Subscription escape calculator
A website subscription never really ends — it just keeps charging. Put in what you pay each month and how long you’ll keep the site, and see the lifetime cost of renting it versus owning your site once for $49.
At $29/mo for 5 years, you’ll pay
$1,740
…to rent your site. Owning one with NorthLuma is $49 once.
You’d keep $1,691 over those 5 years.
At your current rate, $49 is about 1.7 month of what you pay now — after that, owning is pure savings.
| If you run it for… | Rented (your rate) | Owned ($49 once) | You keep |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 year | $348 | $49 | $299 |
| 3 years | $1,044 | $49 | $995 |
| 5 years | $1,740 | $49 | $1,691 |
Escape the subscription — $49 once Preview free — pay only if you want to download and own it.
Pay once, own it forever.
NorthLuma builds you a complete, modern website you can preview free. When you love it, download the clean HTML/CSS/JS and host it anywhere you like — $49 once, no subscription, no lock-in. The monthly charge stops for good.
Build my free website Rent vs own: how to think about it
- A subscription is a forever-bill. The math here is just your own monthly figure times the months you’ll keep the site — nothing inflated.
- Owning ends the meter. A site whose code you hold keeps working on any cheap or free host, with no platform fee attached to staying online.
- Watch the lock-in tax. If you can’t export your site, leaving means rebuilding — that switching cost is the real price of renting.
- Hosting still costs a little. Owning your code doesn’t mean $0 forever — basic hosting is cheap or free, but budget a few dollars a month for a domain and host.
- Decide on the long horizon. Most sites run for years. Look at the 5-year row, not the monthly one — that’s where renting really stacks up.
Every figure here is calculated from the numbers you enter — there are no hidden assumptions or invented vendor prices. The tool runs entirely in your browser, free and unlimited, with no account and no AI cost.