What does "done for you" actually include?
Every vendor examined for this guide bundles roughly the same five things: design, build, copywriting, a basic SEO setup, and domain or hosting handled on your behalf rather than left to you. UENI markets a "built-for-you website" with domain and email included. B12 sells done-for-you tiers staffed with "copywriters, designers, and project managers." We Got Sites and Websites Done For You both build the site and hand you a live address, not a set of files to assemble yourself.
Speed is the pitch for several of these vendors. UENI advertises a live site in 7 days. Websites Done For You quotes 7 to 10 business days for its All-In Launch package. Neither timeline is unusual enough to call an industry norm on its own, but both vendors lead with it because a done-for-you buyer is usually comparing "how fast can this be live" against building it themselves.
That's the real tradeoff underneath the pitch. We Got Sites frames the choice as one of time versus money in its own done-for-you-versus-DIY comparison, arguing that paying someone else to build and maintain the site buys back the hours you'd otherwise spend learning a page builder. That's a vendor's framing, not a neutral finding, but the underlying logic holds either way: if keeping full control over every design decision and every future edit matters more to you than saving your own hours, DIY keeps that control in your hands. If you'd rather not touch the CMS at all, that's exactly what done-for-you is selling, and the tradeoff is that someone else now controls the build.
SEO is worth checking closely rather than assuming. None of the vendor pages in this comparison spells out whether a basic SEO setup, meta titles, alt text, an XML sitemap, is bundled into the price or billed separately. Treat it as a differentiator to compare across vendors before you sign, not a default you can assume every plan includes.
What does a done-for-you website service actually cost?
Three pricing models cover this market: a subscription (website-as-a-service), a one-time build fee, and a see-first model that charges only if you keep the finished site.
Subscription DFY (website-as-a-service)
UENI charges a $79 one-time launch offer, discounted from a regular $599 setup fee ("SAVE $520" on the same page), then monthly plans starting at $24.99/mo across three tiers (Launch, Plus, Growth). Domain and email are included, and UENI backs the purchase with a 30-day refund guarantee. B12 lists self-serve website plans at $49/mo and $78/mo (both after a $1/mo three-month intro), but its actual done-for-you tiers, Professional and Advanced, carry no published price on that pricing page. We looked for one and didn't find it: it's quote-only. That's a transparency gap worth naming rather than filling with a guess. We Got Sites prices its own DFY subscription at $60 to $199/mo in the same comparison post cited above.
One-time build fee
Websites Done For You's All-In Launch package costs $1,499 one time, covering design, domain, and the first year of hosting. It also offers a $163/mo financed option over 12 months, which totals $1,956, about $457 more than paying the $1,499 upfront. After year one, per the same page, hosting renews at $148.99/yr and the domain at $21.99/yr. Delivery is 7 to 10 business days, and the vendor claims "100% data portability and account ownership."
See-first (pay only if you keep it)
Nothing is charged until the finished site exists. Disclosure before the number: this guide is published by Press, which is itself a done-for-you web design service and the only vendor in this comparison using the model, so we have a stake in this section, not a neutral view. The mechanics: the finished site is hand-built first, free, in five working days, and the price to keep it is a one-time $299 with the source code included. No deposit, no subscription requirement; if the finished result isn't worth keeping, nothing is owed. The structural difference from the two models above is when the money moves. Under a subscription or a build fee you commit before your own finished site exists; UENI's 30-day refund guarantee, cited above, is the closest the other vendors get, and a refund is a claw-back after you've paid, not a chance to see the result first.
| Model | Who sells it (this comparison) | What you pay | When you pay | What you own |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Subscription (website-as-a-service) | UENI, B12, We Got Sites | A recurring monthly fee, sometimes with a small setup charge | Before the site is finished, then every month for as long as you keep it live | Not stated by the vendor pages we reviewed (see "What happens to the site if you stop paying," below) |
| One-time build fee | Websites Done For You | A flat fee, or a financed monthly plan that totals more than the flat fee | Before or during the build | The finished site and its code, per the vendor's own claim |
| See-first (pay only if you keep it) | The publisher of this guide (disclosed in the cost section) | One flat $299, only if you keep the finished site | After you've seen the finished site, only if you keep it | The finished site and its code |
How the three done-for-you pricing models compare, based on the vendor pages cited above.
What does a done-for-you website really cost over three years?
