Pricing
What it costs, in the order you would buy it
Start with a straight answer. A Website Diagnostic is $880 plus GST, fixed, and tells you in writing what your current site is costing you and what to fix first. A Scope Sprint is $395 plus GST, fixed, and settles what a new site should be, with a fixed price at the end. You can order either today.
Then the build. A small business website here costs $495 plus GST for one page and $990 plus GST for up to five. Anything not ready yet, such as the words or the images, is a named extra at its own published price. A design made for your business, rather than chosen from a kit, starts from $4,750 plus GST. Page count is the worst predictor of what a website costs. What is written, what already exists and what has to connect move the number far more. The fixed tiers below can be bought from this page.
Not sure which one you are? Price yours in about two minutes, free, and every answer that produced the figure is shown next to it.
Key facts
- Who these are for
- Small businesses anywhere in Australia. Based in Redlands and greater Brisbane, Queensland, working Australia wide and remotely, and the build runs the same either way.
- Currency
- Australian dollars. Every figure on this site is shown before GST, and GST applies on top at 10 per cent.
- Fixed when
- The Diagnostic, the Sprint, the two express builds and the two done with you builds are fixed before you pay. The three Foundation tiers are fixed in writing after a Scope Sprint, not estimated and then revised.
- Paid how
- Paid from a button: Scope and Architecture Sprint, Website Diagnostic, Express Landing, Starter Five, Five Pages Done With You and Eight Pages Done With You. Card payments are handled by Stripe. The card details are typed on Stripe’s own page and never touch this site, which is why there is no card form here and never will be.
- Foundation builds
- 40 / 30 / 30 against milestones you accept, with 5 business days to review each one and 7 day terms on the invoice that follows.
- What you own
- The repository, the hosting account and the domain, in your business name, from the first day. The full register.
- Not included
- Photography, paid advertising and anything with a third party licence. Writing your words is a named extra with its own price, never assumed into a base price. The written list.
The steps
From $495 plus GST to a Major Build, a step at a time
There is no jump between a small site and a large one. Each row is a real job, with the figure the estimator returns for it today, from the same calculator I quote from. Yours will sit on one of these steps or between two of them.
| The job | Built as | Price |
|---|---|---|
| One page, with your words and photos ready | Express Landing | $495 plus GST |
| Five pages, with your words and photos ready | Starter Five | $990 plus GST |
| One page, and I set up your domain and email and sort your photos | Express Landing | $1,045 plus GST |
| Five pages, with your rough notes edited into finished copy | Starter Five | $1,340 plus GST |
| Five pages with nothing ready: the words written with you, photos sorted, accounts set up | Five Pages Done With You | $2,240 plus GST |
| Eight pages, your notes edited, with a booking tool | Starter Five | $2,490 plus GST |
| Eight pages with nothing ready: the words written with you, photos sorted, accounts set up | Eight Pages Done With You | $3,465 plus GST |
| Ten pages with nothing ready, and a booking tool | Starter Five | $4,090 plus GST |
| Five pages designed for your business | Marketing Foundation | from $4,750 plus GST |
| Ten pages designed for your business, with your notes edited | Marketing Foundation | from $8,000 plus GST |
| Twelve pages designed for your business, with your notes edited | Content Foundation | from $10,000 plus GST |
| An online store, with up to 25 products you supply | Shopify Commerce Pilot | from $13,500 plus GST |
| A Major Build: a large site, a larger store, or a build with a content system, a migration and several connections | Major Build | from $20,000 plus GST |
A row marked “from” is a build designed for your business, fixed in writing after a Scope Sprint at $395 plus GST. A Major Build is any designed build the calculator puts at $20,000 plus GST or more. That figure is where it starts and it is not a ceiling: a job that needs significantly more work is priced for that work. Whatever your figure is, I recommend we talk for fifteen minutes before you rely on it, so the answers behind it are the right ones.
The catalogue
Every price, and how to start
Everything with a fixed price can be paid for here, today: the two first steps, the two express builds and the two done with you builds. The three Foundation tiers are priced in writing after a Sprint. Nothing here is a package with padding in it; each one is a different amount of work.
