Website design · New Zealand-wide Your website shouldn't cost $700 a year just to sit there.

Site builders rent you your own business, and the day you stop paying, it's gone. I'll build you one you own. About a hundred dollars a year to run.

Get a quote See two real examples

The maths

Where the money actually goes

Site builders start cheap. The plan on the sign-up page is a few dollars a month, and that is the number you remember. Then it adds up: the plan that removes their ads, the plan that lets you take payments, the domain once the free year ends, the mailbox, the app for the booking form, the app for the gallery, each a few dollars more.

This is a real comparison, from a client who moved off Wix this year.

Site builder subscription

~$700/year

Starts at a few dollars a month, ends up here
Stop paying and the site goes dark
Locked to their editor and their export
Slower: their code, not yours

A site you own

~$100/year

Domain and hosting, that's it
Paid to the host, not to me
Yours to move or hand on anytime
Built lean, so it loads fast

Roughly $600 a year back, for a site that's faster than the one it replaced. The build itself is a one-off, charged in blocks of work.

Host it wherever you like, and I'll help bring the cost down wherever that is. Where it's up to me, I use Hoopla Hosting: a friendly New Zealand company, servers and people here, and where my own sites have lived for over five years. Plans from $5.95 a month and a .co.nz domain at $34.49 a year, which is where the hundred dollars comes from. It's a referral link; it costs you nothing extra.

What's included

Built properly, not dragged together

Set up to be found

Titles, sitemap, business details and local search, all marked up properly. The plumbing that decides whether Google understands you.

Fast, and phone-first

No builder bloat. Designed for a phone held one-handed, and quick on two bars of signal.

Moved without losing rankings

Coming off Wix or Squarespace? Redirects get mapped, so the pages you already rank for don't go dead.

The keys, in your name

Domain and hosting registered to you. Files handed over whenever you ask.

Case studies

Two recent builds, two different ways

Built for the owner to edit

Mahurangi River Retreat

Luxury eco-retreat Airbnb, Warkworth

An eco-luxury tiny house for two in twenty-four acres of native bush on the Mahurangi River, under an hour from Auckland. The site had to sell the quiet: big photography, a booking button that goes straight to Airbnb, the river track and the town, and a photo gallery that opens full-screen.

Built the hybrid way on Sitejet: the sections are custom HTML and CSS tuned in Sitejet's editor, the gallery and lightbox are PHP and JavaScript, and the forms and map are Sitejet's own. The owners can add a section between any two, drop in a map or a review block, and change a photo or a price without asking anyone. If you want a place to stay near Warkworth, that is the site to book it on.

Visit mahuriverretreat.nz

The Mahurangi River Retreat home page: a tiny house lit at dusk under the words Escape the city and step into total seclusion

Books on Airbnb Full-screen photo gallery Map and directions Owner edits it About a $4,000 project

Coded, nothing underneath

Coleman's Mobile Car Valet

Mobile car detailer, Auckland

Alex is one man and a van, not a franchise: proper paint correction, decontamination and protection that lasts, rather than a quick wash at a cut price. He was paying about $700 a year to Wix for a site that was slow and awkward to update. We rebuilt it in plain code: six pages, every service marked up with its real price so search engines read the whole menu, and hosting at a seventh of the cost.

This is the code-only way, and it shows in the numbers below: nothing between the visitor and the page. The trade is that changing it takes a bit of nous, so changes come through me. If you need a car detailed at your home or work in Auckland, he comes to you.

Visit the site

The Coleman's Mobile Car Valet home page: a polisher on a dark car under the words We come to you

~$600 saved per year

45ms server response

11KB homepage HTML

6 pages, each search-ready

How we do it

Three ways to build it

We work this out together before anything gets built. The real question is who edits it afterwards.

Code only

Coded from scratch, nothing spare: no builder, no plugins, no database. The fastest to load and the cheapest to run, which is what Coleman's numbers show. When something needs changing, you email me and it's changed.

Best if the site won't change much and you'd rather not touch it.

Sitejet, the hybrid way

I build the sections as custom HTML and CSS and tune them in Sitejet's editor, so it looks like a coded site rather than a template. Anything that talks to the outside world, an Instagram feed, a booking link, is PHP and JavaScript I write; forms, maps and reviews are Sitejet's own blocks. A shop is Ecwid, or Shopify when it needs to be, or just a buy-now button. The retreat is one of these.

Best if you want to change photos, prices and hours yourself, and add the odd section without calling anyone. I train you on it before I hand it over.

Joomla, with VirtueMart

For the bigger jobs: a proper catalogue, customer accounts, orders and stock through VirtueMart, or a site with a lot of articles and more than one person writing them. More to learn than Sitejet, and worth it once there is that much to manage.

Best if you're selling dozens of products or publishing often, and need roles for who can change what.

Sitejet or Joomla?

Sitejet is the easier one to live with once the building blocks are in place. You tap Add section between any two, and drop in a product, a map, a review block, or let Sitejet's AI draft a section from a sentence and tidy it from there. Want a form? Drag one in. An interactive map? Drop it where you like. It suits a brochure site with a few things to sell, a booking button and a gallery, which is most small businesses.

Joomla and WordPress can be a headache by comparison. Out of the box you get a basic editor for the words, and to lay out a page you add a builder extension, then a plugin for the form, a plugin for the map, a template to hold it together, and from then on you are managing all of them, their updates and the way they argue with each other. Sitejet handles all of that for you.

The fastest of the three is still the coded one, because nothing sits between the visitor and the page. The trade is that it can't be edited without a bit of nous, so if you expect to be changing it yourself, say so before it's built.

