Drag-and-drop is wonderful right up until the day you need something it will not do — pass an accessibility audit, load fast, satisfy a records rule, or simply leave. Web Chick writes real HTML, CSS and JavaScript by hand. You own it, I maintain it, and nobody rents you anything. Real files, on your hosting account, in your name, maintained for you within 24 hours. Not a page rented inside somebody else's platform.
Not a sales chart. These are the differences that actually show up later — in an audit, in a records request, in a page speed report, or on the day you want to move.
| What you are comparing | Web Chick — hand-coded | Wix / Squarespace / GoDaddy | WordPress + page builder |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who writes the code | A person. Every line of HTML, CSS and JavaScript written on purpose. | The platform generates it from your drag-and-drop layout. | A theme, a builder plugin and however many add-ons you installed. |
| Do you own it | Yes. Real HTML, CSS, JavaScript and images — your files, in your name, on your host. | No. You own your domain and content. The site itself cannot be exported and run elsewhere. | Yes in principle, but it only runs on WordPress with those exact plugins. |
| If you stop paying | The files are still yours. Real HTML, CSS and JavaScript that move to any host and keep working. | The site goes offline. | Site stays, but plugin licenses lapse and pieces stop working. |
| WCAG 2.1 AA & ADA | Fixed in the markup itself, then checked by Tyler, a legally blind screen reader user, before launch. | You can fix your own content. You cannot fix the platform's generated markup, widgets or apps. | Depends entirely on the theme and every plugin — and it breaks again at the next update. |
| Accessibility overlays | Never used. They do not repair code and have been named in ADA suits. | Commonly sold as an app, and commonly rejected by real screen reader users. | Same — usually offered as a plugin. |
| Speed | Only the code that page needs actually ships. | Every page carries the platform's framework whether it uses it or not. | Theme plus builder plus plugins, then a caching plugin to hide the weight. |
| Google & AI search | Clean semantic HTML with schema, so AI Overviews, Perplexity and ChatGPT can read and cite you. | Generic markup, limited schema control, content often buried in scripts. | Possible, but usually needs another plugin to manage. |
| PDFs, minutes & agendas | Converted to accessible HTML, posted the same day. Fillable forms rebuilt as real HTML. | You upload the PDF and hope. No conversion, no remediation. | Same — document accessibility is out of scope. |
| Who makes changes | We do. Email or call, done within 24 hours, unlimited, included. | You do, in the editor, at 11pm, hoping nothing shifts on mobile. | You do, or you pay a developer per hour. |
| Maintenance | Nothing to update. Static HTML has no plugin to patch. | Platform updates happen to you, sometimes changing your layout. | Core, theme and plugin updates forever, plus the security surface they bring. |
| Cost shape | $950/yr one page, $1,900/yr up to 20 — hosting, accessibility, SEO and unlimited updates in the price. | Monthly forever, plus paid apps, plus a designer for real changes. | Hosting, premium theme, premium plugins, maintenance retainer. |
| Who answers the phone | Crissy. 740-681-1769. | A support queue and a help article. | A forum thread from 2019. |
Platform capabilities change constantly and are described here as they generally work for the small business, government and nonprofit sites we are asked to fix. Compare for yourself — ask any provider for a ZIP of your site and see what you get back.
A platform subscription buys you a place to put pages. Almost everything that makes those pages actually work — findable, accessible, compliant, updated — gets quoted separately by somebody else. At Web Chick it is simply included in the build.
| Service | With Web Chick | Platform + marketing agency |
|---|---|---|
| ADA & WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility | FreeBuilt in from the first line of code, then checked by a legally blind screen reader user. | Separate remediation projectUsually a per-page audit fee, then hourly fixes — and it has to be redone after platform or plugin updates. |
| SEO & AI search readiness | FreeSchema, semantic HTML, titles, FAQ structure and llms.txt written into every page as we build. | Monthly retainerOngoing marketing engagements are typically the largest line item on the invoice, billed indefinitely. |
| Unlimited content updates | FreeEmail or call. Done within 24 hours. No ticket limit, no hourly clock. | Hourly, or do it yourselfEvery change is either your evening or a billable hour. |
| Simple PDF → accessible HTML | FreeText PDFs converted at no charge alongside web work. Fillable forms rebuilt as real HTML for $75 per form, 1–3 pages. | Per-document pricingDocument remediation is billed per page or per file, and most providers do not offer it at all. |
| Minutes, agendas & board packets | FreePosted as readable HTML alongside the PDF, same day, as part of ongoing service. | Not offeredYou upload the PDF yourself and hope it is readable. |
| Your source files | YoursHTML, CSS, JavaScript, images, fonts and schema all live in your account, on your host. | Not availableThere is no export that produces a working website. |
| Platform subscription | $0Nothing to subscribe to. Hosting is included in the yearly plan — $950 for one page, $1,900 for up to 20. | Monthly, foreverPlus paid apps and premium plugins, each with its own renewal. |
| Talking to a human | FreeCrissy answers. 740-681-1769. | Support tierPriority response is frequently an upgrade. |
Honest disclaimer: I do not know what anybody else charges you. I have heard everything from a few hundred dollars to five figures for a marketing package sitting on top of a platform the client is already paying for monthly, and accessibility remediation quoted entirely separately from that.
