CMS Pricing Worksheet

Content Management Systems, known as CMS’s come in many flavors and can have very confusing pricing structures. This page is to help you shop for a CMS and be sure you are comparing apples to apples and doing an accurate CMS pricing comparison.

Of course, we hope you purchase one of the Outstanda CMS solutions. However, these solutions are not right for everyone. It is important that you understand your goals for your website and what you hope to accomplish. The pricing of the CMS solution should come second to identifying what you need.

This summary is for your convenience. Our CMS pricing is published on the main page of the website and we do not have any hidden expenses. Sure, you can add additional design and features, but the packages have everything you need to be successful on the web. If you have any questions on our features please contact us.

CMS Pricing and Feature Consideration

Drive Space and Bandwidth

A lot of people focus on hard disk storage and bandwidth. None of us want to be hit with unexpected bills. The fact is, most sites do not use even a small portion of the space and bandwidth they are allocated. Do not pick a CMS solution purely on these numbers unless you know you are going to be publishing 1000’s of pages a month or posting large files such as videos.

HTML Code Level Access

Does the CMS solution you are considering have HTML access as well as a WYSIWYG editor? Can you add scripts and custom styles in the page? You may not want to access the HTML code right away, but later when you want to do something custom or different, you will be glad you have access.

CMS Design Flexibility

Inexpensive CMS’s require you to pick one template from their pack and live with it. High end CMS’s require extensive design and coding to get set up. For a small to medium business, the ideal CMS will have templates as starting point that can be customized during the set up. This way you will not look exactly like someone else but will have not spent a fortune on set up.

Hosted CMS vs. Installed CMS

Some installed CMS solutions still exist, but many are moving to the hosted environment. Hosted CMS’s have several big advantages. They let you work from any internet ready computer. Hosted CMS’s have new features and bug fixes updated easily. They also give you the ability to change content even when you are on the road.

Domain Hosting and Email Hosting

Come CMS providers may offer their system for one price, but then charge extra for email hosting, domain purchase and hosting, SSL if required, etc. Find out if the CMS host you are considering includes these options and how good those options are. How good is their SPAM filtering, virus scanning of emails, etc.

Integrated Features

A good CMS is going to integrate your content and make it easy to manage. Can you send an eNewsletter from your CMS solution? Does it archive the public issues automatically in the website?

CMS Private Areas

At some point, you may want to create a password protected area for some of your content. A good CMS will have the capacity to add password protection to portions of the website. This might be downloads for your customers, documents for your sales staff, etc.

Servers and Backups

It is critical that your Hosted CMS is on servers that will stay up and get backed up. If CMS pricing seems low, you might find out your website is on one server in someone’s basement on a DSL line. You want to go with a professional solution that can truly guarantee up time, disaster recovery and backups.

Modular Content Areas

What can you add to your CMS? A good CMS will have the flexibility to add many modular features and areas. For example, a calendar with event sign up. The more features that can be plugged into your CMS, the more the system will grow with you over time in an affordable manner.

Ease of Use

eMarketing Success is not technology driven. It is driven by producing quality content. The easier your CMS is to use, the faster you can produce better content and be more successful.

Advanced CMS Reporting

CMS solutions may have a wide variety of reports. The more metrics and reporting you have access to, the more you can measure your results and improve. For example, Outstanda has very good general reporting. We also know that people may want detailed click-path analysis and other advanced reports, so we offer additional log analysis for a small fee extra. Make certain that your CMS comes with all the reporting you will ever need and then some.

Note: Some customers in the past have thought that reporting would include the personal information of visitors, such as name, email, etc. That is not possible and it is an invasion of privacy akin to photocopying someone’s driver’s license every time someone walked into a clothing store to look around.

CMS Web-based Data Collection

Content Management Systems help you manage the content you are creating. A good CMS will also help you collect content from visitors. Does your CMS have online applications and data collection tools that can be integrated into your website and email marketing strategies?

Integrated Publishing Archives

A sophisticated CMS is going to make it easy to create content on the website it is managing. One important feature is how the CMS archives older data. Does it archive data on the website so that it automatically stays accessible? Older data may not be hot news on the front page, but it is still important for search engine results.

CMS SEO Integration

SEO is search engine optimization. This is the technique of developing your content to rank higher in search engines so that more people can find your website. A good CMS will have basic SEO tools integrated to help users be more successful. Full meta tag control of each page and mod-rewrites of the URLs is critical for success. Mod-rewrite is when you can give a friendly URL name to the page instead of a string of numbers and letters that the CMS uses to identify the page.

CMS Navigation Management

A good CMS better make sure you do not have navigation errors. One of the primary reasons to invest in a CMS is to easily create pages and have proper navigation maintained and updated for you.

Workflow and Authoring

How many people need access to your content creation? Do you need to set permissions to different areas? Is there a process for approval and editing before release? A good CMS will have workflow and multi-authoring capabilities.

Integrated Customer List Management

List management for email campaigns, memberships, subscribers and contacts will all be maintained and manageable in a good, marketing focused CMS system.

CMS Survey Integration

Your CMS should have sophisticated, multi-page survey capability. You may not use this every day, but when you need customer feedback or market research, you will be glad you have this capability.