A professional website to rent, everything included
A website that stays alive, because someone looks after it.
For self-employed people, craftspeople and small organisations. Online in three weeks, €60 per month excluding VAT, €0 to set up. Everything else is done remotely, wherever you are.
- €60 per month, excluding VAT
- €0 in set-up fees
- 3 weeks from first meeting to going live
- 1 hour of changes per month, carried over for up to three months
One site delivered so far
INDYANASTUDIO
Indyana Balasse, photographer in Brussels
It is the only site delivered under this offer so far. You would be the second, and the second gets more attention than the tenth.
indyanabalasse.com ↗ See the full case study →Indyana Balasse is a photographer in Brussels. She works in a 150 m² studio with five metres of ceiling height. Her site had to show that space before describing it: black background, serif typography, images filling the whole screen.
Eight galleries separate her different worlds, from corporate work to the photobooth. A Services page brings together her packages and her gift voucher. The site speaks French and English. It is online: open it, click everywhere, write to her if you want.
The pages of the site, one by one
Horizontal scrolling list. Use the left and right arrows to move through it.
Behind the scenes
The site your clients see, and the two tools that are yours.
You get your login details on the day the site goes live. No extra subscription to take out.
The visits dashboard
You see how many people came, where they arrive from and which pages they open.
No cookies and no Google. Your visitors are not tracked anywhere and you have no banner to make them click.
The newsletter
Sign-ups come in from your site and file themselves. You write, you send.
The subscriber list belongs to you. The unsubscribe link goes out automatically in every message.
Before you call me
You have probably already tried three times.
The €4,000 quote
An agency priced the project. The amount meant putting up a quarter's worth of cash in advance. That was two years ago and the PDF is still in your downloads folder.
The do-it-yourself platform
You started on a Sunday afternoon. By six in the evening, the menu still would not show on a phone. The draft is asleep somewhere and the subscription is still being charged.
The Facebook page from 2019
It comes up first when someone searches for your name. The opening hours are wrong and the cover photo shows premises you have left. Your customers rely on it.
None of these attempts failed for lack of effort. They failed because nobody was paid to look after the site the following month.
The idea
A living site is worth more than a beautiful dead one.
A site bought for €4,000 is frozen the day it is delivered. A rented site is maintained every month. After three years, the difference is no longer up for debate.
The bought site
- Paid for once, at a high price, before it has served any purpose.
- The prices on it date from the year it was delivered.
- Every correction goes through another quote.
- Nobody knows who is holding the domain name.
- The form breaks down and you hear about it late.
- After three years, it all has to be redone.
The rented site
- €60 a month, with no cash up front.
- Your prices change, the site changes the week after.
- One hour of changes a month is built in.
- The backups run without you thinking about them.
- I see the breakdowns before your customers do.
- Your new photos are online within the week.
The photos
A photographer spends half a day at your workplace.
The photo session is included in the €60 a month in Brussels and Walloon Brabant: half a day in your workshop or your practice, with your hands and your tools. Elsewhere, two options, tell me which one suits you.
The images are delivered to you retouched and royalty-free, at full resolution. You use them on your cards, your social media, your quotes and your shop window, and you keep them if you leave.
Your customers want to see your premises, your tools and your face before they walk through the door. A stock image shows them none of that.
Indyana is a photographer. On her site, her images do all the work. We built the setting around them, page by page, and she approved everything before it went live.
If you already have recent professional photos, we use those and the session waits. The price does not move: €60 a month, whatever share of the work is photography.
What is included
Everything is in there, including the parts that wear out.
The twelve lines below are included in the €60 a month. None of them is billed as an extra.
- Professional photo sessionHalf a day on site, retouched and royalty-free images, yours to keep.
- Design, texts and layoutI write your pages from what you tell me about your trade.
- Up to six pagesAnd as many galleries as your trade calls for.
- Domain name and hostingDomain in your name. Security certificate and regular backups.
- Contact formMessages arrive in your inbox, spam stays outside.
- Visitor dashboardNo cookies, no Google. No banner for your visitors to click away.
- NewsletterSign-ups and mailings ready to use. Unsubscribing is automatic.
- Two languages if neededFrench and Dutch, or French and English, depending on your customers.
- Technical search engine setupThe site can be read by search engines from the day it goes live.
- One hour of changes a monthIf unused, it carries over and builds up for three months.
- Mobile display checkedEvery page is checked on a phone before the site goes live.
- One single contactYou write to me, I answer. There is nobody else in the loop.
€60 a month excluding VAT, €0 to set up. €720 for the first year, everything included. Twelve-month commitment, then cancellation with three months' notice. The domain stays in your name and you leave with your texts and your photos.
What you pay
€60 excluding VAT every month. The domain, the hosting, the certificate, the backups and the hour of changes are all in there.
Nothing to pay at the start, nothing extra when the site goes live. The photo session is not billed separately.
What you sign
Twelve months, long enough for the site to find its audience and for you to get something out of it. After that, three months' notice is enough.
The domain name is registered in your name from day one. The texts and the photos belong to you, and there is no exit fee.
How it goes
Three weeks, four steps.
You give me half a day for the photos and two hours of conversation. The rest of the work is on my side.
We talk
One hour, at your place or by video call. You tell me about your trade and your customers. You tell me what wastes your time. I leave with the structure of the site and the list of pages. You fill in no questionnaire.
