Do I Need to Pay for a Website Upfront?
No. Website projects are staged: a deposit to begin, and the balance at agreed points as work is delivered. The schedule is set out in writing before anything starts, so there are no surprises on either side.
Why there is a deposit at all
A deposit is not a trust test. It is what allows work to begin before any of it has been delivered: discovery, design and the first build stage all happen before there is anything you could reasonably be asked to pay for on completion. It also means both sides have committed, which in practice is what keeps a project moving rather than drifting.
How the stages work
Payments are tied to delivery, not to dates on a calendar. Money changes hands when something has been produced and reviewed: designs approved, a build ready to look at, the site live. If a stage is not delivered, the payment for it does not fall due.
This matters more than it sounds. Tying payments to calendar dates means you can be invoiced for a month in which nothing arrived. Tying them to deliverables means the schedule and the work stay attached to each other.
What you get in writing first
Before any money moves, you should have the scope in writing: what is being built, what is included, what is not. What each stage delivers. What each stage costs and when it falls due. What happens if the scope changes mid-project. Any project where those are unclear at the start becomes a project where they are argued about at the end.
Changes during the project
Scope changes are normal. What matters is that they are visible: if a request adds meaningful work, we say so, and what it costs, before doing it rather than after. Small adjustments during a stage are part of the work. A new section, a new feature or a redesign of something already approved is a change, and it gets priced.
The running costs are separate
The build is a one-off cost. Hosting, domain management, email and SEO are ongoing and billed separately, yearly or monthly. We keep them apart deliberately so you can see what is a project cost and what is a commitment. You can take the website without taking any of them.
What you own
On final payment, the website is yours: the site, the domain and the content. If you later decide to move it elsewhere, you can, and we hand over what is needed to do that. That is worth confirming with any supplier before you start, because it is not universal.
Our published prices
Web development is KSh 30,000 for Starter, KSh 60,000 for Business and KSh 90,000 for E-commerce. Software, systems and AI projects are quoted individually after scoping. Knowing the total before you begin is what makes a staged schedule meaningful rather than open-ended.