Websites for small businesses · New Zealand
Most studios want $5,000 to $15,000 before they lift a finger. We don't. A custom-built site — designed, written, hosted and looked after — for one flat monthly fee you can cancel any month.
What we build
Every site is built from scratch for the business it belongs to — no templates, no page builder — and the person who builds it is the person you talk to.
A site that explains what you do, answers the questions people ring about, and turns visitors into enquiries. Built for a phone first, because that's where your customers are. The things that change — hours, prices, photos — you edit yourself, from your phone.
Take bookings or orders on your own site, on your own terms. No commission to a platform, no per-booking fee, and the customer's details stay with you — not with a marketplace that sells them back to you as ads.
Instant quotes, price calculators, order tracking — the systems that save you the back-and-forth. We built an automatic quoting system for our own 3D-printing studio because we were tired of emailing prices. We can build yours.
What it costs
Small businesses shouldn't have to gamble thousands on someone they met last week. So there's no lump sum — you pay nothing while the site is being built, and the first payment is on the day it goes live.
A site that explains your business and brings in enquiries.
A site that runs part of your business.
Cancel any month. You stay because the site is working for you, not because you're locked in.
The first payment is the day your site goes live, and each payment covers the month ahead — the same way your phone plan bills you.
After twelve months on a plan, the site itself is yours to take anywhere. Your words, photos and customer details are yours from day one.
Which plan is yours depends on whether the site needs to do something — take a booking, price a job — or explain something. Most businesses already know which they are. If you don't, that's the first thing we'd talk about. You'll see a first version within two working days; most Starter sites are live in three to five weeks. Anything that takes orders or bookings takes longer, and we'll tell you how long after the first conversation.
Against the alternatives
| What | Wix, Squarespace, Shopify | An agency | Aotearoa Labs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Upfront | Nothing | $5,000–$15,000 | Nothing |
| Each month | A subscription, from a few dozen dollars | Hosting and support, on top | From $249, everything included |
| Who builds it | You, on your evenings, from a template | A team you're handed to | The person you talked to, from scratch |
| Who fixes it on a Friday night | You | A ticket queue | Us |
| Who owns it | The platform | You, once the invoice is paid | You, after twelve months |
If you'd rather not be the one fixing the website at seven on a Friday while the shop is full, that's what the monthly fee is for.
Being straight with you
Good work takes the time it takes. We'd rather say no than hand you something rushed with your name on it.
This works because the site keeps being looked after. If you'd rather own a finished thing outright on day one, an agency is the better fit.
This works because we talk — a few short conversations, not forms. If that sounds like overhead, we'll both find it frustrating.
See it working
Nothing here is a mockup. Every site below links out to the real thing, so you can open it on your phone and see it working the way its owner uses it.
A print studio where every enquiry started with the same hour of back-and-forth: what material, what size, roughly how much.
An instant-estimate page. Drop in a model file, pick material, colour, infill and finish, and see an indicative NZD price straight away — before anyone has to reply to an email.
Customers arrive with a number already in hand. The conversation starts at "can you do this by Friday", not "how much".
A one-person salon whose work was only visible on Instagram, with no simple way for a new client to see the services and book.
A calm, phone-first site around three signature services, a results gallery, and one clear path to booking — plus hours and directions where people expect to find them.
A new client can go from a reel to a booked appointment without a DM, and the owner updates the gallery herself.
A young national association that needed to look established, explain five public purposes clearly, and take memberships and donations.
A site built around the constitution's purposes, with membership and donation paths, event listings, and a weekly briefing section the committee publishes to.
New members join online, and the weekly briefing gives the committee a reason to send people back to the site every Saturday.
The sites behind our own apps — a studio hub, product pages and support pages. Same care, same tooling, our own name on the door.
How it works
A short conversation about what your business actually needs the site to do. No brief forms, no discovery workshop. If you already have a site, we'll rebuild a page of it for free so you can see the difference before deciding anything.
You watch it come together on a real link you can open on your phone and show to anyone. First version in two working days; you tell us what's wrong with it, and we keep going until it's right.
Live, hosted, backed up and looked after. The things that change are yours to change from your phone; the things that break are ours to fix, usually before you notice.
Who you'll be working with
Aotearoa Labs · New Plymouth
The person who answers the phone is the person who builds the site.
Nothing gets relayed and nothing gets handed down to somebody you haven't met. There's no second person to re-explain your business to a fortnight later.
Aotearoa Labs is a small New Zealand software studio. Alongside websites, we've shipped apps to Google Play and the Microsoft Store, built industrial tools for machinery controllers, and run our own 3D-printing business in New Plymouth — so we know what it's like to be the small business the website is for, not just the one building it.
We work from New Plymouth and build with modern AI-assisted tooling — which is a large part of why a custom site can cost what a template used to.
Questions
$249 a month for a Starter site, $449 a month for Professional — which adds a booking, ordering or quoting system and unlimited changes. Both are in New Zealand dollars, both include hosting, your domain and all the looking-after. There is nothing to pay upfront.
The day the site goes live. You pay nothing while it's being designed and built, and the free mockup costs exactly nothing whether or not you go ahead.
No. It's month to month. Cancel any time with a month's notice, and there's no exit fee.
Your content — words, photos, customer details — is yours from the first day. After twelve months on a plan the site itself is yours too: we'll hand over the files and help you move it wherever you like. Before twelve months, the site stays with us; that's how we can afford to build it for nothing upfront.
After twelve months: you take the site with you. Before that: we'll give you every word and image you've supplied, and your domain name always stays in your name. Either way we don't hold anything hostage.
Not from us. Hosting, your domain, security certificate and changes are all in the fee. If you choose to take card payments through the site, the payment provider (Stripe, for example) charges their own small per-transaction fee — that goes to them, not to us.
Send them through. Starter includes up to ten content changes a month; Professional is unlimited. The everyday things — hours, prices, a new photo, today's special — you can change yourself from your phone without waiting for anyone.
Sometimes. If it was built on a platform like Wix or Squarespace it usually can't be moved, only rebuilt. If it's a plain site we may be able to keep it. Either way, the free mockup will show you what a rebuild looks like, and you can decide from there.
A conversation, your logo if you have one, and any photos you'd like to use. We write the words with you — you know your business, we know what people search for. We'll ask for the rest as we go.
First version within two working days. Most Starter sites are live in three to five weeks. Bookings, ordering or quoting systems take longer, and we'll give you an honest estimate after the first conversation rather than a number that sounds good now.
Contact
Your message comes straight to Benny, not to a team. Every one gets read, and you'll hear back within a working day.
Not ready to write it all out? Send the name of your business and your current website, if you have one, and we'll come back with a free mockup of one page — no strings.
One page of your business, rebuilt properly, within two working days. Free, and yours to keep whether or not you go ahead.
