Quote small-business sites at a fixed total with everything counted: pages, languages, revision rounds and a delivery time. Charge hourly only for work outside that scope, and say the price before you start. Add a monthly maintenance plan to every site, and split the build payment in two.
I started Ovrick on 1 October 2026. These are the choices behind my published prices, not a record of results.
Fixed price or hourly: which works for small-business sites?
Fixed price, for the build. A café owner or a salon owner wants one total before saying yes, and an hourly quote reads like an open cheque.
Fixed only works when the scope is counted. Mine lists the number of pages, languages and revision rounds, and the delivery time. Anything not on the list is an extra with its own published price.
Hourly still has a place: work outside the agreed scope. I charge €65 an hour, and I say so before I start.
If you use the Belgian small-business VAT exemption (turnover up to €25,000 a year), you charge no VAT and your quote is the final price. A VAT-registered competitor’s €500 is €605 for a client who cannot recover VAT. The Belgium guide explains the exemption.
How do I test a fixed price?
Estimate the hours, multiply by the hourly rate you need, and add a margin for the work that runs over. If the quote no longer pays after that, the scope is too big or the price too low. Do this before you publish a number.
How did I set my first prices?
Below the list price, for the first clients. The one-page site, Liftoff, is €350 at the founding price, list price €600. The company site, Orbit, is €550, list price €950. Extras do not fall with the founding price. The discount sits on the build, to win the first clients.
No VAT is charged, so these are the final prices.
Should I publish my prices?
I do, extras included: an extra page is €65 on Liftoff and Orbit, an extra language €150, copywriting €90 per page in Dutch or French, and changes outside the plan €65 an hour.
Publishing means the first call is about fit instead of haggling. It also forces you to decide your rules before a client asks for an exception.
What should a maintenance plan include?
The floor is whatever keeps the site online and recoverable. Put everything else in higher plans and give each item a number. Mine:
| Ground Control | Mission Control | Boost | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price per month | €29 | €49 | €149 |
| Hosting and domain | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| SSL and security updates | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Daily backups | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Uptime monitoring | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Email support | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Content changes | None | 1 hour a month | 2 hours a month |
| Reply time | Standard | Within 1 working day | Same working day |
| Reports and extras | None | Quarterly traffic and speed report, staging site | Monthly traffic and speed report, staging site, four Google Business Profile posts a month, every review answered within 48 hours, one new local page or FAQ a month in every language of your site, a monthly check of metadata, alt text and listings, a monthly call |
Ground Control is compulsory on every site. Change hours do not roll over to the next month. Either side can cancel with 30 days’ notice, and if a client leaves I transfer the domain and email wherever they want, free. Paying a year up front costs ten months instead of twelve.
When you host client sites, check that your hosting plan allows commercial use. Read the licence before the feature list.
Why does the plan matter more than the build price?
Because it adds up. A €350 Liftoff site with Ground Control at €29 a month costs €350 plus 36 × €29 over three years, which is €1,394. The plan is about three quarters of that.
This is why a plan is compulsory on every site. I cannot promise anything about a site I do not control, and when an unmaintained site breaks, the client calls whoever built it.
How many revision rounds should a fixed price include?
I include one round on Liftoff and two on Orbit. A round is one set of comments sent together, not one request at a time. Beyond that, changes are €65 an hour, and I always say so before I start.
Late material breaks fixed prices more often than anything else. Clients have fourteen days from the go-ahead to send texts, photographs and access. After that the schedule pauses until everything arrives. It is not a penalty, just honesty about the one thing I do not control. The delivery time counts from complete material, not from signature.
When a client asks for one more thing, I answer with a price, and the work starts after a yes.
How much should I ask up front?
Half on acceptance and half on publication, each payable within fourteen days. I start when the first payment and the material are in.
The law sets the background. With no term agreed, payment between businesses is due in 30 calendar days, and an agreed term cannot exceed 60. Late interest runs at the ECB reference rate plus eight points, plus a flat €40 for collection costs. The Belgium guide has the details and sources.
Should I let clients pay monthly?
Carefully. I offer one monthly option, on Orbit only: Orbit All-in at €119 a month, 24 months minimum, with no start-up cost. It includes the site, Mission Control, hosting and the domain. The site becomes the client’s at the end of the 24 months, free, on request.
Over 24 months that is €2,856. Buying the Orbit build at €550 and paying Mission Control at €49 a month for the same 24 months is €1,726. I publish both totals on the pricing page, because a client who compares will do the sum anyway.
A monthly option means you carry the build cost until it is paid back. Decide what you can afford to carry before you offer it.
Where can I read more?
The guide to domain, hosting and email covers the technical side of a plan, and the guide to builders, CMSs and custom builds covers what you are building. The prices above are my own, as shown on the pricing page. Other sources I checked on 11 October 2026: