Pricing
How your project will be priced, and expected related costs.
Any new website using Site Maker is valued at more than $60,000 thanks to the investment made by Foundation North into establishing the platform.
Project Cost
The baseline cost for a simple website or report utilising existing features of Site Maker is $4,500 NZD ex GST.
This includes:
- Service from Gravitate to create and launch your project (Project Management)
- A custom "theme" to suit the look of your project, think of this like redecorating the house
- Build configuration - setup of the new instance of Site Maker and configuration of it to suit your project (such as which blocks are being used)
- Your own independent website with a content management system so you can edit it yourself
Where your project requires additional customisation beyond what's available through Site Maker (new features or vastly different design), Gravitate will provide a detailed quote for you to understand costs. This will depend on specific requirements, but a mid-range website may cost $15,000.
For projects more advanced than a digital version of a report, it is advisable to add a contingency buffer to your project budget, especially if you have "unknown" factors at the start of the project. 15% is a reasonable contingency allowance.
Exclusions
The baseline cost for a new instance does not include:
- Content writing, editing, photography, or creation of elements other than the site theme
- Migration of existing content from an existing website
- Hosting and maintenance
Remember a baseline site is a copy of a templated website customised with your design, but you can ask Gravitate to expand the scope of your project to suit - they will provide pricing for doing so.
Ongoing Costs
Hosting
For Foundation North projects, from the launch of your website expect to pay a $30 NZD ex GST per month hosting fee to Gravitate.
Projects outside the Foundation may require a seperate agreement with Gravitate for hosting.
Domain Name
Your domain name is the address for your website, and will need to be "pointed" to Gravitate's servers when your website goes live.
You will need to register a domain name for your project, or have one ready (such as a subdomain of an existing address).
Foundation North has domain names managed by SecureCom, and for Foundation North projects sub domains of existing registered addresses may be available - check with the Shared Services team if you'd like to use a sub domain.
Maintenance
There is no packaged maintenance plan and fee in place.
For Foundation North projects, the Foundation has a service agreement with Gravitate which can help to support Site Maker websites.
Over time as technology advances websites can become outdated. Foundation North will support the maintenance of Site Maker itself, and upgrades made to Site Maker may be beneficial to your website to ensure it continues to be of value in future. It is worth allocating an annual budget for maintenance upgrades if your website is planned to be in service for a long time. You should also budget for new development to support the needs of your own project or organisation over time.
The maintenance budget allocation "depends", but for a basic website $4,000 is a reasonable allowance.
Digital reports shouldn't need maintenance, but bear in mind as technology changes over time they may not always work perfectly.