addons (for functionality not covered by your subscription)
- Transaction fees (different from processing fees)
- Monthly revenue
- The amount of time you spend maintaining your website
- The dollar value you place on your time
- The value (rating) you place on leadgen
- The value (rating you place on integration systems
The resulting math compares the expenses of a website building platform (eg. Shopify, Wix, etc.) against investing in a website that you host with a hosting provider and maintain yourself. It’s not for everyone but we believe it’s the most sustainable.
Why We Built Our Website ROI Calculator
We build self-hosted websites for businesses that need more functionality than DIY website building platforms offer.
We built our ROI Calculator to provide business owners a different perspective when weighing their options for building a website. It’s not a black and white shopping experience (which is why we built in a few input factors to help personalize the math for individual scenarios).
There’s a lot of bias when it comes to recommending website building platforms but at the end of the day, it all boils down to three fundamental drivers that will guide your decision: control, budget, and scalability. We hope we’ve represented these outcomes realistically by factoring in the cost factors that go into creating and maintaining your business’ website.
The Elephant in the Room
Cost. How much does it cost to build something that I can control, build, and grow? Well, it depends.
If cost is a priority, you’re probably better off paying per month.
If you’re in it for the long haul and you’re committed to building a business, you likely already appreciate that your website is an asset that justifies the investment.
Apples and oranges.
DIY website building platforms have their place but the goal of MapleFish websites is to serve businesses seeking 100% ownership of their business assets along with all-inclusive functionality.
Our ROI calculator is for those people – to help you conceptualize the expenses that contribute to a productive website presence.
Behind The Numbers
DIY website builders and self-hosted websites are born from two entirely different animals: subscription vs one-time investment. This post explains the math behind the payment models.
To do that, the calculator uses both tangible and hidden costs, along with attempting to put a value on the subjective prioritization of how you personally rate your need for lead generation and integrations. Even if these values over-inflate the results, you’ll see why it’s important to factor in these elements.
You’ll see what each input means, how the calculations work, and why we assigned specific values to multiplier factors for the purpose of calculating your potential return on investment.
Understanding these details should help you make the most informed decision about your website investment.
NOTE: Calculations use a 2-year window because that’s the maximum time it might take for you to come into full ownership of your website, should you choose to take advantage of our payment plan. Yes, the irony of a subscription plan isn’t lost here.
The True Cost of DIY Website Platforms
Committing to a DIY website building platform for building your website involves a lot of faith. Mainly because of the lack of consideration for potentially moving your business to a different platform at some point down the road. I mean, who commits to putting down roots with the anticipation of moving? But blind faith will keep you from uprooting when common sense hands you the shovel.
Let’s not forget that these DIY platforms are a business in their own right. And the better they market their software, the more people use it, which generates more exposure, which results in a stronger reputation, which results in more people using it. And the snowball just gets bigger.
What you see as a business resource for your business, is actually a lifetime sale with recurring revenue for their business. Marketing 101.
The point it, you’re not looking at a mutually beneficial partnership. It’s strictly business. Which is how you should be looking at the data about where to park your website.
Let’s start this journey by looking beyond the monthly subscription price. Expect to pay more than the base subscription fee ($15-$299/month depending on the tier) out of the gate for the following non-negotiables:
- $20-$100+/mo for additional essential functionality (typically marketing and/or admin related)
- $25-$50 for a dedicated domain name (if you want to build a legitimate business)
- Transaction fees on sales (typically 1-3% of all revenue) in addition to payment processing fees
Then, there’s the amount of time you spend working on your website. Putting a value on your time is the subjective part; conceding that this time prevents you from working on your business, is the painful reality part.
Our calculator is designed to bring attention to this misrepresented cost structure while comparing it to the cost structure of an all-inclusive self-hosted website.
Understanding Calculator Input Variables
Let’s look at each input field in the calculator and see exactly what it represents and how it affects your results.
Monthly Subscription Fee
This is what you’re currently paying for your monthly subscription payment, regardless of what tier you’re at.
How it’s used in calculations: This amount is multiplied by 24 months to determine your total subscription cost over two years.
Monthly Add-ons
These are additional monthly costs for functionality not included in your subscription. If you’re paying for additional resources to run your website, including services in addition to your website building platform, enter that monthly amount here. Enter “0” if all your needs are covered by your subscription.
Example addons: Form builders ($5-15/mo), booking systems ($10-30/mo), business email accounts($6-12/mo/alias), email marketing integrations ($10/mo), SEO tools ($10-20/mo), premium templates ($50-300), premium support ($10/mo), enhanced e-commerce features ($20-40/mo), membership portal ($10-20/mo), additional storage ($5-10/mo), staff access ($10-15/mo), etc.
How it’s used in calculations: This amount is added to your base subscription cost and multiplied by 24 months for the two-year total.
Transaction Fee Percentage
This is the fee that platforms charge on each sale processed through your website, in addition to payment processing fees, calculated as a percentage of your monthly sales (the next input).
Think of it as a commission for the privilege of using the website platform. It’s common practice for e-commerce platforms like Shopify (which charges 2% on their Basic plan unless you use Shopify Payments) or Squarespace (which charges 3% transaction fees on their Business plan).
How it’s used in calculations: The calculator multiplies this percentage by your average monthly online sales to show how much you’re paying in monthly transaction fees, projected over a 2-year period, to be considered as a loss in revenue.
For example, if you enter a 2% transaction fee and $5,000 monthly online sales, the calculator returns a monthly result of $100/mo which amounts to $2,400 over 2 years.
As long as you’re in the black, it’s easy to ignore how much this seemingly small percentage fee adds up over time.
If you aspire to bring in more than $5K/mo in revenue, this “hidden cost” is a compelling point to reevaluate as a long-term expenditure along with your options for eliminating it.