So I am not going to publish a number I cannot verify. What I can tell you is exactly what I charge for the items above, which is nothing — they are part of building the site correctly the first time. If you have a quote in hand, bring it. I will tell you straight which lines you actually need and which ones you are being billed for twice.
And here are my actual numbers, so you can hold them against whatever you have been quoted: $950 a year for a one-page site with hosting included, or $1,900 a year for a full 1–20 page site. Shopify and larger builds are quoted by project. Unlimited updates within 24 hours are in every plan. The only thing billed outside that is an email service platform if you choose to use one — it stays in your name and I do not mark it up.
— Crissy, Web Chick
Not a starting-at figure with a discovery call attached. This is what a Web Chick site costs to own and keep — accessibility, SEO and AI readiness, and unlimited updates included, every year.
Right for a single strong page: a service business, a landing page, a campaign that has to look serious.
Where most businesses, agencies, districts and nonprofits land. Same price whether it is 6 pages or 20.
Priced honestly after I look at what is actually there. No guessing over the phone.
Unlimited updates within 24 hours apply to every plan — there is no premium support tier here. The only thing billed outside a plan is an email service platform, if you choose to use one; that stays in your name and I do not mark it up.
It’s your website — I’m just the one who keeps it running. That is a sentence a builder can never say to you, and here is the question underneath it: whose name is your website in?
On a proprietary builder, not really. You own your domain and your words. The site itself lives inside their system — you cannot take the design, the layout or the forms anywhere else, and if the billing stops, so does the website.
A Web Chick site is real files sitting on your own hosting account, in your name. Hand-written HTML, CSS, JavaScript, images and fonts. I keep them updated for you — that is the part clients actually want, and most of mine have let me do it for years — but the website is not locked to me, to a platform, or to a plugin license. It runs on the open web, and nobody can deprecate that or raise its price.
One yearly price covers the hosting, the maintenance and the updates — $950 for a one-page site, $1,900 for up to twenty. The site itself is still yours.
I have been at this since 1995 and watched a lot of "the future of the web" platforms shut down and take clients' sites with them. HTML did not. That is not an exit plan, it is just insurance.
No database, no plugin licenses, no proprietary format, no export tool that half works. Just plain files — readable by any browser, any host, and any human, for as long as the web exists.
Every one of these arrives after the site is already built — which is exactly why it hurts.
ADA and WCAG remedies live in the markup: heading order, focus order, real labels, ARIA that helps. On a builder you can only edit your content, not the code that generates the page or the apps bolted onto it. When a demand letter arrives, "the platform does that part" is not a defense.
Public records retention, DOJ Title II document rules, state open-meeting posting, cookie and privacy law, AI disclosure rules. These require specific structure on specific pages by a specific date. A template does not care about your deadline. Hand-coded pages do whatever the rule says.
Businesses change — new brand, new budget, new person in charge. On a builder, every one of those means rebuilding inside the platform and gambling your rankings, because the site cannot leave. A hand-coded site is just files, so change is a normal Tuesday instead of a project. Good work should keep clients, not contracts.
I would rather tell you the truth than sell you the wrong thing. Here is roughly how I sort it.
The fear is always the same: I will lose my Google rankings. Handled correctly, you do not — the redirects are the whole job.
I have been hand-coding websites out of Lancaster, Ohio since 1995 — long enough to watch several "you will never need to code again" platforms come, get expensive, and go. Every time one folded, somebody called me with a website they could not take with them.
That is really my whole argument. Builders are clever tools, and for a weekend project I will tell you to go use one. But when a compliance deadline, a records request or an accessibility complaint lands on your desk, the fix has to happen in the code — and you cannot fix code you are not allowed to touch.
So I write it by hand, and I have Tyler check my work because he actually uses a screen reader. Your site lives in your account, in your name, and I look after it — for a lot of my clients, for well over a decade now. I would rather earn that every year than rely on a platform making it hard for you to go anywhere.
— Crissy, Web Chick
Most clients are within an hour of the coffee pot. Plenty are not — hand-coded work travels fine.