Or just the technical bits

Not every job is a whole new website. Plenty of people have a domain they've lost access to, email landing in spam, or a site that needs pointing somewhere new, and nobody about who speaks DNS. I'll sort that on its own, no build required.

Domain registration or transfer DNS and records Email on your own domain Moving hosts

It ends up in your name, with the logins written down somewhere you can find them. If you'd rather understand it than just have it done, I'll talk you through it as we go.

Or just getting found

A site nobody finds is a brochure in a drawer. I set up Google Analytics and Search Console, so you can see who arrives and what they searched for. I sort out your SEO citations: the listings on Google Business Profile, Bing Places and the directories local search draws on, all saying the same name, address and phone. Then I coach you on what to write and change to climb Google and Bing, and turn those searches into customers.

Google Analytics Search Console and Bing Webmaster SEO citations Coaching, so you can do it yourself

Works on a site I built or one somebody else did. No guarantees about rankings, because nobody honest can give them, but you'll know what to do and be able to see whether it's working.

What it costs

From $800 to around $6,000, by the hour, in blocks

A complete site lands somewhere between $800 and $6,000. The low end is a few pages where the words and photos already exist. The top end is a site written, photographed and built from a blank page: the retreat was about a $4,000 project. Anything more involved than that, we work out over the course of the job rather than guess at the start.

I charge by the hour, in phases, and the rate follows the kind of work: $90 an hour for copywriting, search setup and photo work, $120 an hour for design, development and the server work behind it. Each block is invoiced as it's finished, with the hours on it, so you see the cost as it goes rather than all at the end.

What moves the number is how much content there is to write and how much has to be invented. If you already have a site, it's easier and friendlier on the budget: the words, the images and the thinking are done, and the job is to rebuild it properly. A Word document of collated ideas, or a sketch on paper, does the same favour for a new one.

What a full build breaks into

Design and build: the pages, header, footer, sections, forms and gallery. The biggest block, usually $2,600 to $3,500.
Copywriting: every page written, or your words tidied. Usually $800 to $1,400.
Photos and media: sourced, captioned and sized so they load fast. Usually $300 to $500.
Search engine setup: titles, descriptions, structured data, sitemap. Usually $350 to $600.
Fact-check and revisions: two rounds of your changes. Usually $300 to $450.
Go-live: domain, hosting, publishing and the checks after. Usually $200 to $300.

How it goes

Talk it through

Phone, email, or sit down with me and tell me where you're at. Bring whatever you have: the site you've got now, a Word document of collated ideas, a sketch, photos.
Drafts and a plan

I make a few drafts and a plan of how we'll move forward, with the blocks of work and a figure against each. Sometimes it starts with moving a domain so your hosting is all in one place.
Work in blocks

Each phase is done, shown to you and invoiced before the next starts, with the hours on the invoice. The first block is paid up front; after that you're never paying for work you haven't seen. Change your mind between blocks and nothing is wasted.
Live, then settled in

Domain, hosting and publishing, and small text and photo changes for the first 30 days are included. If you're going to edit it yourself, we sit down together, in person or on a call, and go through it until you're comfortable. New pages and features after that are quoted on request.

Questions

The things people ask first

Do I actually own the website?

Yes. It's a set of files and a domain in your name, and you can take them to any host or any other developer without asking me. If we ever part ways you keep the lot, and I'll help you move it.

Can I update the site myself?

If you want to, yes. Say so up front and I'll build it on Sitejet or Joomla, then train you on it: we sit down together, in person or on a call, and change prices, photos and hours and add a section until you're doing it without me. You can still hand the fiddly jobs back to me.

Can I add Shopify, a booking form or other third-party tools on Sitejet?

Yes. Add a section, drop a custom HTML element into it, and paste the embed code from Shopify, your booking system, a review widget or whatever else in there. That's the whole job. I'll do the first one with you so you've seen it done, and after that it's copy and paste.

What does a site cost to build?

Between $800 and around $6,000 for a complete site: $90 an hour for copy, search and photo work, $120 an hour for design and development, charged in blocks and invoiced as each block is finished. Rebuilding a site you already have sits at the cheaper end, because the words and photos exist. Email me what you've got and I'll give you a range before anything starts.

What does it cost to run each year?

Around $100 for a .co.nz domain and hosting, paid to the registrar and host rather than to me. No platform fee on top. I usually put sites on Hoopla Hosting, a New Zealand company I've used for over five years, from $5.95 a month with a .co.nz domain at $34.49 a year. You can host anywhere, though, and I'll help trim the cost wherever it is.

Can you move my existing Wix or Squarespace site?

Yes, and it's a good chunk of what I do. Your content and domain come across, and redirects are mapped so the pages you already rank for don't turn into dead links.

Can you help me rank higher on Google?

Yes. Every site goes out with its titles, descriptions, structured data and sitemap done. Beyond that I set up Google Analytics and Search Console, sort out your SEO citations on Google Business Profile, Bing Places and the local directories, and coach you on what to write and change to climb Google and Bing. No honest person guarantees rankings, but you'll be able to see what's working.

Do I need to be in Auckland?

No. Most of it is done remotely, or in person around Auckland if you'd rather, and clients can be anywhere in New Zealand. Same time zone, so a phone call sorts most things.

Who looks after it once it's live?

Whichever you prefer, and you can change your mind later. I'll host and maintain it for an annual fee, or hand the whole thing over and charge you nothing.

Get in touch

Tell me what you need

What the business does, roughly how many pages, and whether you've got a site already. Or just tell me which bit is broken. Either way that's enough for a number and a timeframe. No obligation, and no sales sequence waiting for you.

hello@sumnerd.co.nz