Starter Package

The starter package includes all the typical options that you would need to get a website started from scratch:

• Base website setup – CMS website for easy updating, up to 5 pages completed by us and ability to add additional pages yourself
• Domain name registration
• Contact form
• 6 months web hosting
• Google Analytics setup
• Email addresses set up for your domain

The starter package is available for $599 (a saving of $102).

Deluxe Package

The deluxe package includes everything from the Starter package plus photo gallery, blog, Google map and 12 months of hosting instead of 6:

• Base website setup – CMS website for easy updating, up to 5 pages completed by us and ability to add additional pages yourself
• Domain name registration
• Contact form
• 12 months web hosting
• Google Analytics setup
• Email addresses set up for your domain
• Photo Gallery
• Blog/News section
• Google Map

The deluxe package is available for $859 (a saving of $147).

Both of these packages represent amazing deals when you consider what it can typically cost to get a high quality professional content managed website up and running. Our prices may be cheap but the websites we build do not look or function like cheap websites! They are built with nicely designed, slick, professional looking templates, custom tailored to match your brand and they have a state of the art content management system that ensures the website can evolve and grow with your business.

One of the first surprises was the response rate. Out of 24 enquiries we only got 13 replies back to our quotation request, almost half of the web companies did not even respond. Out of the 13 responses we got 10 actual quotes, one replied to tell us they were not currently taking on clients, one referred us to another company and the other one would not give us a quote without meeting face to face.

The next surprise was the wide range of prices quoted to us. The most expensive price quoted to us was a whopping $15,000 (yes that’s 3 zeros) and the best deal we found was $1,200. That’s a quite a range! We sought further clarification of the justification for the $15k brochure website and were informed that they were a ‘top tier’ web design company and as a ‘larger operator’ their costs were higher.

Here are all the prices that were quoted to us in order of most expensive to least expensive:

$15000
$8000 (quoted a range of $7000-$9000)
$5500
$4000 (quoted a range of $3000-$5000)
$2745
$2500
$2495
$2375
$2075
$1200

That’s an average price of $4589 and a median of $2620.

It is apparent that the sky is the limit when it comes to how much you can pay to get even the most basic of websites built. While some larger companies may be able to afford an ‘expense is no object’ approach to having a website built, most smaller companies will need to take a more pragmatic budget minded approach. A professional looking website that checks all the boxes in terms of search engine optimisation and customer conversion does not have to cost thousands.

We use the ‘best of breed’ web development software and platforms

Years of experience in developing websites have lead us to discover some of the best web development software and platforms. This allows us to deliver cutting edge websites that can easily be expanded to handle almost any requirement that you can think of, and at the same time develop these websites in a highly efficient and timely manner. Our tools and platforms are carefully chosen to avoid bloat and promote rapid web development. In short, the software that we have carefully chosen helps us to get the job done faster.

Our years of experience with these tools results in increased efficiency

Working at developing a wide range of websites with diverse requirements means that we developed a very high level of expertise using our chosen web development software and tools. This allows to quickly identify and develop solutions to satisfy diverse business needs. In short, our experience helps us to work faster.

We follow the principal of reuse

This the key principal behind Rapid Websites. In typical web site design and development there is much time spent to repetition. Typically a web designer starts with a blank canvas and spends many hours creating a new design from scratch. Our approach at Rapid Websites is to design a number of elegant and flexible website templates in advance that can be easily customised to suite any business image and branding requirements. On the functionality side of things we have pre-developed modules that can handle most of the website functionality requirements that businesses typically need. All of this saves us a huge amount of time verses starting from scratch which we can pass on to you as huge cost savings. In short, we re-use design and standard functionality in order to be able to create websites in a fraction of the time at a fraction of the cost.

Another approach that some take is the DIY or ‘do-it-yourself’ approach. And that is fine for some people who have the technical skills and have the time to spend on it. But even most of those with reasonable technical skills cannot afford to spend the time it takes to build a website for their business. It’s usually better to spend one’s time focusing on the core business and leave the website development to the professionals both for better use of time and a better end result.

But now in New Zealand there’s a new approach to affordability in web design and development – Rapid Websites. By going with Rapid Websites for your web project you will get your website up and running for a very low cost website without sacrificing quality, or functionality. A website built by Rapid Websites will definitely not look cheap or amateurish. Instead it will be a professionally crafted website built on a cutting edge CMS (content management system) following all the best practices of web design and development.

So how can we give you MORE and yet you pay LESS???
Check back soon for our next blog post to find out…