The short version: Votel can design a site from a plain-language description, host it on a global CDN with automatic SSL, and connect the client's own domain. Charge a one-time build fee (my examples run $350 to $750+), then a monthly hosting and care plan from $50. The build pays for your time. The care plan is what turns one project into recurring revenue.
Old hours, falls apart on a phone, and no clear way to book. Customers leave before the owner ever hears about them.
A page for each service, a booking or quote form, and someone who updates it when the hours change or a new service launches.
What the owner is buying
Not pages. A site that works, looks current, and gets fixed by someone else.
A website is still the first place people check before they call. If a business has no site, a broken one, or one that falls apart on a phone, it loses customers it never even hears about. Most owners know this. What stops them is the job itself: picking a builder, writing the pages, sorting out the domain, and then remembering to keep it all up to date.
So they aren't really buying pages. They're buying a site that works, looks current, and gets fixed by someone else when the hours change or a new service launches. That second part is why the monthly plan sells.
"You'll get a site that works on a phone and makes it easy to call or book. When your hours change or you add a service, you tell us and it's done. $550 to build, $99 a month to host it and keep it current."
What Votel gives you
Everything you need to build, host and look after the site, in the same place you keep the client.
Describe the business, its services and the look you want, and Votel builds the site. You can also connect an AI assistant such as Claude to Votel and ask it to design a site, publish it and attach a domain in one conversation.
Every site gets edge hosting, an automatic SSL certificate and a default address the moment it's created.
Add the client's domain, create one CNAME record at their registrar, and Votel issues a free SSL certificate once DNS checks out.
Purge the cache after an update, and see requests, bandwidth and cache hit ratio for each site. Handy for a monthly recap.
Votel's forms can be embedded on a page, and its website widget puts your AI agent on the site as a chat window, a button or a floating orb, with voice as an option.
The hosting and domain details come from Votel's Websites documentation. The traffic numbers are server stats (requests and bandwidth), not a full marketing analytics suite, so don't sell them as one.
A prompt to start every build
Design a website for [Business name], a [type of business] in [city]. Services: [each main service]. Service area: [towns or neighbourhoods]. Hours: [opening hours]. Phone: [number]. Pages: Home, one page for each main service, About, Contact. Goal: get visitors to call, book or request a quote. Put a clear call to action near the top of every page. Look: [colors from their logo], [friendly / professional], easy to read on a phone. Write a page title and a short description for each page. Don't invent reviews, prices, licenses or awards. Mark anything I need to confirm with the owner.
Choose your packages
Every deal has two parts: a one-time build, then a monthly plan. All prices here are my examples, not Votel pricing, so adjust them for your market.
First, the build
- Up to 3 pages
- AI-designed from the client's details
- Mobile friendly
- Contact form
- Their domain, with SSL
For a business with no site at all.
- Up to 6 pages
- A page for each main service
- Booking or quote request form
- Their logo, photos and colors
- Page titles and descriptions written for each page
The right size for most local service businesses.
- Up to 10 pages, more on quote
- Everything in Business Site
- AI chat widget on the site
- New leads land in the CRM with a follow-up
- One round of revisions
For a business ready to capture and follow up on every lead.
Then, the monthly plan
Present it with the build, as part of the same price, rather than as an add-on you mention later.
- Hosting on Votel's CDN
- SSL kept active
- Domain connection looked after
- Small text fixes, up to 30 minutes a month
Keeps the lights on.
- Everything in Hosting
- Up to 1 hour of edits a month
- Seasonal updates: hours, offers, holidays
- A short monthly traffic recap
Where most clients should land.
- Everything in Care
- Up to 2 hours of edits a month
- A new page or landing page each quarter
- AI chat widget kept current with their services
- Priority turnaround
For clients who change things often.
What the market already charges
Before you set prices, it helps to know what clients are used to seeing. Published price lists from website care providers, and from agencies selling setups on HighLevel and similar platforms, land roughly here:
These are vendor price lists and blog guides, not independent surveys, so treat them as a sanity check. What they do show is that the examples above sit at the affordable end. That's where you want to be while you sign your first local clients.