Indicative starting price for the scope described. The express tiers are fixed at that scope, and anything your job needs on top is a named extra with its own published price. For the Foundation tiers the fixed price is confirmed in writing after the paid Scope and Architecture Sprint, and it does not move after that unless you approve a change order.
| Product | Suits | From | Start it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Scope and Architecture Sprint | Anyone who wants a fixed price in writing, and anyone whose job has an unknown in it. | $395 plus GST, fixed | Pick your hour and pay |
| Website Diagnostic | An owner whose site is not producing enquiries and who wants to know why, and a buyer doing due diligence on a business before they sign. | $880 plus GST, fixed | Pay $880 plus GST |
| Express Landing | A business that needs one credible page now: a new offer, a campaign, or a first web presence that is not a Facebook page. | $495 plus GST, fixed | Pay $495 plus GST |
| Starter Five | A small business that wants a proper five page site without a project, with its words written or a named extra to write them. | $990 plus GST, fixed | Pay $990 plus GST |
| Five Pages Done With You | A business with no words written, no photos sorted and no domain set up, that wants a proper five page site without doing the hard parts alone. | $2,240 plus GST, fixed | Pay $2,240 plus GST |
| Eight Pages Done With You | A business with more to say and none of it written: services that each need their own page, the areas you cover, the people who do the work. | $3,465 plus GST, fixed | Pay $3,465 plus GST |
| Marketing Foundation | A service business, trade, professional practice or local operator who needs the phone to ring. | from $4,750 plus GST | Start with a Sprint |
| Content Foundation | A content-led service business with something to say regularly and a reason to say it. | from $8,000 plus GST | Start with a Sprint |
| Shopify Commerce Pilot | A conventional Australian retailer with a known, small catalogue and an owner who will run it. | from $13,500 plus GST | Start with a Sprint |
Paying accepts the terms of service, version 1.3. They cover what is supplied, what is needed from you, how a change is quoted and how a refund works. The version in force on the day you pay is the one that governs the job.
Optional extras
What a fixed price covers, and what sits on top of it
$495 plus GST and $990 plus GST buy the build. They assume your words are written, your pictures are ready, your domain is yours, and one person approves the work. Most businesses have one or two of those still to do, so each one is a named service with its own price, added at the time of quoting and never discovered later.
You can take any of them off by doing them yourself, and the price drops by exactly what that line costs. Whatever you take on is written into your quote and your agreement in those words, so neither of us is relying on a conversation.
| Service | Price | Or you do this instead |
|---|---|---|
| Domain, hosting and email set up in your name | $275 plus GST | You register the domain and hosting in your own business name and send me the logins. |
| Your old addresses pointed at the new pages | $175 plus GST | You give me the list of old addresses and where each one should land. |
| A second approver's review round | $175 plus GST | One named person collects everyone's comments and sends me one set. |
| Several approvers, and the rounds they need | $350 plus GST | One named person collects everyone's comments and sends me one set. |
| Images chosen, cropped and named, up to 15 | $275 plus GST | You supply images already cropped, web sized, sensibly named, and yours to use. |
| Your rough notes edited into finished copy | $350 plus GST | You send final words you are happy to publish, not a draft to be worked on. |
| The words written from scratch, with you | $700 plus GST | You write the words yourself and send them finished. |
| A booking tool embedded and tested | $275 plus GST | The site links out to your booking page instead of carrying it inside. |
| A CRM or email platform connected | $350 plus GST | Enquiries arrive by email and you put them into your system yourself. |
| Analytics set up with consent handled | $275 plus GST | The site ships without analytics and this can be added any time later. |
Extras not quoted on an estimate
Four things the estimator names and does not guess at
Each of these has a cost a form cannot see, so a figure against it would be a guess that gets corrected later at your expense. The estimator still prices the rest of your job. It names the item beside your figure, adds nothing for it, and we talk it through before any quote is written.
- Your own system connected by API
- An existing site nobody can account for
- Accounts somebody else is holding
- Photographs for your siteI do not take photographs myself, but tell me what you need and we will work it out together. I may be able to refer you to someone or help another way, and whatever we agree is written into your quote.
The question everyone asks
Why are two five page sites $990 and $4,750?
