A subscription website is fine. You just never get to own it.
The big municipal-website vendors build capable government sites. But they sell a subscription: you pay to build the site, then pay every year — at a rising rate — for permission to keep using it. This page lays out the real numbers and the real trade-offs, so you can decide whether your town would rather rent its website or own it.
We'll be fair about this. The big subscription platforms serve thousands of governments and do a lot well — mass notification, agenda management, a deep module catalog. If your municipality needs that entire integrated suite and has the budget for it, they're a reasonable choice. Munikit is for the town that wants a fast, accessible, professionally-built website it owns outright — without an escalating annual platform fee or a rebuild every time it wants to change vendors.
Rent it, or own it.
- You pay to build the site, then a mandatory fee every year to keep it
- Contracts carry a roughly 5% price increase each renewal term
- Auto-renews unless you cancel inside a narrow notice window
- The system, templates, and code never transfer to you
- Leaving means a full rebuild on a new platform
- Accessibility remediation is often sold as a separate paid bundle
- Implementation typically runs 16–28 weeks
- Pay once for a perpetual license; the site is yours to run forever
- Flat pricing — no annual escalator written into the contract
- Optional $600/yr for updates; let it lapse and the site keeps running
- The full source code is delivered to your own repository
- Re-bid maintenance to any developer without rebuilding
- WCAG 2.1 AA built into every component, not upsold
- Launched in 6–8 weeks
This isn't a sales claim. It's in the contracts.
Municipal contracts are public records. Here's what towns are actually paying — and the terms they're agreeing to — pulled from signed agreements and council packets.
The 5% escalator is written in
These platforms' statements of work routinely include language that the fee is "subject to an annual increase of 5% each renewal term." Compounded, that's how a manageable fee becomes an uncomfortable one.
Real towns, real numbers
One county's 2025 website contract: about $25,700 to build, then $5,730 every year. Another city's, the same year: roughly $33,000 up front, plus an ongoing annual fee reported at about $11,000. The annual fee is the part that never stops.
Exporting your content costs extra
Under these platforms' own master service agreements, you may request an export of your data "for a fee to be quoted at the time of request." You own your content — but getting it out, and rebuilding elsewhere, is the friction that keeps towns from leaving.
Every figure here is drawn from a real source: signed vendor statements of work and municipal council packets for the 5% renewal language, published public-contract approvals for the build and annual-fee numbers, and the vendors' own master service agreements for the export-fee and ownership terms. The implementation timeline reflects a major vendor's own project-proposal language ("a typical premium project ranges from 16–28 weeks"). We keep the source documents on file and will share them with any municipality that asks. Figures vary by vendor, municipality, and contract year; treat them as representative, not universal.
Five years in, you either own a website — or a stack of receipts.
The number that matters in a procurement decision isn't the first invoice. It's what you've spent after five years, and what you have to show for it.
| Subscription platform (representative) |
Munikit | |
|---|---|---|
| Build / implementation | ~$28,000 | ~$20,000 + $2,500 license |
| Year 1 platform fee | ~$8,000 | $0 (updates included) |
| Years 2–5 fees (with ~5%/yr increase) | ~$36,200 | ~$2,400 (optional updates) |
| 5-year total | ~$72,200 | ~$24,900 |
| What you own at the end | ✗ Nothing — stop paying, site stops | ✓ The code, the content, the site |
| Can re-bid maintenance competitively? | ✗ Locked to the vendor | ✓ Any developer can take it on |
The subscription column models a mid-range small-municipality contract with the standard 5% annual escalator. Your actual figures depend on your contract; we'll build you a side-by-side with your real renewal quote during the demo.
A closer look
| Munikit | Subscription platform | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | License once + scoped implementation | Build fee + mandatory annual subscription |
| Flat annual pricing | ✓ No escalator | ✗ ~5% increase each renewal |
| Freedom to leave | ✓ Cancel anytime, site keeps running | ✗ Auto-renews; narrow cancel window |
| Source code ownership | ✓ Delivered to your repo | ✗ Never transfers |
| Data export | ✓ Standard database, free | "For a fee to be quoted" |
| Time to launch | 6–8 weeks | 16–28 weeks |
| WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility | ✓ Built in, tested per page | Often a separate paid bundle |
| English & French | ✓ Built in | Extra configuration |
| Custom theme | ✓ Designed for you | Template-based, varies by tier |
| Meeting & agenda management | ✓ Built-in lifecycle | ✓ Yes (add-on modules) |
| Emergency alerts | ✓ Site-wide, instant | Via a separate notification product |
| Mass notification (SMS/voice) | Integrate your provider | ✓ Native (paid module) |
| Module / product breadth | Focused municipal website | ✓ Large suite (311, codification…) |
| Hosting | Your account, your region, ~$0–25/mo | Bundled, vendor-controlled |
Where these platforms genuinely lead — the breadth of their module suites and native mass notification — we say so. If you need that whole ecosystem, one of them may be the better fit. If you need a website you own, we are.
So which should your town pick?
A subscription platform may fit if…
- You want one vendor for website, 311, notifications, and codification
- You have budget for an escalating annual platform fee
- Owning the code isn't a priority for your council
Munikit fits if…
- You want a professional website your town owns outright
- You're tired of a bill that climbs every year
- You want to launch in weeks, not most of a year
- You want to keep the freedom to change vendors later
Bring your renewal quote. We'll show you the other path.
Send us your current platform's renewal number and we'll build a real side-by-side for your municipality — plus a live demo of the admin panel your staff would actually use.
Request a demo