Websites for small NZ organisations and businesses
Develop your site free. Keep it only if you love it.
One email opens your Build Room. Tell your story there and a real, working website can be back the same day. Shape it with us for a free week, live and hosted. Keep it for a flat $800 and you own it outright. Your website, freehold.
No forms, no calls, no account. The button opens the Open Home, a Build Room with the door open. One email opens your own, and no is always fine.
Or email us directly: studio@freehold.org.nz
Certificate of Title
Held Freehold
This website is held freehold by
you
- Owned outright, in your name
- One flat price, nothing monthly
- Free to move, any time you like
Wherever you're starting from, you end up owning it
No website, or starting fresh
Ask for a Build Room, tell your story there, and we build it free. You shape it with us over a week, keep it for a flat $800, and it's yours.
How it works Going FreeholdAlready have a site, paying monthly
Email us the address. We rebuild it free and show you, before you decide anything. If you want it, we guide you through going live, one step at a time.
Going FreeholdA website built in your own Build Room
You never have to log into anything or learn a tool. One email opens your room, your story goes in, a real website comes back. The only decision that costs you anything is the last one.
You ask for your Build Room
Email us a line or two about who you are, and we reply with a private link to your own room. No forms, no account, no password.
You tell your story in the room
The room is a quiet chat with the studio. It asks about what you do, one question at a time, and there's a shelf for your photos and documents. Take it at your own pace.
We build your site, fast
Your first version can be back the same day your room is ready, and never more than a few days. A real, multi-page website at a private link, live and hosted. You can click around it the day it arrives.
You shape it, free, for a week
Ask for changes in your room or by email, as many as you like. We rebuild and send the same link back, and we say what changed and why. Genuinely free, the whole week.
You keep it, or you walk away
Keep it for a flat $800 and it goes live in your name. Or walk away and it comes down the same day, no charge, no hard feelings.
Every site we build is one of one
There's no house template and no set of options to pick from. These three are fictional organisations we invented to show how differently a Freehold site can turn out. Yours is designed from scratch, from your world, your words and your photos, and could be nothing like any of them.
Two Rivers Community Shed
A community workshop that feels like a painted shed sign. Timber, denim and tea.
See the showcase Quiet and archivalHarbour Light Heritage Society
A heritage society set like the archive itself. Catalogue cards, ink and linen.
See the showcase Bold and movingSouthern Rivers Canoe Club
A paddling club with the energy of the river. Big headlines, one current line.
See the showcaseFree to build. A flat $800 to keep. Nothing monthly, ever.
The building is genuinely free. You only pay if you decide to keep the finished site, and the price follows one published rule, the same for everyone. It's a flat $800, and $400 at our community rate, for when $800 would genuinely be a stretch: most often sole traders, one-person businesses, and volunteer-run groups. After that, the running cost is nothing. A comparable custom build from a New Zealand agency runs about $3,500 to $8,500, and most add a monthly fee on top; ours is paid once, then nothing. We did that sum from the whole market’s published prices: what a website really costs in New Zealand.
There's no deposit, no subscription, and no lock-in. You pay once, you own it outright, and you can walk away with everything any day.
Freehold, next to a typical web agency
Same finished website. A very different deal underneath it.
Also included with your site
Online booking
We set up and style your own Cal.com or Calendly, on your own free account.
Donations or payments
Your own Givealittle or Stripe link, in your name. We never touch the money.
Email newsletter
Your own sender, your own list. We design each issue and you press send.
Set up to be found
Built to be found on Google, in the directories that matter for your work, and by the AI assistants people now ask instead of searching. At handoff you get a plain checklist for the few parts only you can do.
Every one of these is included in the flat price, at either rate, set up on your own account in your own name, and only if you want it. Nothing monthly, ever.
We read every published price in the country
In July 2026 we sat down and read the New Zealand website market: the prices, the plans, the fine print about who owns what. Strip any deal back and there are only three prices in it. Here they are, side by side, from published prices.
A site that can answer for itself
Every site we build can carry an assistant trained on your own words. It's part of the site itself, built from what you've published, and it sounds like you. Not a pop-up chatbot pointing at a help desk. There's one in the corner of this page right now, answering from everything we've written about Freehold.
Answers, day and night
Opening hours, prices, what to bring, how to get help. It answers from your own pages and points people to the right one, at 2am on a Sunday when nobody is at the desk.
Guides, one step at a time
For the things people always need walked through, joining, booking, applying, it can take a visitor through step by step, one question at a time, never a wall of instructions.
Honest when it doesn't know
It only answers from what you've published. When something isn't there, it says so plainly and hands the visitor to your email instead of guessing.
Yours to try before you decide
Your assistant runs live during your free build window, trained on your real content, so you can ask it your own hard questions before you keep anything.
What does it cost to keep the website running?
Nothing. The site is owned outright, so there's no monthly fee, no subscription, and nothing to renew. If you'd like the full detail, it's on the pricing page, or you can email the team any time.
Answering from the site's own pages, in its own voice.
Assistants like this are usually sold as their own product, billed monthly or by the message. Yours is part of the deed: included in the flat price at either rate, nothing metered, and only if you want it.
A website you run from your inbox
Freehold is the opposite of a website builder.
No dashboard to learn
The do-it-yourself tools sell you a login and a monthly bill, from about $19 to $49 a month for as long as you want the site online, then leave the work to you. We take the job of having a website off your hands altogether.
Nothing to maintain
There's nothing to keep updated, nothing to break, and no monthly dashboard to log into and do the work yourself. When you want a change, you just say so, and we make it.
Built in your Build Room, run from your inbox
Your Build Room builds it; a plain email keeps it current for good. Your words in, a finished change out.
And it is yours
Owned outright, in your name, free to take anywhere. You get the ease of someone else running it, without giving up a thing.
Or run it from your own private room
Every site we build comes with a private management room: the easiest way to send us a change. It's your inbox, made even easier. Drop in a photo or a document, say what you want in your own words, and it's queued for the studio. There's nothing to learn, and it's never a dashboard.
Say it, or show it
Tell it what to change in plain words, or drop in a photo, a PDF, or a document. No sizing, no fiddling, just hand it over.
It knows it's you
Your room opens from a private link we email you. No password to remember, no account to set up, and no one else can reach it.
Still not a dashboard
Nothing to keep updated, nothing to break. The studio still makes and checks every change before it goes live, usually within a couple of days.
Email still works too
The room is just an easier option, never a requirement. If you'd rather send your changes by email, you always can.
Add Meg to the team page, she is our new coordinator.📎 meg.jpg
Got it. Meg is in your queue, noted for your next update. The studio makes the change and checks it, and you'll get a note when it's live.
A real change, made and checked by the studio. Nothing goes live on your site until it has been.
Plenty of small organisations and businesses do great work behind a website that undersells them. Good design costs thousands, so the ones with the least to spend end up looking like they matter least.
That's the gap Freehold exists to close.
Ask for your Build Room
One email opens it. Tell us who you are in a line or two, and your private room link comes back by reply. No forms to fill in, no call to book, and saying no later is always fine.
Want to feel the room out first? Walk through the Open Home, a Build Room with the door open. No email needed, and nothing you type there is stored.
Had an email from us about your existing site? Everything here is what that offer becomes.