Because page count is the least useful number in this catalogue, and it is the one most people compare. Same five pages, different job, and the figure below shows you the size of the difference in hours.
FigureWhy one site is $495 and another is $13,500: see the hours behind each price
| Five pages, but | Starter Five, $990 plus GST | Marketing Foundation, from $4,750 plus GST |
|---|---|---|
| Page layouts | 2, from a finished kit | 3, designed for you |
| Where the design comes from | One of the eight kits, already built and tested | Made for this business, from scratch |
| Your words | You supply them finished. I place them. | Shaped with you, structured, and edited |
| Discovery | A structured brief, no call | A paid Scope Sprint, then a written scope |
| Changes | One consolidated round inside 48 hours | Two rounds against a signed scope |
| Planned hours | 4 | 24 |
If your content is written, your logo exists and one of the kits suits you, Starter Five is the right answer and I will say so. Where one of those is not ready yet, the price moves by the published cost of that one piece of work and nothing more, and the estimator shows you each line before you commit to anything.
Drivers
Three things move the price
There are more, and the estimator asks about all of them. These are the three that decide which product you are looking at, and none of them is page count.
- How many page LAYOUTS, not how many pages. A layout is design, components, responsive testing and accessibility work. The fifth page built on a layout that already exists is close to free. A fourth different layout is not. This is the single biggest reason two five page sites differ by thousands.
- What state your words are in. Approved and supplied costs nothing. Rough copy needs structural editing. Source material needs selecting and normalising. Original writing is its own job, and it is the one people most often do not budget for.
- What has to connect to what. One enquiry form is included. A proven hosted booking or CRM hand-off is a fixed module. A custom integration is a paid proof of concept before any fixed quote exists, because quoting one blind is how a fixed price stops being fixed.
Everything on that list is asked during the Sprint, before a price is written down, so nothing on it turns up as a surprise later.
Payment
Forty, thirty, thirty, against milestones you can see
This is the Foundation structure. The express tiers, the Sprint and the Diagnostic are paid in full up front, because at two and four hours there is no meaningful milestone to hold money against.
| Stage | Falls due | What you have at that point |
|---|---|---|
| 40% | After you accept the agreement pack | The signed scope, the fixed price and the detailed content brief. |
| 30% | After a meaningful staging review | The real site on a private preview address, reviewed on your own phone, with a fair chance to say what is wrong. |
| 30% | After acceptance, before go-live | A signed acceptance record against objective tests, then launch. |
I certify each milestone in writing against the numbered scope item, you have 5 business days to accept it or say what is missing, and the invoice follows acceptance on 7 day terms. You get an acceptance request first and an invoice second, never both at once. The full mechanism, the cancellation calculation and the refund position for every product are in the terms of service, which is the document you accept when you pay.
The card fee is already inside the price. It is part of the cost model rather than a line added at the end, so the figure you agree is the figure you pay. Nothing is described as non-refundable by default, and your own accounts are never used as leverage over an invoice.
Every price on this site is stated before GST, once, the way a business quotes another business. GST is added at the checkout and the total is shown there before you enter a card. Nothing else is added at the end that was not on the page.
Afterwards
What it costs to keep running
Usually less than people expect, because a static site does not need a server looking after it. Hosting at this size sits inside a free tier.
You pay your registrar for the domain and your mail provider for mailboxes, both on your own card in your own accounts. Every one of those is listed with its owner in the cost register before you commit, so no statement later has a line on it you do not recognise.
A care plan is optional and nothing depends on it. Launch Hypercare Included in every build, Care Essential $295 per month plus GST, Care Standard $595 per month plus GST, Growth Operations from $1,250 per month plus GST. What each one covers. If you take none of them you still own and can run the site, which is rather the point of building it this way.
Questions
Pricing questions
Why is a designed build shown as a starting figure?
Is the fixed price actually fixed?
What if my budget is lower than the number?
Why do you show prices without GST?
Paying accepts the terms of service, version 1.3. They cover what is supplied, what is needed from you, how a change is quoted and how a refund works. The version in force on the day you pay is the one that governs the job.
Not sure which product this is yet? Run the scope check, nine questions, no email.