Week 1We photograph
Half a day at your place of work, with a professional photographer. You carry on working while he photographs your hands at work, your tools, your space and your face. You receive the retouched images a few days later.
Week 1I build
Design, texts, layout, form, newsletter, two languages if your customers require it. You see the site before it goes live, on a computer and on a phone, and you send me your corrections however they come.
Week 2We go live
The domain is activated in your name. The certificate is installed and the backups are started. I show you the visitor dashboard and the newsletter in twenty minutes. The first payment of €60 goes out the month after.
Week 3Who builds your site
Christophe Van Engelen
Service and interface designer for twenty years. I have worked for BNP Paribas Fortis, Belfius, bpost and HMS Networks. Before that, for Audi, Coca-Cola and Digitas.
Those clients taught me to make interfaces that people use without thinking about them. I apply the same standard to a site for a physiotherapist or a cabinetmaker, in a shorter format.
He turns ideas into concrete experiences, and he asks the right questions before opening a tool.
From the LinkedIn recommendationsWhat explains the €60 rather than €4,000
I work alone. Between you and the work there is no project manager and no salesperson, and no office to pay for. The sites I build are light: few pages, little code. Hosting costs a few euros a month and does not go down. What you pay covers my time and the upkeep of your site.
I also design digital products for companies such as BNP Paribas Fortis, Belfius and bpost, at between €600 and €800 a day. A site at €60 a month gets the same method, over fewer days, and it comes first because it fits into three weeks.
If you leave
You leave with what is yours.
The domain carries your name
It is registered in your name from day one. You transfer it to whoever you want, whenever you want. You do not have to ask my permission.
The texts and the photos are yours
The images from the session are delivered royalty-free, at full resolution. The texts written for your pages belong to you. You reuse them elsewhere and owe nothing.
The terms are written down
The contract you sign at the start sets the duration and the notice period. It also says who owns the texts and the photos. There is no exit fee and no penalty. No clause turns up later.
Common questions
Questions
What happens if I stop after a year?
You give three months' notice and the rental stops. The domain is already in your name, you keep it. I hand back the texts and the photos at full resolution. No exit fee. The site I built stops being hosted and maintained — that is what you are renting. With your content in hand, another provider starts again without rewriting anything.
Why rent rather than buy?
A site you buy costs you several thousand euros up front and starts ageing the next day. Renting spreads the cost and pays for the upkeep: €720 for the first year, €2,160 over three years. The photo session is included. If buying suits you better, I will say so plainly.
Can I change the site myself?
There is nothing for you to administer. You write to me about what changes — a price, an opening time, a text, three photos — and I take care of it. You have one hour a month, carried over for up to three months. That hour easily covers the usual updates of a self-employed person. No interface to learn on a Sunday evening.
Do I have access to the dashboard and the newsletter?
Yes. You have a login for both. The dashboard shows you which pages were read and where the visitors came from, with no cookies and no Google. The newsletter lets you write and send your messages whenever you want, and the list of subscribers belongs to you. I train you in twenty minutes on the day the site goes live.
Six pages, is that enough?
For a self-employed person, yes, in the great majority of cases. Home, services, about, contact, and two pages that depend on your trade. Image galleries do not count towards that total: Indyana has eight, on top of her pages. If your business needs more, we talk about it before starting.
How does the photo session work?
Half a day at your place of work, on a date that suits you. We photograph the space, the gestures of the trade, the tools, and you. You receive the images retouched and royalty-free, at full resolution. They then serve for your social media and your cards, today and in five years.
And what about Google in all this?
The site is built to be read properly by search engines: clean structure and fast pages. The titles are written for your trade and your town. For a search like "physiotherapist in Uccle", that counts. For heavily contested terms, an advertising budget is needed. Nobody can promise you a precise place in the results.
Do you work remotely?
Yes, everything except the photos. The framing, the texts, the back and forth and the launch happen by call and by email — that is already how I work with teams abroad. Only the photo session needs me on site: it is included in Brussels and Walloon Brabant. Elsewhere, either you already have your images and we use those, or I travel and the travel is priced before we begin. Nothing is added afterwards.
Why did the price go from 80 to €60?
The tools I use have improved and hosting light pages costs less than it did two years ago. The work goes faster without losing quality, so I pass the drop on. €60 is my standard rate, outside any promotion, and it applies to rentals already running too.
How many sites like this one have you delivered?
One. INDYANASTUDIO, online, visible in full. Twenty years in the trade behind it, including BNP Paribas Fortis, Belfius and bpost, but a single site under this offer. You would be the second, and the second gets more attention than the tenth.
You work alone. What happens if you are no longer there?
The domain is in your name, the texts and the photos are yours. On simple request, the hosting is transferred to your name and I hand over all the files of the site. You are not locked in anywhere, even in the worst case.
Why €60 and not €3,000?
Because I start from a base I know by heart, I group the photo sessions, and there is no salesperson or project manager to pay. An agency bills €3,000 because it starts again from scratch and has offices to pay for. You pay for the result, not for the structure.
Is this a monthly subscription?
Yes. A subscription of €60 a month excluding VAT, €0 to set up, twelve months' commitment then three months' notice. A website by the month, with no four-figure bill to get started.
Talk about your project
Ask for your twenty-minute call.
Tell me what you do and when you want to be online. I call you myself, at one of the times you give me, within 24 working hours.
Up to six pages plus the galleries. No online shop, no booking system, no member area.
Would you rather write directly? cve@hi-def.be