Website Platform Total Cost of Ownership: A Five-Year Model for Organisations Running Many Sites | How-to Guide

By the We.Inc editorial team · Editorial policy

How to compare website platforms on what they really cost over five years: licence, hosting, build, content migration, staff time, accessibility testing, security, training, integrations and exit. Includes a cost-line checklist, a worked comparison method and the questions that expose hidden costs.

The licence fee is the number on the proposal, so it is the number that gets compared. It is also, for most organisations, a minority of what a website platform costs. Staff time to publish, developer time to change a template, accessibility testing, security patches, the agency retainer that appears in year two and the migration you will eventually pay for to leave: these are the costs that decide whether a platform was cheap. This guide gives you a model for counting them, over five years, for one site or for two hundred.

Why five years

Platform decisions usually last longer than the contract. Three years is too short to include the cost of leaving, and many organisations replace their main site on a roughly five-to-seven-year cycle. Five years captures one full set-up, the steady state and the exit, which is the honest comparison.

The cost lines

Put every line in a spreadsheet, one column per year, one tab per platform. Lines that are zero for one platform are often large for another, which is the point.

GroupCost lineOften forgotten because
PlatformLicence or subscription (per site, per seat, per page view, or flat)Pricing units differ, so it is hard to compare until you model your own numbers
Hosting, CDN and bandwidthBundled for some platforms, separate for others
Paid add-ons: forms, search, translation, analytics, backupsListed on a separate price page or quoted later
Domains and certificatesSmall per item, large across many sites
Set-upDesign and template buildAgency estimates assume a stable scope
Content migration and rewritingDone by department staff, so not invoiced
Integrations (payments, permits, CRM, single directory of staff)Each one is a small project
RunningEditor time per page published or changedSpread across many people, never measured
Developer time for template changes and fixesAbsorbed by IT or bought as a retainer
Security patching and upgradesMajor-version upgrades on self-hosted platforms can be mini-projects
Accessibility testing and remediationTreated as a one-off audit instead of ongoing work
Training new editorsStaff turnover makes this continuous
RiskIncident response and downtimeHard to estimate, so left out
Contract renewal increasesYear-one pricing is often discounted
ExitMigration off the platform at year fiveNobody plans to leave on day one

The line that dominates: staff time

For organisations with many editors, people-time usually outweighs licence cost. Estimate it this way:

  1. Count changes per year: pages created plus pages edited. Your current CMS or analytics can usually give you last year's numbers.
  2. Time a sample of ten typical changes on each shortlisted platform, during the demo or trial, done by one of your editors rather than the vendor's.
  3. Multiply: changes × minutes per change × loaded hourly cost of the people doing them.
  4. Add the cost of changes the editor cannot make alone. If a new landing page needs a developer ticket on one platform and an editor ten minutes on another, that difference repeats every time.

A platform that saves five minutes per change across many thousands of changes a year can justify a higher licence. A platform with a low licence that sends every layout change to a developer usually cannot.

Pricing models and how they behave at scale

ModelCheap whenExpensive whenQuestion to ask
Per siteA few large sitesMany small sites (departments, locations, clients)Is there a volume tier, and what counts as a site?
Per editor seatA small central team publishes everythingDistributed publishing with many occasional editorsAre reviewers and occasional editors charged as full seats?
Per page view or trafficLow trafficA spike from an emergency or a viral pageWhat happens to the bill during a traffic surge?
Flat enterprise licenceLarge, growing estateThe estate shrinks, or you only use a fractionWhat does the renewal look like, and what is the notice period?
Open source, self-hostedStrong in-house developersSmall team; upgrades and security fall on youWho patches it at 2 a.m., and what does that cost?

Accessibility is a running cost, not a project

For public bodies in the US, the ADA Title II rule makes WCAG 2.1 AA the standard for web content, and content provided through contractors and vendors is still the public body's responsibility. Budget for it every year: training, a tester's time on each release, user testing on top tasks, and an independent audit. Platforms differ in how much of this they make easier (accessible templates, review before publishing), but no platform removes the line. Our accessibility testing process shows what the yearly rhythm looks like.

