What's included in a website package in NZ?

Brand identity

Starter: custom mark and colour palette. Growth: full logo suite, social sizes, consistent typography. Your site and your van match.

Pages built for your trade

Starter is one focused page — services, proof, contact. Growth is up to five pages — about, services, gallery or menu, contact, extras. Built mobile-first.

Forms, Maps, and SEO basics

Working quote or contact form, Google Maps embed, on-page SEO titles and descriptions, and Google Business Profile setup on Growth. Not magic ranking guarantees — the foundation.

Launch and handover

Domain guidance, go-live support, and your files at handover. You own the site — we don't hold it hostage on a platform.

What's not included

Professional photography, long-form copywriting, ongoing hosting, and e-commerce are scoped separately. We use your photos and text unless you hire extras.

Starter vs Growth at a glance

Starter: $499, 5–7 business days. Growth: $1,199, 10–14 business days. Custom: contact us for a scoped quote. 50% deposit to start, balance on handover.

Starter, line by line

Starter is the one-page package. You get a logo mark and a colour palette, not a 40-page brand book. The page covers what you do, who it's for, and how to enquire. A spam-protected form sends the message to your inbox. A map shows the area you serve. Titles and a meta description are written for that page. You receive the files.

It is the right tier for a new sole trader who needs to look legitimate this month: a sparky, a mobile barista, a barber with one chair. It is the wrong tier if you already know you need a menu, a gallery, and an about page. That is Growth. Pretending Starter includes five pages is how fixed prices turn into arguments.

Growth, line by line

Growth adds a fuller logo suite and social image sizes, up to five pages, and one module that matches the business: booking link, menu, or gallery. Google Business Profile setup is included, which means we help you get the name, category, and site URL aligned. There is a handover call so you aren't left with a zip file and a shrug.

Five pages is a ceiling, not a suggestion to invent pages. A sensible set is home, services, one proof page (gallery, menu, or locations), about, and contact. If you need a blog, a shop, or a sixth service line, say so in the brief and we'll tell you whether it still fits or needs a custom quote.

A normal fortnight, and what you prepare

Day one is the brief: business name, what you sell, suburbs, photos you already have, and any logo you want kept. We confirm the tier in writing. You pay half. We send a first look partway through, not a surprise on the last day. You review on your phone. We fix the things that are inside the scope. You pay the balance and we hand over files and domain notes.

Have these ready or the calendar slips: a sentence on what you do, a list of services, the email that should receive enquiries, and photos you have the right to use. You don't need perfect copy. You do need to tell us if a claim is true. We won't write “25 years' experience” or “award-winning” unless you can point at it.

How this differs from renting a template

A builder subscription is fast until you want to leave. Exporting is messy, the form plugin is extra, and the logo is often a separate Canva file that doesn't match the site. Our package is slower than clicking a theme and faster than an open-ended agency. The trade is a fixed page count and your own photos.

If you already pay for Wix, Squarespace, or a similar tool, a move is possible. The builder vs custom guide compares the two over three years. Ask what you can export, and whether your domain is unlocked. We rebuild the pages; we don't promise a one-click import. The small business page covers redesigns and old URLs. The cost guide covers what other NZ studios charge for the same shape of site.

Questions to ask before you sign any package

Five questions sort most website packages in a few minutes. How many pages, by name? Is a logo included, and do I get the source files? Where does the contact form send mail, and who tests it? What do I pay each month after launch, and to whom? What happens to the site and the domain if I stop paying? A package that answers all five in writing is comparable with ours. A package that answers with “it depends” on more than one is an hourly project, and that can be fine — just compare it with other hourly quotes, not with a fixed price.

Ask the same five of us. Starter answers: one page, logo mark with files, form to your inbox tested before launch, no monthly fee to us, and the site and domain stay with you. Growth answers: up to five named pages, a fuller logo suite and social sizes, the same form testing, no monthly fee to us, and a handover call.

After handover, in plain terms

You should be able to open the files without us in the room. Growth includes a call for that. Starter includes the files and a short note on where the form sends mail and how the domain points at the host. We don't keep the only copy. If a host account is in our name, that is a mistake to fix before the balance, not a favour. Your domain registrar login stays yours from the day you buy it. The ownership guide has a ten-minute check for any site, ours or not.

Small edits after launch depend on the tier and on what “small” means. Changing a phone number, an hour, or a price on a page we built is a short job. Adding a shop, a sixth page, or a booking engine is a new quote. We'll say which one it is rather than starting a monthly retainer by default. A site built this way should make sense without us.

What we will not add later to dress the page up: invented reviews, a fake “as seen in” row, or a phone number that goes nowhere. If your Google profile and the footer disagree, fix the profile or the footer before you ask for more design. The tradie, café, and salon pages describe how the same package changes by industry. The prices don't. Read the one that matches you, then send a quote request with the tier you think you need. If you're wrong, we'll say so.

A package is finished when three things are true. A stranger can tell what you do and where you work without calling. The form or booking link arrives somewhere you check. You hold the files and the domain. Anything sold as a package that fails one of those is a subscription with extra steps. Use that test on our tiers and on anyone else's.

If you are comparing us with a freelancer who charges less, ask what the lesser fee removes. Often it is the logo, the form testing, or the handover files. Sometimes it is nothing, and you should hire them. We'd rather you saw the line items than assumed a lower number is the same product. Bring their list to the quote request if you want us to mark what overlaps.

Deposits are half of the tier you agreed, not half of a number that grows. If the brief changes, we stop and re-quote the change before building it. You can walk away before the extra starts. The original pages still get finished at the original price if you drop the extra. That is what fixed is supposed to mean, and it is the clause worth finding in any other package you read this week.

Read a proposal out loud and mark every noun you cannot picture. “Strategy”, “digital presence”, and “solutions” fail that test. “Five pages, a logo suite, a form to this inbox, files on a drive you control” passes. If your own notes from a sales call are only the vague nouns, email back and ask for the page list before you pay. We will do the same in reverse: if your quote request is only “need a website”, we will ask what the business sells and where it operates before we name a tier.

Timing is part of the package, not a bonus. Starter is 5–7 business days and Growth is 10–14 once the brief and photos are in. Those clocks start after the deposit, not after an open-ended round of moodboards. If a studio will not name a range, assume the calendar is the thing they are selling. You can still hire them. Just don't compare their “we'll see” with a date you can plan a launch around.