Crunching some numbers
A bunch of you took the time to fill in my survey about personal websites. Very grateful for that. The reason why I asked the question in the first place is because I'm trying to figure out what's the current landscape when it comes to personal websites. One of my goals is to encourage more people to abandon social media and move their content over to personal websites because I really believe it's healthier for us human beings and for the web as a whole.
I say that while being perfectly aware that running a site can be complicated for someone who's not tech savvy. And it can also be expensive, especially if you compare it against social media which is "free".
In the past I made available the code that powers this blog of mine but I realised that it's not really that helpful unless you're tech skilled.
And so I'm now trying to figure out ways to help people go online and own their content. And in order to do that I wanted to know how much people would be willing to spend to achieve that, hence the survey.
The Results
I am going to leave the survey up indefinitely but I have enough replies to crunch some numbers.
- 6% said they're not willing to spend a single dime for their personal site. I suspect these were mostly people who know their way around the web and they know how to use things like Github pages or Netlify. Which is a fine solution if you're willing to accept a bunch of compromises.
- Almost 25% is willing to spend something as long as it's less than 5/month. Reasonable position if you ask me. A self hosted site for less than 5/month is definitely achievable.
- Exactly 32% said they're willing to spend precisely 5/month. This was by far the most common answer.
- Around 60% is in the 5 to 10 range. Again, not surprising. That is honestly how much I'd be willing to pay if I wanted to have a personal site.
- Almost 20% is willing to spend more than 10/month with less than 10% willing to spend more than 15.
The upper end was kinda interesting because it means that something like Squarespace personal plan is already priced outside of what most people here would be willing to pay since it's priced at 11/month when paid annually (and you need to add a domain on top of that).
Anyway, thanks again for taking the time to answer my survey. Really appreciated.