Exit cost: price it before you sign

The cheapest moment to reduce exit cost is during procurement. Ask each vendor to show, not describe:

Then estimate: if export is clean and complete, exit is mostly redirects and testing. If export is text only, exit is a full rebuild. Put the difference in year five. The vendor exit plan guide has contract wording.

A worked method (no invented numbers)

Instead of an example with made-up prices, here is the method in order. Fill it in with your quotes and your own measurements.

  1. Fix the estate: number of sites, pages, documents, editors and changes per year, today and in five years.
  2. Get quotes in writing for that estate, years one to five, including renewal terms and every add-on on your must-have list.
  3. Measure editor time on each shortlisted platform with your own editors.
  4. Get set-up estimates from the vendor or agency, and add your own staff time for content.
  5. Estimate developer time per year from your change log: what share of last year's changes needed a developer?
  6. Add accessibility, security and training lines, the same for every platform unless one materially changes the effort.
  7. Price the exit from what the export demo showed.
  8. Sum and compare, then run a sensitivity check: what if the estate grows 50%? What if renewal rises?

Copyable TCO sheet layout

LineYear 1Year 2Year 3Year 4Year 5Source
Licence / subscriptionWritten quote
Hosting and add-onsWritten quote
Design and build----Agency estimate
Content migration (staff hours × rate)----Inventory × hours per page
Editor timeTimed sample × changes per year
Developer timeChange log share
AccessibilityTesting plan
Security and upgradesIT estimate
TrainingNew editors per year
Exit----Export demo
Total

When an enterprise CMS is the better buy

Be fair to the expensive option. A full enterprise CMS often wins on TCO when you have one very large, deeply integrated site, complex content reuse across channels, a large in-house development team already skilled in it, or strict multi-stage editorial workflows. A multi-site builder tends to win when the estate is many smaller sites, editors are occasional, and the biggest cost is people waiting for developers. The trade-offs are set out in white-label builder vs enterprise CMS.

What We.Inc changes in the model

We.Inc is built for organisations running many sites under their own brand. In TCO terms, the lines it affects are editor time (sites are built and changed in a visual editor with an AI assistant), developer time for small layout changes, and exit cost: the site's code can be downloaded as a ZIP or synced to GitHub. It does not remove accessibility testing, content work or training. We do not publish white-label pricing; it is quoted per organisation in a demo.

A table of all sites with company, plan, site limit and status
All sites in one place, which is where the per-site cost lines come from.
The visual editor with a button selected and controls for fill, corners, states and breakpoints
Editors change layout and styling directly, which affects the editor-time and developer-time lines.
A code panel with a file tree, component source and a Download button
The full source of each site is visible and downloadable.
Export Project dialog with GitHub, ZIP, Vercel and Domain options
GitHub and ZIP export, the evidence to bring to the exit-cost line.

To get a quote you can put into the sheet above, book a demo.

Sources

Last checked 2026-10-25.

This guide is general information, not legal or financial advice.

Frequently asked questions

What is website total cost of ownership?

Everything a platform costs over its life: licence, hosting, add-ons, build, content migration, editor and developer time, accessibility testing, security, training and the cost of leaving, usually modelled over five years.

What is the biggest hidden cost of a website platform?

For organisations with many editors it is usually staff time: minutes per change multiplied by thousands of changes, plus changes editors cannot make without a developer.

How do you estimate the cost of leaving a platform?

Ask the vendor to demonstrate a full export of content, media, URLs and code. Clean, complete export means exit is mostly redirects and testing; text-only export means a rebuild.

When is an enterprise CMS cheaper over five years?

Often when you run one very large, integrated site with complex content reuse, strict multi-stage workflows and an in-house team skilled in that CMS.

Does We.Inc publish white-label prices?

No. White-label is quoted per organisation in a demo, so you can put a written quote for your own estate into the TCO sheet.

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