How expensive it is to have your own website as a creator, artist, musician, DJ, a small business even?

Does it really cost hundreds of dollars, and isn't it better to just use one of those "link in bio" websites?

Let's see what are actually the advantages of having your own website rather than just a linktree, or bacn or whichever other from the hundreds of link in bio services.

• highly customisable. While most of the link in bio services offer one simple page with buttons one under another, with your own website you can be a lot more self-expressive, upload your own visuals, have as many pages as you want.
• monetisation. You can sell your music, merch, other products, memberships on your own website. Some link in bio services have their adaptation and offer similar built-in solution, but most of the time you will just have to put a link to another web service that does these. And often times even the built-in solution is not customisable enough.
• you can properly track analytics. On link in bio services analytics are behind their pro plan, and you can't get very deep into them.
• it is yours. This is a big advantage, mind, that if something ever happens you have control over it and everything you put out there is entirely yours.

But how expensive can having your own website be, while all those link in bios are free to use (at least some of their features) and Wix and Squarespace cost a few hundred dollars a year? 

Let's break it down what costs you might have if you have your own website: custom domain, hosting, website builder, costs to implement payment processors, additional costs for add-ons, plugins..

Can you guess how much this website costs me? 

$0

Well, I pay $12/year only for the domain name. But you don't have to have a custom domain name. Fourthwall is completely FREE to use. Here are some of the features that the platform has:

• free hosting (you don't have to pay anything for them to host the webiste)
• free builder (they have decent themes to chose from, you can build your own)
• super easy to use (easy to learn and use, even though you don't have the fancy shmancy things Wix has, I think for a free website the functions are decent)
• build in payment processor
• you can sell merch, digital goods, physical goods, membership programs
• connecting a custom domain was super easy and flawless, no technical knowledge needed
• integrations with social media to sell your products (seamless integration with YouTube shopping!)
• did I already say it is FREE and EASY to use?
• strong and active community on Discord (they listen to us and give us what we need)

I moved everything I had from Linktree, Patreon, Etsy store over to Fourthwall, and now I have everything in one place! 

I don't know when did I miss that, but today when I tried to open up my LABS from Spitfire Audio, it didn't find any sounds and gave me an error "Error #1 Something went wrong" 

It turns out, that the company has a fresh new green look and a re-designed app/VST. The old VST will not work properly or more likely at all when you try to use it.

Troubleshooting

I deleted all the folders with the presets, sounds etc which was located under the C:/Users/*myusername*/Spitfire/Spitfire Audio - LABS

The directory might be similar to yours, so just pasting it over here so it might help you find yours. 

Basically, I deleted all its contents.

I downloaded the new VST installer from their website https://labs.spitfireaudio.com/, using my existing login details. I installed it where I install my VSTs and plugins. The above directory is for where the VST will download the contents (sounds). You can change that in the settings once you log in into the VST.

The Plans

They now offer a LABS+ plans together with the now “legacy” free plan.

I think LABS has amazing instruments even on the free version, especially that Soft Piano. You can also play demos of the sounds which come with the paid plan before you decide to upgrade. 

There are some incredible sounds that can be found there, I have to say. Some sound very professional. 

Now back to the installation.

After I installed the VST, I restarted Ableton, waited for it to scan the plugins so that it detects the new LABS. I then opened labs, and was greeted with a login screen. I put my credentials and voalla, the new UI is there.

From there I had to re-download every sound that I liked using the simple browser. They even had a tick to view my downloaded-only sounds. Which was great. This is much better experience than what we had before. I could listen through the demos, sort out by instruments, filter by free vs labs+ and so on. Plus, the new images are kinda fun. 

When you chose and instrument, the UI is very close to what we had before, except that the UI is more green now :)

Overall I recommend this free VST with optional upgrade plan.