If Your Website Isn’t Producing Results, What Are You Paying For?

“A cheap website that doesn’t generate a single lead isn’t cheap. It might be the most expensive website you ever buy.” — Conrad Strabone, Founder & Chief Happiness Officer | e9digital

Most businesses put their website and marketing under the same heading on a spreadsheet: Expense. Money goes out. Therefore, it must be a cost. After all, businesses spend 7.7% of overall company revenue on marketing.¹

But that’s a dangerous way to think about marketing. The Louis Vuitton flagship store on Fifth Avenue wouldn’t look at the top salesperson and say: “They’re costing us $100,000 a year.” They’d ask: “How much business are they generating?” Your website and marketing deserve the same conversation.

Because the number on the invoice tells you what something costs. It doesn’t tell you what it’s worth.

Expense vs. Asset: What’s the Difference?

It comes down to this: an expense consumes money. An asset creates value. A website redesign can be either one, depending on who is working on it.

If your website is an expense, it:

Costs money without producing measurable results: If leads, sales, or other meaningful outcomes aren’t coming back, the money is simply leaving the business.
Requires constant spending just to exist: You’re paying hosting, maintenance, advertising, and agency fees without seeing meaningful business growth.
Has no clear business objective: If nobody can explain what the website is supposed to accomplish, measuring its value becomes nearly impossible.
Looks good but doesn’t perform: A beautiful website that nobody finds or acts on isn’t doing much for the business.

If your website is an asset, it:

Generates opportunities: The website consistently brings qualified prospects into the business.
Builds trust: Prospects become more comfortable hiring you before they ever speak with you.
Supports sales: Content answers questions and helps prospects move closer to making a decision.
Creates long-term value: SEO, content, authority, and brand recognition can become stronger over time.
Produces measurable returns: You can connect your marketing investment to leads, opportunities, and revenue.

Your Best Salesperson Isn’t an Expense

Imagine that top Louis Vuitton salesperson earns $100,000 a year. If they generate $1 million in profitable sales, nobody walks into the annual meeting and says: “We need to eliminate that $100,000 expense.” Why? Because everyone understands the return. Your website should be viewed similarly.

Unlike a salesperson, it can:

Work 24/7: Prospects can discover and evaluate your company at any hour.
Talk to thousands of people simultaneously: It isn’t limited to one sales conversation at a time.
Answer common questions: Good content educates prospects before your team gets involved.
Qualify prospects: Clear messaging helps the right people recognize that you’re a fit.
Build confidence before the first conversation: Prospects may arrive on a sales call already convinced you’re credible.

Even better, 61% of B2B customers prefer a rep-free buying experience.² Your website is key to gaining their trust.

An Expense Disappears. An Investment Comes Back With Friends.

“If you spend $10,000 and get nothing back, that’s an expense. If you spend $30,000 and it helps generate $300,000 in business, which website was actually more expensive?” — Conrad Strabone, Founder & Chief Happiness Officer | e9digital

Here are two scenarios to consider when working with a digital marketing agency.

Scenario One

Cost: You spend $10,000 on a website. It looks nice. Nobody finds it. Nobody contacts you. It generates no meaningful business.

Outcome: That’s an expense.

Scenario Two

Cost: You invest $10,000 into strategy, messaging, design, SEO, and conversion.

Outcome: The resulting system eventually generates $100,000 in new business.

Same initial $10,000. Completely different outcome. This is why price alone is such a poor way to evaluate marketing.

The amount leaving your bank account may be identical. The value coming back can be radically different.

The Cheapest Website Can Be the Most Expensive

Businesses often evaluate website proposals like commodities. Consider the costs of these three agencies for website design:

Agency A: $8,000.
Agency B: $15,000.
Agency C: $25,000.

So Agency A appears to be the cheapest. But that’s only true if the outcomes are identical.

A $10,000 website that produces nothing can be far more expensive than a $30,000 website that consistently generates revenue. Some of the sunk costs of a poor-performing website include:

Lost leads: Potential customers disappear without ever appearing on a report.
Low conversion rates: You’re paying to attract visitors who never become opportunities.
Weak positioning: Prospects don’t understand why they should choose you.
Poor search visibility: Competitors capture demand that could have gone to you.
Lost sales time: Your team spends more time educating prospects because the website isn’t doing it.
Rebuilding later: The cheap website eventually gets replaced, meaning you effectively pay twice.

Marketing Should Create Momentum

Marketing is often viewed month-to-month, and businesses tend to overfocus on the costs. But instead, you should think about how your marketing grows over time.