It’s also a key point of differentiation since a self-hosted website wouldn’t have this fee.
NOTE: Because standard payment processing fees are a reality for both DIY and self-hosted platforms, the calculator doesn’t factor in this expense to the final ROI results.
Average Monthly Online Sales
This represents your monthly revenue from any online transaction processed through your website.
How it’s used in calculations: This amount directly impacts two input variables: 1) your transaction fee calculation, and 2) your lead generation rating.
The transaction fee calculation shows an expense; the lead generation rating is used to predict potential revenue from increased sales (based on the assumption that, if leads are important, you’re website should be successfully acquiring sales from them).
Hours Spent on Website Maintenance
This represents the time that you (or your team) spends managing and updating your website each month.
Example tasks: Content generation, product additions, invoicing and product fulfillment, potential troubleshooting, etc.
How it’s used in calculations: The calculator multiplies hours by “hourly value” (next input value) to calculate the expense representing thousands of dollars in lost productivity.
Hourly Value
This represents the monetary value you place on your time (or your staff’s time).
Think of this calculation as more than a salary expense but as an evaluation of time spent on non-revenue-generating activities. This “sacrificial expense” debunks the myth that DIY maintenance isn’t truly “free” but rather, comes at a measurable cost.
How it’s used in calculations: This rate is multiplied by maintenance hours (above) to calculate the expense of time spent on website activities that don’t produce revenue.
MapleFish Package Selection
Select one of our website packages that includes the most relevant features for meeting your business needs. The cost of this package serves as the comparative benchmark for your current website platform. Refer to our pricing page for details.
How it’s used in calculations: Each package represents a different investment amount, maintenance costs, and improvement factors used in subsequent calculations.
Lead Generation Importance (1-10 scale)
This is the first of two subjective ratings that represent your specific business priorities to provide a more personalized ROI assessment.
Your leadgen rating represents how important generating new leads and customers through your website are to your business, and the extent to which website building package you choose, meets those needs. The idea is that the MapleFish package you select includes varying strategies for realizing these outcomes.
How it’s used in calculations: Each of our website packages is assigned a “leadgen improvement” percentage (Startup: 35%; SMB: 70%; Foundation: 95%) and your rating is used as a multiplier to estimate potential additional revenue from improved leadgen.
For example, if you choose the SMB package (with an assigned 70% improvement factor) and rated lead importance as 9/10, the calculator returns an effective lead improvement of 63% (70% × 0.09). It then applies this result to your monthly sales to estimate a potential revenue from new leads.
If you also indicated that you earn $10K in monthly sales, the calculator multiples $10,000 by .63 over 24 months to show a potential increase in revenue of $151,200.
System Integration Importance (1-10 scale)
The next subjective rating measures how valuable it would be to connect your website with other business systems like a CRM, email marketing, inventory and project management, booking/scheduling system, payment processor, social media integration, etc.
The calculation demonstrates how a properly built website can dramatically reduce administrative overhead by allowing business owners to focus on revenue-generating activities instead of wrestling with website maintenance.
Essentially, we’re putting a monetary value on the estimated time savings realized from automation and integration functionality.
How it’s used in calculations: Each package is assigned an estimated time reduction percentage (Startup: 60%, SMB: 75%, Founder: 85%) and your “integration importance” rating is used as a multiplier to estimate potential time savings due to automating tasks. This calculation also uses your input for “hours spent on website maintenance” and “hourly value.”
For example, if you used a rating here of 8/10, the calculator would first calculate an “integration importance” factor (by centering the scale around zero and using “1” as a baseline).
Rating factor (8/10) = 1+ ((8-5)/10) = 1.3
If you also indicated that you spend 10 hrs/mo on your website and you chose MapleFish’s SMB website package (with a 75% time reduction factor), the calculator would multiply those hours by the website package’s assigned percentage and then multiply that by the above rating factor to obtain a value for the reduction in monthly hours spent on website maintenance (9.75 hours).
This number is then multiplied by the value that you place on your time ($50) over 24 months, to determine the monetary equivalent of time savings.
NOTE: How Integrations Enable Automations
System integrations and automations are closely related concepts, particularly in how they affect time savings and operational efficiency.
Integrations connect software systems so they can communicate and share data; automations are the workflows that use these connected systems.
Examples of Time-Saving Automations Enabled by Integrations
- Form submissions added to your CRM (no manual data entry)
- New customers segmented and added to your marketing campaign
- Website orders synced with accounting software
- Appointment bookings added to your calendar
- Customer data populated across all your systems
Why This Matters in our ROI Calculator
DIY website platforms typically have limited integration capabilities, which means that many integrations aren’t available and those that are require levelling up to a higher subscription fee. Limited data sharing is common and setup is difficult or impossible because you don’t have admin access.
Conversely, self-hosted WordPress websites can integrate with virtually any system through native integrations, 3rd-party plugins, API connections, webhooks, or custom development. This kind of flexibility translates to significant time savings.
Conclusion: Understanding Your True Website ROI
Our Website ROI Calculator goes beyond simple cost comparison to reveal the full financial picture of your website options. By accounting for hidden costs, time value, and business impact factors specific to your situation, it provides a comprehensive view of the potential return on your investment.
Remember that while the calculator provides a data-driven estimate, every business is unique. The true value of your website as a business asset depends on your specific goals, operations, and growth plans. How you achieve these outcomes is directly impacted by the degree of control, budget, and scalability your website enjoys. We hope we’ve done a good job in showing how these factors can impact the way you use your website for optimal business outcomes.
We invite you to try the calculator for yourself and discover what your potential ROI might be.
For a personalized assessment tailored to your exact business needs, schedule a free consultation with our team on the pros and cons of owning vs. renting your website.
