An agency quotes you $5,000 for a website. You sign. The site launches. Then the invoices start arriving.
Domain renewal: $50/year. Hosting: $200/year. Maintenance retainer: $300/month. A content update: $150. SSL renewal: $80/year. Three years later, you've spent $15,000 on a $5,000 website.
This isn't dishonesty — most agencies disclose these in the fine print. It's a failure of transparency in an industry where upfront quotes look competitive but ongoing costs compound silently.
The Costs Most Agencies Don't Emphasise
1. Hosting Fees
Most agencies build your website on hosting they control. Once the project is done, you pay them a monthly or annual hosting fee — typically $100–$300/year on the low end, up to $100/month for managed WordPress hosting.
The gotcha: if you stop paying, your website goes offline. And because the files are on their server, you need to negotiate or migrate to get your own site back.
2. Domain Renewal
A .com domain runs $15–$25/year. A .sg domain runs $25–$50/year. Most agencies register the domain in their own account and pass renewal costs to you — sometimes with a markup. Ensure your domain is registered in your own name.
3. SSL Certificate
The padlock in the browser. Modern hosting usually includes this free (via Let's Encrypt), but some agencies charge $80–$120/year as a separate line item. If you're seeing this charge, ask why it's not included.
4. Content Updates
Most agency contracts don't include ongoing content updates in their base price. Changing your price list, adding a new staff member, updating your opening hours — each of these can cost $50–$150 per request if charged hourly. One salon owner we spoke to paid $120 to update her service menu. Twice.
5. Plugin and Software Updates (WordPress)
WordPress sites need regular plugin and theme updates to stay secure. If your agency manages this, it's often bundled into a maintenance retainer. If not, you're exposed to security vulnerabilities every month you don't update.
6. Redesign Costs
Most websites have a useful life of 3–5 years before they start looking dated. A redesign at that point typically costs 60–80% of the original build price — often because the original was built on a platform the agency controls and can't be easily migrated.
What Transparent Pricing Looks Like
Singapore consumers have consistently flagged fear of hidden costs as a barrier to hiring web agencies. The most common complaint: prices look reasonable in the proposal but balloon after launch.
Breakfast Studios charges $365/year. That covers your website build (free upfront), hosting on Cloudflare Pages, your domain, SSL, and unlimited content updates via WhatsApp. There is no maintenance retainer. There is no charge per update. There are no hidden fees.
The $365 number is all-in. If that changes, we tell you in advance.
Questions to Ask Before Signing Any Web Design Contract
- Is the domain registered in my name?
- What happens to my website if I stop paying you?
- Are content updates included, and if not, what's the rate?
- What's the annual cost beyond the initial build?
- Am I locked in, and what's the exit process?
Answers you should accept: yes, you get the files, updates cost $X/hour, $Y/year total, 30-day notice period.
Answers that should raise flags: evasions, vague references to 'support packages', or being unable to get a total annual cost in writing.