The silent bill
What a website that “kind of works” really costs you
5 min read · 22 May 2026
Sandra runs a small cosmetics studio, for eleven years now, with loyal clients. Her website is old, but she says: “It’s fine, I have customers.” When we first looked at the site, it was quickly clear why that is deceiving. The clients she has, Sandra sees. The ones she loses because of the website, she never does.
A website that only sort of works sends no bill. Nobody writes to you: “I wanted to book, but your site wouldn’t load on my phone, so I went to the place next door.” That person just leaves. In silence. And because you never lay eyes on them, your website feels like it costs you nothing.
Where the money quietly drains away
Imagine a hundred people search this month in your area for what you offer, and land on your page, most of them on a phone. On the way to booking you lose them in small steps: a few before the page has even loaded, a few because they can’t find what they are looking for, a few just short of booking. In the end a handful remain.
The hundred people are an illustrative example, not a measured figure from Sandra’s studio. That visitors drop off in exactly these steps, though, is something we see constantly.
At Sandra’s we found the spots where this happens. One of them she would never have suspected, the others you only see if you look at sites like this every day. None of these leavers complain, none show up in any statistic Sandra ever checks. That is why the site seems fine. It is fine for the ones who get through anyway. For everyone else it is a closed door with Sandra’s name on it.
What does that actually cost you?
Work it out for yourself once. What is a single new regular client worth to you over a year? At Sandra’s that quickly runs to several hundred francs. If her website loses even two people a month who would otherwise have booked, that is not a cosmetic flaw in the page. It is the most expensive employee she never hired, and he stands at the door every day turning people away.
A good website is the one employee who works around the clock, never gets sick and never has a bad day. A bad one works against you just as long.
Opening the door again
The good news: every one of those spots can be closed. The tricky part is finding them in the first place. You know your own site too well to see where strangers get stuck. That is exactly our work. We look at your site like someone searching for you for the first time, show you where people drop off today, and rebuild the door so it stays open.
At Sandra’s it took a few days. How the site looked afterwards is not what convinced her. What convinced her was that enquiries suddenly came from people who would have dropped off before.
How we work We find where it sticks
Send us your current website. We tell you where visitors drop off today, before they book, and roughly what that costs you. If it is worth it, we rebuild the site so visitors turn into bookings.
You don’t need to know what is technically required. That is our job. Yours is to keep your studio full.
Sandra’s studio is full, on some days. The question was never whether she has customers. The question was how many stood at the closed door each month, the ones she never counted. Now we count them, and then we let them in.