SMEAre you buying a website,
or renting one?
On most monthly packages sold in Malaysia you are renting, and it is rarely said out loud. Renting can be a perfectly fair deal. It stops being fair when you only find out in year three. Four minutes here will save you that.
Upfront
RM0
What most buyers pay
Providers
0
Publishing year-two cost
Transfer
Never
How often most hand over
To check
4 min
Before you sign anything
Based on reading the published terms of the main monthly-website providers serving Malaysia in November 2026.
Five questions, asked on WhatsApp
Ask them in writing so the answer is saved. A provider who answers all five clearly is worth talking to, whatever they charge.
“At the end of the term, do I own the website files and database?”
This is the question. Everything else is detail. Watch for an answer about the domain when you asked about the website — they are separate assets and that swap is the most common way the question gets dodged.
“Who is the domain registered to?”
A free domain is often registered in the provider’s name. Ask for your company to be the registrant on the record, and ask what the domain costs to renew if you leave. One provider in this market charges RM250 a year for it.
“What exactly do I pay in year two?”
Free hosting and domain for the first year is near-universal in Malaysia. The year-two number is almost never published. Ask for it as a figure, in writing, before you sign anything.
“What exactly counts as an edit?”
“Unlimited edits” nearly always means text and images. New pages, new sections and layout changes get quoted separately, often from around RM100 each. Find out before you need one.
“What happens if I stop paying in month three?”
Every provider has an answer. Not every provider volunteers it. Some charge the remaining balance of the full build price; some take the site down the same day; some do both.
What you are actually buying
| Licence (most common) | One-off build | Rent then own | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What you pay for | The right to use a site the provider owns | A website build, paid once | A subscription that transfers to you |
| Upfront | RM0–500 | RM1,500–5,000 | RM0 |
| Monthly | RM375–480, indefinitely | RM0, plus hosting | RM369, indefinitely |
| If you stop paying | Site goes offline | Stays up, unmaintained | Before transfer, comes down |
| Can you move it? | No, ever | Yes | Yes, from month 12 |
| Maintenance | Included | Usually extra | Included |
| SEO and profile | Sometimes | Rarely | Included |
| Ranking if you leave | Rebuilt from zero | Kept | Kept |
A licence is a legitimate model and plenty of businesses are happy on one for years. The cost only appears the day you want to move — and then you pay for the same website twice, and usually lose the search ranking the old pages had built up, which for a local business is the expensive part.
What three years actually costs
Headline prices are not comparable. Total cost over three years is. Here is a six-page business site, run honestly to the end of year three.
| Route | Year 1 | Years 2–3 | 3-year total | What you hold at the end |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Licence at RM375/mo | RM4,500 | RM9,000 | RM13,500 | Nothing. Stop paying and it goes dark |
| Cheap one-off at RM1,500 | RM1,500 | RM1,200+ | RM2,700+ | A site you own, three years out of date, no SEO |
| Agency one-off at RM6,000 | RM6,000 | RM2,400+ | RM8,400+ | A site you own, plus whatever you paid for changes |
| Us at RM369/mo | RM4,428 | RM8,856 | RM13,284 | The site, the database and the domain, yours from month 12 |
Assumes hosting, domain, SSL and basic maintenance paid at market rates on the one-off routes, and no major redesign on any route. We are not the cheapest line in this table and we are not pretending to be. We are the only one where the monthly fee ends with you owning something.
Why leaving is expensive even when it is allowed
Search ranking attaches to pages and to a domain, and it accumulates slowly. Rebuilding from scratch on new URLs typically costs months of visibility while the new pages earn back what the old ones had. For a business that gets most of its enquiries from local search, that gap is usually worse than the rebuild fee.
That is the real reason the ownership question matters, and the reason a provider who holds your files has more leverage over you in year three than their monthly invoice suggests.
Whoever you choose: get the ownership answer in writing before you pay the first invoice. It takes one message, and it is the only thing on this page you genuinely cannot fix later.
So you can ask us the same five
RM369 a month. At month 12 the files, the database and the domain transfer into your name with a written handover, and your rate does not change. Carry on, drop to RM149 a month for hosting only, or take it to another developer and pay us nothing.
To start
RM0
And no deposit either
Ownership
Month 12
Transfers, in writing
After that
RM149
Hosting only, if you want it
Domain
Day 1
Registered in your name
Ask us the five questions. Then ask everyone else.
We think you will come back. If you do not, you will at least sign something you understand.