The monthly framing hides how these models add up. Below is our own arithmetic, not a published statistic, built from each vendor's own advertised monthly and one-time figures cited above.
| Service | Model | Advertised monthly | Setup / one-time | Recurring after year 1 | 3-year total (this article's arithmetic) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UENI, Launch tier | Subscription | $24.99/mo | $79 launch offer | included in monthly fee | $978.64 |
| We Got Sites, low end | Subscription | $60/mo | none published | included in monthly fee | $2,160 |
| We Got Sites, high end | Subscription | $199/mo | none published | included in monthly fee | $7,164 |
| B12, done-for-you tiers | Subscription | not published (quote-only) | not published | not published | not computable |
| Websites Done For You, All-In Launch | One-time build | n/a (or a $163/mo financed option) | $1,499, includes year 1 hosting | $148.99/yr hosting + $21.99/yr domain | $1,840.96 |
| This guide's publisher | See-first | none | $299 one-time, charged only if you keep the site | none required; hosting is your choice | $299 plus whatever hosting you choose |
Three-year totals computed by this article from each vendor's own published monthly and one-time figures: our arithmetic, not a cited statistic.
The crossover point is where a subscription's compounding cost passes a one-time build fee. Against Websites Done For You's $1,499, a $60/mo subscription passes it at roughly month 25, a little over two years in. A $199/mo subscription passes it in about 7 to 8 months. UENI's cheapest tier is the exception: at $24.99/mo plus its $79 launch offer, it stays under $1,499 through all 36 months, reaching about $978.64 by year three. Run the same arithmetic against the see-first model's $299 and the crossovers come much sooner: about month 2 at $199/mo, month 5 at $60/mo, and month 9 even on UENI's cheapest tier with its launch offer. The lesson isn't that subscriptions always cost more. It's that the crossover depends entirely on which tier you're quoted, so run this math on your own quote before signing.
What happens to the site if you stop paying?
For subscription DFY, we looked at UENI's pricing page, We Got Sites' comparison post, and B12's pricing page specifically for what happens to the site when you cancel. None of the three states it. That silence is the finding: in practice, a site that only stays online while you keep paying functions like a rental, whatever the vendor calls it, and none of the pages examined confirms what you keep if you stop. Ask directly before you sign, specifically what happens to the domain, the content, and any code if you cancel.
For the one-time build fee, Websites Done For You's own claim is "100% data portability and account ownership," attached to its All-In Launch package. That's a vendor's claim about its own product, not an independent audit, but it's the only one of the four vendors here that makes an ownership claim at all.
Ownership and exit are worth understanding in more depth than a pricing page will give you; see our guide on whether you own your website for the fuller version of this question.
What do they still need from you?
"Done for you" compresses the work. It doesn't remove your part of it. Whichever model you choose, expect to still provide: a filled-out intake questionnaire about the business, the business details a vendor can't originate on its own (services, service area, hours, differentiators), photos, and feedback on at least one round of drafts before the site goes live. None of the vendor pages in this comparison quantifies how long that takes you, and we're not going to invent a figure. What we can say plainly is that the work doesn't disappear, it moves from building the site to answering questions about your own business, which only you can answer.
How do you choose between the models?
Start from what you're optimizing for. If budget certainty matters most and you can commit to a monthly line item indefinitely, subscription DFY fits, with the caveat that none of the vendors examined states your exit terms. If you'd rather pay once and be done, a build fee like Websites Done For You's $1,499 is a known, bounded number, and the vendor claims you keep the code. If your priority is not paying before you've seen your own finished result, only the see-first model described in the cost section does that; under both other models, your money is committed, as a recurring charge or a build fee, before your own finished site exists.
Whichever model you're leaning toward, vet the vendor directly before you commit: ask what CMS or platform the site actually runs on, ask to see comparable work in your own industry, and confirm that any tools you already use, a booking system, a payment processor, an email platform, will actually connect to what they build. And if what you're really pricing out is hiring an individual designer rather than a packaged service, that's a different comparison; see our guide on what web designers charge for that side of it.
Questions
No. 01Is a done-for-you website service the same as hiring a freelance web designer?
No. A done-for-you service is a packaged product, usually a subscription or a flat build fee, with a set process and defined deliverables. Hiring an individual designer is a separate hiring decision with its own rate structure, covered in our companion guide on designer rates rather than here.
No. 02How long does a done-for-you website take to launch?
It varies by vendor. UENI advertises a live site in 7 days. Websites Done For You quotes 7 to 10 business days. Get the vendor's own committed timeline in writing rather than assuming either figure applies to your project.
No. 03Do done-for-you services include SEO?
Sometimes, and it's not always clear from the pricing page alone. Treat basic SEO setup as something to confirm before you sign rather than something you can assume is bundled.
No. 04What happens if I cancel a subscription-based website?
The vendor pages we reviewed don't say. Ask directly, before signing, what happens to your domain, content, and any code if you stop paying.
No. 05Do I own the code for a one-time build?
Websites Done For You claims full data portability and account ownership for its build-fee package. That's the vendor's own claim about its own product, so confirm the specifics of what "ownership" covers before you sign.