This is why:

SEO builds authority: Rankings and organic visibility can strengthen over time.
Content accumulates: Every useful article creates another opportunity to be discovered.
Brand recognition grows: Repeated exposure makes your company more familiar and credible.
Data improves decisions: More performance information allows smarter optimization.
Conversion improvements compound: Small improvements across thousands of visitors can create significant gains.
Customer knowledge grows: Marketing teaches you which messages, audiences, and offers actually work.

Done correctly, you’re not starting from zero every month. You’re building on what came before.

What Makes a Website an Asset?

A website doesn’t become an asset simply because it exists. It needs the right ingredients.

A website becomes an asset with:

Strategy: Know what the website needs to accomplish before deciding what it should look like.
Sharp Messaging: Visitors need to understand quickly who you help, what problem you solve, and why you’re different.
Intentional Design: Design should guide attention and support decision-making.
SEO & GEO: A website has limited value if the right audience can’t find it.
Conversion Strategy: Every important page should help move visitors toward a meaningful next step.
Content: Useful content builds authority, answers questions, and gives prospects reasons to return.
Measurement: If you don’t track what happens, you can’t determine whether the website is creating value.

Together, these pieces transform a collection of web pages into a business system.

Know Your Numbers: Your Return on Investment (ROI)

You can’t evaluate your website and marketing ROI if you don’t know what a customer is worth.

You should have systems in place to measure the following for your website and marketing:

Average customer value: What a typical customer generates in revenue
Lifetime customer value: The relationship worth over its full lifespan
Lead-to-customer conversion rate: How many qualified leads become customers.
Cost per lead: What you’re paying to generate each opportunity.
Customer acquisition cost: The cost to gain a new customer.
Marketing-generated revenue: How much business can be attributed to marketing.

You don’t need perfect attribution.

But you do need enough information to know whether the machine is working.

Stop Asking “How Much Does It Cost?”

Cost matters. Of course it does. But it’s not always the most important question. If it’s the only one you ask, then you’ll likely lose money in the long run.

Our team at e9digital recommends you ask these as well:

What is this supposed to accomplish? Define the business objective before evaluating the investment.
What is a qualified lead worth to us? A $20,000 investment looks very different when one new client could be worth $100,000.
How many opportunities would make this worthwhile? Work backward from the desired return to create a measurable business equation.
How will we measure performance? Define success before launch.
What happens if we do nothing? Lost visibility, aging technology, and competitors gaining ground all carry costs, even if they’re never a line item.

At e9digital, the goal is to create a website and marketing strategy that works for your business, attracting the right audience, strengthening your brand, generating opportunities, and supporting long-term growth with website lead generation.

Because your website shouldn’t just cost money.

It should create value.

Schedule a Strategy Session

Website Design Expense FAQs

Is a business website an expense or an asset?

It can be either. A website that simply exists and produces little measurable value behaves like an expense. A strategic website that generates leads, builds trust, supports sales, and contributes to revenue functions much more like a business asset.

How do I calculate the ROI of my website?

Start by tracking leads and conversions generated through the site, then connect those opportunities to customer value and revenue where possible. Compare the value created against the cost of building, maintaining, and marketing the website.

How can a website generate revenue?

A strong website attracts qualified prospects, explains your value, establishes credibility, answers questions, provides proof, and encourages visitors to take the next step. Those actions can ultimately create sales opportunities and revenue.

Why shouldn’t I choose a web design agency based primarily on price?

Price tells you what you’re spending, not what you’re getting. A lower-cost website that produces few leads can ultimately cost more than a larger investment that consistently generates business.

What makes a website a good investment?

Strategy, clear messaging, intentional design, SEO, strong content, conversion planning, and ongoing measurement all contribute to a website’s ability to produce long-term value.

Should marketing be considered an expense?

Marketing costs money, but effective marketing should be evaluated based on the value it creates. If it consistently attracts prospects, generates customers, strengthens your brand, and supports revenue growth, it should be managed as an investment in the business.

What metrics should I track to determine whether my website is working?

Track qualified leads, conversion rates, organic visibility, cost per lead, customer acquisition cost, engagement, and—where attribution allows—revenue generated from website and marketing activity.

Expense or Asset? Your Website and Marketing Can’t Be Both

If Your Website Isn’t Producing Results, What Are You Paying For?

Expense vs. Asset: What’s the Difference?

Your Best Salesperson Isn’t an Expense