You have a build price and a monthly plan for each size of site, and you always quote the two together.
Run the numbers
The build fee is nice, but it only happens once. The care plan is the part that compounds. Here's the $99 Care plan on its own:
Now add the builds. Sign two Business Sites a month at $550 and that's $1,100 in project income on top, and both of those clients move onto a care plan the month after. Try your own mix:
That "left after the plan" figure is before any Votel usage charges, your own time, and any help you hire. It's a planning number, not a promise. But look at how small the software line is next to the revenue line once you have a dozen sites on care plans.
Stack more services
A website client is the easiest person to sell your next service to.
You already know the business, you have their logo and photos, and they've seen you deliver.
Part 1 of this series covers the packages for social media management, and the site you just built is where all those posts send people. Part 3 shows how to sell AI automations that answer every chat, text and email the site brings in, and Part 4 does the same for the phone with voice AI. If you need businesses to pitch, Your Website Report finds local businesses and shows how well their current site turns visitors into calls, which makes for an easy first conversation.
Launch this week
Five steps from "I could sell this" to your first paying website client.
1. Pick one kind of business
A site for a dentist and a site for a roofer need different pages, photos and calls to action. A niche makes every build faster than the last. The Votel for businesses pages and the niche finder can help you choose.
2. Build your own demo site first
Make a site in Votel for a real or sample business in that niche and publish it. That link is your portfolio.
3. Make a one-page intake form
Business name, services, hours, service area, logo, photos, and the domain they own. You can build it with Votel's forms. Getting all of this up front is what makes a $350 build profitable.
4. Go to businesses with no site, or a weak one
Start with people you know, then local businesses whose site is missing, broken or hard to use on a phone.
5. Quote the build and the plan together
"$550 to build, $99 a month to host it and keep it current." A client who starts on a plan tends to stay on it.
Get these right
Five habits that keep website clients happy and keep you out of trouble.
Register it in their name or transfer it to them, then connect it with the CNAME record. If they ever leave, they keep their address.
Put in writing what they get to take (their content, images and domain) and how long the site stays up after the last payment.
"Unlimited changes" is how a $99 plan turns into a second job. Give each plan a set number of minutes or hours.
A fast site with clear page titles helps, but sell a professional site that works, not a spot on the first page of Google.
A domain can take anywhere from 15 minutes to 48 hours to point at the new site. Tell the client before launch day, not on it.
The bigger idea
A website is rarely the thing a business actually wants. It's the front door to the thing they want: more calls, bookings and quotes. Build the site, then ask "Who answers everything this site brings in?" That question is where the next parts of this series pick up.
Ready to build your demo site? Start a Votel account, build a site for one business in your niche, and publish it.
Common questions
Do I need to know how to code to build websites with Votel?
No. Votel can design a site from a plain-language description of the business. You can also connect an AI assistant such as Claude to Votel and ask it to design, publish and attach a domain in one conversation. Either way, review every page before it goes live.
Can I put the site on my client's own domain?
Yes. Add the domain to the website in Votel, create the CNAME record it shows you at the client's registrar, and Votel issues a free SSL certificate once DNS is verified. That can take anywhere from 15 minutes to 48 hours.
How much should I charge to build and host a website?
The examples on this page are $350 to $750+ for the build and $50 to $149 a month for hosting and care, depending on page count and how much editing is included each month. They are examples, not Votel pricing, so adjust them for your market.
What should a monthly hosting and care plan include?
At minimum: hosting, a working SSL certificate, the domain connection and small fixes. Higher plans add a set amount of editing time each month, seasonal updates, a traffic recap and, if you like, an AI chat widget you keep up to date.
Which Votel plan do I need to offer websites?
Keep each client in their own sub-account so their contacts, forms and conversations stay separate. Votel's $97 Pro plan includes five sub-accounts, and the $297 Unlimited Agency Pro plan adds unlimited sub-accounts and white labelling, which the white-label setup checklist walks through. Usage items are billed separately.