Lancaster • Columbus • Pickerington • Canal Winchester • Circleville • Chillicothe • Newark • Fairfield County
A hand-coded website. Instead of renting a page inside a proprietary platform, you get real HTML, CSS and JavaScript files that you own outright and can host anywhere. Web Chick has hand-coded sites out of Lancaster, Ohio since 1995, and every plan includes unlimited updates within 24 hours — so you never log into a builder at all. The honest tradeoff: you are not dragging boxes around at midnight. You email or call, and it is done.
Not the website itself. You own your domain and your content, but the design, templates and underlying code live inside that company's system and cannot be moved elsewhere as a working site. Stop paying and it goes dark. A hand-coded site is different: it is files — HTML, CSS, JavaScript, images — sitting on your own hosting account in your own name. Web Chick maintains it for you, but it is not locked to any platform, plugin or provider.
Only partly, and never dependably. You can fix your content — alt text, headings, link wording. You cannot fix the platform's generated markup, its widget code, its focus handling, or the third-party apps you installed, and that is precisely where screen reader failures live. Under DOJ Title II and Section 508 the remedy has to be in the code. On a builder, you do not control the code. Web Chick fixes accessibility in the markup and has every launch checked by Tyler, a legally blind screen reader user.
Not bad — heavy. WordPress plus a page builder plus fifteen plugins means perpetual updates, plugin conflicts, security patching, and a security surface that grows with every feature you add. It is genuinely good when several people need to publish constantly, like a busy news operation. For most small business, government and nonprofit sites, hand-coded HTML is faster, cheaper to keep, and far easier to make accessible.
Usually less, and far easier to predict. A builder bills a monthly subscription, then paid apps and premium plugins, then a designer or agency any time you want a real change — and accessibility and SEO are quoted on top of all of it. Web Chick is one flat yearly price — $950 for a one-page site, $1,900 for up to 20 pages — and hosting, ADA and WCAG accessibility, schema and AI search readiness, and unlimited updates within 24 hours are already inside it. Nothing gets added to the invoice later, and there is no rebuild every time a platform redesigns its editor.
Yes — routine work here. We rebuild it properly in hand-coded HTML, bring your content and images across, map every old URL to its new one with 301 redirects so your rankings transfer, and stage it privately for your approval before anything switches. Your domain stays yours the entire time. Most business sites go live within a few weeks.
One yearly price. A one-page website is $950 per year with no separate hosting fee. A full website of 1 to 20 pages is $1,900 per year, all pages included. Shopify stores and larger builds are quoted by project and page count. Every plan includes ADA and WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility, schema and AI search readiness, and unlimited updates completed within 24 hours — there is no premium support tier. The only thing billed outside a plan is an email service platform if you choose to use one, which stays in your name and is not marked up. Fillable PDF forms rebuilt as accessible HTML are $75 per form for 1–3 pages.
No. There is no platform subscription, no plugin license and no proprietary format — your site is plain files on your own hosting account. Practically speaking, most Web Chick clients have been here for years because the updates get done within 24 hours and the phone gets answered, not because anything is holding them. That is the difference between owning a website and subscribing to one.
No. Accessibility is included at no extra cost in every Web Chick build, because it is not a feature you add — it is how the markup gets written in the first place. Headings, focus order, real labels, contrast and keyboard operation are part of the job, and every launch is checked by Tyler, a legally blind screen reader user, before it goes live. The only accessibility line item we quote separately is fillable PDF forms rebuilt as accessible HTML at $75 per form (1–3 pages). Simple text PDFs convert free alongside web work. Elsewhere, accessibility remediation is usually its own project with its own invoice — and it has to be repeated after platform updates.
Nothing extra. Schema markup, semantic HTML, page titles, answer-first FAQ structure and machine-readable content are written into the site as it is built, so there is no separate marketing retainer to make your own website readable. On a platform-plus-agency setup this is typically the biggest recurring line on the invoice, billed monthly on top of the subscription you already pay. To be straight with you: I do not know what you are being quoted, and I am not going to invent a number. Send me the quote and I will tell you which lines are real.
Because nothing ships that is not used. A builder outputs generic markup plus all the CSS and JavaScript needed to support every feature the platform offers — whether your page uses them or not — and each app or plugin piles on more. A hand-coded page loads its own markup, its own styles, and the handful of scripts it truly needs. Fewer requests and less code means faster loads, better Core Web Vitals, and cleaner content for Google and AI search engines to read.
“If I left tomorrow, could I take this website with me?” Whatever comes back tells you a lot. Then let me review what you have — speed, accessibility, compliance, what is worth keeping. Plain English, no pitch, no scare tactics.