Subscription or one-time project? How to choose.
Not every business needs the same shape of website engagement. Here's how to tell whether a CHF 990/year subscription or a scoped, fixed-price custom project is the better fit.
“A CHF 990/year website subscription suits a focused business site of up to six pages needing fast turnaround and ongoing small edits; a custom fixed-price project suits e-commerce, web apps, large brand sites (25+ pages) or multilingual platforms. Antechway.ch quotes custom work in writing within 24 hours.”
Updated 2026
The sticker price isn't the number that matters. The three-year number is.
A one-time project quote and an annual subscription look like different kinds of numbers, which makes them hard to compare honestly. The fairer comparison is total cost over three years, including hosting, edits and any renewal fees — not just what's on the first invoice.
On our own numbers: the CHF 990/year subscription totals CHF 2'970 over three years, with the renewal price locked in writing from day one. A Squarespace-plus-designer route commonly totals CHF 4'500 or more in year one alone, before ongoing subscription fees in years two and three. A traditional agency project can total CHF 10'000-13'000 over the same period once hosting and maintenance are added.
A subscription is built for a business that needs to be found, trusted, and contacted.
The CHF 990 plan is designed for a focused business website — up to six pages, two languages at launch — for businesses like dental and medical practices, restaurants, and trades and craft businesses. If your website's job is to show who you are, what you do, your service area or menu, and to make it easy to get in touch, a subscription usually fits.
- A local service business (practice, restaurant, trades company)
- A first proper website, replacing a template or no website at all
- A rebrand or relaunch that needs to happen in weeks, not months
- Ongoing small content changes — hours, prices, team, photos
Bigger, more technical, or platform-shaped work needs its own scope.
Some projects are the wrong shape for any subscription, however generous. E-commerce with Swiss payment methods, a web app or internal tool, a brand site running to dozens of pages, or a platform that needs to work in four languages with a real editorial workflow — these need a scoped, fixed-price engagement quoted on their own terms, not squeezed into a six-page template.
- E-commerce with TWINT, PostFinance or Swiss QR-bill
- A web app, portal or internal tool
- A brand site of 25+ pages
- A multilingual platform (EN/DE/FR/IT parity)
- Migrating off Wordpress, Wix, Webflow or Squarespace without losing rankings
Portability isn't a subscription feature. It should be the default.
Whichever shape you choose, ask what happens if you leave. On our subscription, you can cancel at the end of any year and we hand over your site and content in a portable format — no locked account, no held-hostage domain. That's a fair question to ask of any provider, subscription or one-off: if we stop paying you tomorrow, what do we walk away with?
Questions about subscription vs. one-time.
01Can a project start on the subscription and move to custom later?
02Is the subscription cheaper just because it's smaller in scope?
03What happens to a custom project's price after launch?
04How do I know which one my business needs?
Two paragraphs, one written quote, twenty-four hours.
Tell us about the project in plain words. You will get a fixed-price quote — or a polite, fast no — within one working day.