Freehold

It all happens in your Build Room

A private room we open just for you. You tell your story there, a real website takes shape from it, and the room stays yours after you go live. One email opens it.

This is for starting fresh, when you don't have a website yet or want to begin again. Already have a site and paying monthly for it? That's Going Freehold.

Your Build Room

A quiet room where your site gets made

There's no form and no call. Email us a line or two about who you are, and we reply with a private link to your own room. Inside, it's a quiet conversation with the studio. No account, no password, nothing to install.

The Open Home: the Freehold mark, the nine-peg brief strip across the top, and a quiet conversation panel ready for who you are, with the feel choices alongside.
Inside the Open Home, the Build Room anyone can walk through. The brief on the left drafts itself while you talk.

One question at a time

Who you are, who you're for, your story. Plain words, your pace, and skipping a question is always fine.

A shelf for what you've got

Photos, documents, flyers. Drop them in as you find them, in any order, over as many visits as you like.

Your brief drafts itself

Nine chapters fill in quietly as you talk. There's nothing to write up and nothing to get right.

The Open Home mid-conversation: the visitor introduces their group in one sentence and the room replies warmly, asking about their people next.
The room at work. The Harbour Stitch Circle is a group we made up for this picture; everything else is exactly what you'd see.

Rather just write it all in an email? That works too, and always will. The room is the easier way to hand things over, never a requirement.

Curious what it feels like? Walk through the Open Home, a Build Room with the door open for anyone. No email needed, nothing you type there is stored, and the brief it builds is yours to send us whenever you're ready.

The co-design loop

How your site takes shape

Everything happens in your room or your inbox. You never have to log into anything, and the only decision that costs you a cent is the last one.

You email us for a room

A line or two about who you are is plenty. That email is the whole application, and your private room link comes back by reply.

You do this

You fill your room, at your own pace

Tell your story in plain words and drop your photos and documents on the shelf. The more you share, the closer the first version lands. A thin room is fine too; we just ask a friendly question or two.

You do this

We build your first version, fast

It can be back the same day your room is ready, and never more than a few days. The building isn't the slow part; the only clock is your own time in the room. It's kept out of search engines, and your contact details are masked until the day you go live.

We do this

You shape it with us, 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. Around the middle of the week we check in once, in case there's anything else you want in.

Together

You decide, freely

Keep it for a flat $800, or $400 at our community rate when $800 would genuinely be a stretch, and it goes live in your name, your domain, your email untouched. Or walk away and it comes down the same day, no charge, and we'll even export it for you.

If you want to see how that price sits against the rest of the market first, we read the whole field and published it: what a website really costs in New Zealand.

Your call
If you keep it

Going live is one small step, and the deed is yours

Because we built your site from scratch, there's nothing tangled to migrate. Going live means pointing your web address at the new site, and we do it side by side, so you understand your own site and are never left stuck.

Your domain stays in your name

Your web address is always registered to you, at your own registrar. We never hold it, and you never lose it.

Your email is never touched

If you run email at your domain, it keeps working exactly as it does now. We check it before and after, every time.

We can hold it for you, free

Most people ask us to host the site. It costs nothing, and when you want a change you simply email us.

Or run it yourself

Prefer to hold the keys from day one? It can sit on your own free account, with us coaching you through the setup.

Keeping it current

Your room stays open after you go live

$20a batch of changes, unlimited within it

When something needs updating, a new staff photo, an event, a change of wording, walk back into your room and ask there, or just email us. Either way a person at the studio makes the change, checks it, and tells you when it's live. Your site is never left to a robot, and you never touch a settings page.

It's $20 for a batch of changes, done in two to three days, with as many edits as you like in the one batch. If something on the site is wrong, we fix it for nothing, because that is not a change, that is us not having got it right. In a hurry? $35 jumps the queue and it's done the same day.

Both are one-off, only when you need them. There's no subscription and no tie of any kind. The promise that never moves is the one on the next page: nothing monthly, ever.

Read the promise

The other door

Had an email from us out of the blue?

Sometimes we spot a small organisation whose website is dated or long gone, rebuild it as a gift, and send a private link with a warm note. If that's how you found us, everything on this page still applies. The site is already built, it's genuinely free to look at, and keeping it works exactly the same way.

No email from us? That's completely fine. The front door above is open to anyone. Just tell us what you want and we get building.

Ready when you are

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. There's no cost to ask, and saying no later is always fine.

Email us any time: studio@freehold.org.nz. Every message comes straight to us, and we reply to all of them.
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