Website as a Service (WaaS): websites sold by subscription
The rental model behind predictable agency revenue — honestly explained, including the part where most people fail.
Website as a Service (WaaS) is a business model in which clients rent a website on a monthly subscription instead of buying it once: build, hosting, care and changes are included in one fixed price. The agency runs the website permanently and earns recurring revenue instead of one-off project fees.
For local businesses the rental model is attractive because there's no upfront investment and “someone looks after it” is built in. For agencies it's attractive because one-off project peaks turn into a revenue base that grows every month.
The part the tidy MRR sums like to leave out: every subscription is a promise of care. With 20 clients and no automation, that's a noticeable slice of your week — and that's exactly where WaaS turns out to be either a business model or a second job.
Start WaaS in four steps
Define what your website subscription includes (site, care, changes, modules) and what it costs. Rule of thumb: your target hourly rate should still hold at two change requests per month — with automation it always does.
The bottleneck is never the selling, it's the care. Decide who works through the change requests: you, a provider — or an AI with guardrails.
Take an existing, good-natured client and move them onto the subscription. Learn from a real case before you roll the offer out widely.
After 5–10 clients you'll know what the care really costs. Then adjust prices — going up is easier with modules than with base-price increases.
How much of it you keep is shown by the margin calculator on the pricing page.
WaaS in five answers
Instead of selling a website once as a project, you offer it as a subscription: build, hosting, care and changes for a fixed monthly fee. The client gets a permanently managed website, you get recurring revenue.
Project business means starting from zero every month. WaaS builds a base of predictable revenue — 20 clients at €149 is €2,980 per month before you've sold a single new project. And subscription clients bring their next projects to you first.
The care. Sell 20 websites on subscription and you have 20 permanent building sites — classically that only scales with headcount, and the margin melts away. That's exactly the problem automation solves: at Pagora an AI applies the change requests while you keep control and margin.
In the German market, WaaS offers for local businesses mostly sit between €49 and €299/month, depending on scope. Modules such as a chatbot or newsletter make higher tiers easy to justify.
The classic switch: at the next redesign or relaunch you offer two routes instead of one project price — expensive once, or predictable monthly. A large share choose the subscription because it replaces the upfront investment.