When it seems too good to be true, it probably is

You know how they say ‘when it seems to good to be true, it probably is’?

We know that many people will look at our low prices, and indeed our free websites promotion, and assume that there simply must be a catch.

When one considers the following points, you can see their point:

• A good web designer will charge approximately £40.00 per hour (and of course, we only use good ones).
• The average five-page website takes us approximately 20 hours to produce – so we should be charging £800 already, and that’s even before we’d make any kind of profit. Yet, our typical website costs just £300.
• We recently acquired 1,000 inbound links for a client’s website, and charged him £1,000 – but a link-builder will ordinarily charge £5 per link.
• One of our popular packages requires 276 man-hours to implement. It’s work that most companies would put at £15.00 per hour. We charge £499 for this package.
• Then there is the small matter of those FREE websites. What company could possibly afford to give its products away for nothing?

So, have we messed up our maths? Performed some wizardry that somehow turns deficits into profit?

Nothing so exotic, we’re afraid. The answer lies in our business structure. Take a look at our About Us page, and you’ll see a number of Indian nationals. As you’ll know from the many companies who outsource to India these days, labour, and the cost of living, is substantially cheaper in India than it is here, and that is our ‘secret’.

Unlike those telecoms giants, power suppliers and IT support companies, however, we do not outsource. We employ, train and manage a permanent team of well-paid professionals in India. The crucial difference is that this team are all Notting Hill Internet Services employees, with all the rights that this status entails.

This set-up gives us a unique advantage. Suddenly, that five-page website comes in at £300, and yet it both provides us with a profit margin, and gives a wholly respectable wage to the designers working on it. Those inbound links? £1 each, and the link-builder is very happy to receive it.

The exchange rate, and our differing costs of living, mean that we can offer websites and web services at prices that small businesses and start-ups really can afford. Those free websites? Well, yes, we lose out a little, but the publicity we get means that we can absorb these costs into our marketing budget (and, while we’re exercising complete transparency here, we should mention that of course we hope you’ll also purchase some of our other – equally competitive – products. No obligation).

We believe we have a win-win situation for small businesses – and for our employees in India. Don’t forget, too, that some of the world’s brightest minds are found in this vast subcontinent – a fact that Google and Microsoft, with their Indian HQs, have been quick to notice.

We hope that this post goes some way towards explaining how we keep our prices so low, and that they really are not too good to be true.