The visible cost and the invisible cost
When comparing website options, most dance school owners focus on the number they can see: the upfront price. A £500 website looks like a better deal than a £2,000 one, which looks better than £5,000.
But this comparison misses the point entirely.
The real question isn't what the website costs you. It's what the website earns you - and, in the case of a poor website, what it costs you in missed enquiries.
Running the numbers
Say your average student is worth £60/month, and they stay for three years. That's £2,160 in lifetime value from a single student.
A cheap website that fails to rank on Google, loads slowly, and doesn't convert visitors into enquiries might cost you 5 new students per year compared to a better site.
That's 5 × £2,160 = £10,800 in lost revenue per year.
Now the £500 website doesn't look so cheap.
What "cheap" usually means in practice
When a website is priced significantly below the market rate, something has been cut. The question is what.
Speed and hosting: Cheap hosting is slow. Slow sites rank lower on Google and convert fewer visitors. A page that takes 6 seconds to load will lose the majority of mobile visitors before it's finished loading.
SEO setup: A site with no keyword research, no proper page titles, no location-specific content, and no technical SEO setup is essentially invisible to Google. It may look fine, but no one will find it.
Mobile experience: Building a site that works beautifully on desktop and acceptably on mobile takes skill and care. The cheap route is usually to build for desktop and hope.
Written content: A cheap site usually means the builder gives you a template and you fill in the words. But most dance school owners aren't copywriters. Generic, thin content doesn't rank, doesn't convert, and doesn't make a strong impression.
Ongoing maintenance: What happens when something breaks? When there's a WordPress update that crashes the site? A cheap provider often means you're on your own.
The "good enough" fallacy
"It's not perfect, but it's good enough." We hear this a lot. But "good enough" is a moving target, and your competitors aren't standing still.
The studio down the road with a fast, well-optimised site is hoovering up the parents who searched on Google and found them. They're not finding you because your "good enough" site doesn't rank.
A better question to ask
Instead of "what's the cheapest I can spend on a website?", the better question is: "what's the minimum I can invest to get a site that actually works?"
A website that's fast, mobile-friendly, properly optimised, and managed by people who understand dance schools isn't a luxury. It's the marketing foundation that makes everything else you do more effective.