PIPELINEGuide
Landing page: ongoing costs and operation
The project price is only part of the calculation. What actually arises in effort and costs after going live — and which item is most often forgotten.
After going live, a landing page typically requires a few hours of maintenance per quarter, plus hosting, licenses, and third-party usage-based fees. The most commonly forgotten item is not the money, but responsibility: systems become outdated because no one is designated, not because maintenance is demanding.
01 — Operation
What ongoing operation means
After the initial settling phase, the effort is low but not zero. For a landing page, that's typically a few hours per quarter: additions when something changes in your offering, a look at the analytics, occasional corrections.
More important than the scope is the responsibility. Systems don't become outdated because maintenance is demanding, but because no one is assigned. One person with a recurring calendar appointment solves this problem completely.
What additionally arises on an ongoing basis depends on the setup — hosting, licenses and third-party usage-based fees belong in the same calculation as the implementation. We show this separately in the quote instead of hiding it in the project price.
02 — Factors
What drives the price
- Scope and number of integrations. Every additional system that needs to participate costs effort — regardless of how simple the core is.
- State of your starting point. Clean data, existing content and documented processes significantly reduce effort. Chaos is the most expensive cost factor.
- How much new material needs to be created. What you can contribute doesn't need to be invented by anyone. This is the biggest lever you have in your own hands.
- Requirements for design and customization. A solid standard system costs a fraction of a custom solution — and is sufficient more often than vendors admit.
- Operating model. One-time project costs or ongoing support: calculated over three years, this often gives a different picture than the quote comparison.
03 — Contract
What needs to be clarified in writing
- Ownership of data and access. They belong to the client. If a provider won't clearly confirm this, that's the most important information from the conversation.
- Handover upon termination. In what format, within what timeframe, at what cost.
- No minimum term without consideration. Lock-in is justifiable if something is delivered in return — otherwise not.
- What a later change costs. The total cost isn't determined by the project price, but by the hourly rate in year three.
- Documentation as a deliverable. Not as a promise, but as a line item in the proposal.
04 — Questions
Frequently asked questions
When can you evaluate a test?
As a rule of thumb, a variant test needs several hundred visitors per variant and at least 25 to 30 conversions, otherwise you're measuring chance. With small numbers, it's more honest to decide based on arguments rather than pseudo-statistics.
What if the landing page doesn't convert?
Then we look at the drop-off points before we rebuild anything. Usually it's a single section, not the whole page — you find it through measurement, not guessing.
Why not simply advertise the homepage?
Because the homepage is there for everyone and therefore concrete for no one. Anyone who clicks on an ad about a specific topic expects exactly that topic — not a menu with eight options.
What definitely belongs on it?
What you offer, for whom, what it costs or at least in what range, who you are, and a single clear next step. Price information scares away less than its absence.
Can you also run the ads for it?
That's a separate service that we also offer. Landing page and ad should match in content, but technically they are two separate work steps.
Can the same landing page be used for multiple ads?
Yes, as long as the promise of the ads aligns. If the offers differ significantly, each ad needs its own page — otherwise the expectation at the click doesn't match.
How many do we need?
One per offer and target group that is advertised separately. If you sell three services to two target groups, six make sense — provided each gets enough traffic to be assessable.
Next step
Let's talk briefly about whether this makes sense for you.
A twenty-minute conversation is usually enough to clarify whether a project makes sense. If not, we'll say so — that's cheaper for both sides than an offer nobody needs.