Web DesignPricing

The Real Cost of a Cheap Website in New Zealand: Hidden Fees and Lock-In

Kage Works13 August 20268 min read

A $2,500 one-off build and a $199-a-month plan look like different products until you multiply. Kiwi Web Design publishes $199 a month excluding GST on a 24-month minimum term, which totals $4,776 excluding GST, and their page says the site is yours to keep at the end of it (Kiwi Web Design). That comparison takes ten seconds and both numbers sit on the page.

The costs that catch you out sit outside the price. They live in the registrant field of your domain record, in what your platform lets you take when you leave, and in a handful of line items with a published wholesale price you can look up in a browser.

Read the registrant field before you sign anything

Open the Domain Name Commission's WHOIS lookup, type your domain, and read the registrant line. The registrant holds the licence to the domain. Your registrar manages it on the registrant's behalf, which is a different role with different rights (Domain Name Commission). A web designer's company name in that field means they hold your domain and you don't.

Privacy settings don't explain the field away. The Individual Registrant Privacy Option withholds a physical address, phone number and email address from the public record, and only individuals can apply it; the DNC keeps registration details of companies and businesses public to maintain transparency and accountability (Domain Name Commission). A company registrant appears by name.

Moving a .nz domain to a different provider takes an authorisation code, 16 alphanumeric characters, previously called a UDAI. Registrars release it once they're satisfied the registrant is the one asking, and they're unlikely to give it to any other party (Domain Name Commission). Read that with your own WHOIS result in front of you. If your designer is the registrant, the code goes to your designer.

Recovering a domain has a price list. The DNC runs a Dispute Resolution Service that covers disagreements over who the registrant should be. Mediation costs nothing for either party, and around 40% of disputes settle there. Past mediation, referring the matter to an Expert costs the complainant $2,000 plus GST (Domain Name Commission). Weigh that against the fifteen seconds a WHOIS lookup takes now.

Price the exit before you price the build

A quote implies a platform, and each platform sets what you can carry out the door. The vendor's own documentation answers this faster than a sales call.

Wix states that your site is built with Wix technology and needs to run on Wix servers, and that you can't back the site up externally. You can export a CMS collection to CSV, and that export leaves out content from third-party apps (Wix Help Center).

Squarespace exports an .xml file aimed at WordPress. Their help centre says not everything exports because many features rely on Squarespace's JavaScript and CSS, and it lists the page types that stay behind: album, cover, index, info, calendar, portfolio and store pages, plus content in page-specific headers, footers and sidebars. Bulk image export isn't available either, so you download images from the Asset library one at a time (Squarespace Help Center).

WordPress sits at the friendlier end and still has edges. The built-in export tool produces a WXR file containing authors, terms, posts, comments and attachments (WordPress Developer Resources), which you generate from the Tools > Export screen (WordPress.org). Your theme and plugin files stay put.

The pattern holds across the lot: your words and your structured records travel, your design stays. Budget an exit as a rebuild of the presentation layer plus whatever custom work someone wired in, and read a cheap quote knowing which platform's exit you're buying. Our comparison of Squarespace, Webflow and custom builds covers where each ceiling sits, and the redesign versus rebuild breakdown prices the work on the other side.

Do the arithmetic on monthly plans

Subscription websites are a legitimate product with published terms, and the arithmetic decides whether one suits you.

Kiwi Web Design's plan runs $199 a month excluding GST for a minimum 24 months with no separate setup fee, covers a five-page build, managed hosting and SSL, weekly backups and updates, monitoring, and up to two hours a month of content changes. After the term you can cancel on 30 days' notice; cancelling before it may require buying out the remaining months or paying a one-off fee to transfer assets and licences (Kiwi Web Design). MyTechGuy sets a 12-month minimum on its monthly website packages, includes hosting and a domain, and says you're free to take the website elsewhere after that (MyTechGuy).

Run the sum both ways. Two hours a month across 24 months is 48 hours of someone's time, and those hours carry real value at any developer's rate if you spend them. Leave them unused and you've paid $4,776 excluding GST for a five-page site and hosting. You come out ahead by emailing changes every month, and behind by launching the site and forgetting it.

Four questions turn a monthly quote into a comparable number:

Total over the minimum term, GST included, plus anything charged on top.
The scope of "you own it" at the end: source files, the domain, third-party licences, the hosting account.
The early-exit figure. A buy-out of remaining months and a transfer fee are different amounts.
Whether unused monthly hours roll over or expire.

Four line items with a published floor price

None of these numbers prove a provider is overcharging, since bundling costs money and someone does the work. They give you a floor, so you can ask what the gap buys.

.nz domain. InternetNZ raised the wholesale price 22%, from $18 to $22, on 1 July 2025 (SiteHost). Retail sits above that; Discount Domains lists .nz names from $27.95 (Discount Domains).
Shared hosting. 1st Domains advertises unlimited-plan hosting at $8.25 a month, and Freeparking lists Linux hosting at $13.50 a month on a one-year term (1st Domains, Freeparking).
SSL certificate. Let's Encrypt charges no fee for issuance or renewal and automates the whole cycle (Let's Encrypt). An annual SSL line item on a modern host needs an explanation.
Shopify payments. Using a third-party payment provider adds a Shopify transaction fee of 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow and 0.6% on Advanced, on top of what the provider charges, and Shopify waives it if Shopify Payments is your only provider (Shopify Help Center).

NZ law gives small businesses a lever on the contract

Since 16 August 2022, the Fair Trading Act's unfair contract terms rules cover standard form small trade contracts, meaning trading relationships with an actual or expected value up to $250,000 including GST in any 12-month period, assessed when the relationship first arises (Commerce Commission). Most small business website contracts land well inside that.

The Commission's guidance flags the term types worth reading twice on a website agreement: rollover clauses that only the business can trigger, and clauses letting one side vary the deal on its own (Commerce Commission).

The limits matter as much as the protection. Only the Commerce Commission can apply to a court to have a term in a small trade contract declared unfair, and a term the court declares unfair stops binding you (Commerce Commission). You can't strike out a clause yourself, and the regime applies to standard form contracts rather than terms you negotiated. Reporting a concern goes through the Commission on 0800 943 600. Treat this as a reason to read the rollover and variation clauses closely before signing, not as a rescue plan afterwards, and get your own legal advice on anything you're stuck in.

A fifteen-minute check before you sign

Do these while the quote is still a quote.

Run the WHOIS lookup on your existing domain and read the registrant name. Anything other than your business or your own name is the first thing to fix.
Ask the provider, in writing, to name the registrant on any new domain they register for you.
Find your platform's export page in its own documentation and note what stays behind.
Multiply the monthly figure by the minimum term, add GST, and put that beside the one-off quotes.
Ask for the early-exit clause and the ownership clause as text, not as reassurance in an email.
Check the recurring line items against the floor prices above and ask what the difference covers.

A cheap website turns expensive through the domain you don't hold, the design you can't take, and a term length that stayed out of the sales conversation. Our list of questions to ask a web design agency covers the rest of the conversation, and the NZ website cost breakdown sets out what the honest price bands look like once you know what you're comparing.