Cantata Essentials

A managed website for small associations.

We design and build your site, host it, and keep it current. Edit pages yourself, or send us the change. Either way, updates are unlimited and included.

$149/month
  • Hosting, SSL, and backups included
  • Unlimited content updates included
See the pricing Is Essentials right for us?
Updates live the same day
Unlimited content updates
What you get

The website a larger association would have, without the upkeep

Plain, fast pages on your own domain, built and cared for by the people who make custom association websites.

A professionally designed site

On your own domain, with hosting, SSL, and backups included. Analytics and clean SEO come standard.

Unlimited content updates

Events, officers, dues, photos, documents, news, new pages. Send as many as your year requires. No cost per change.

Plain, fast pages

No CMS, no plugins, no database to keep patched. Pages simply arrive, and there is far less for anyone to attack.

Forms & sign-ups

Contact, volunteer interest, newsletter sign-ups, nominations, RSVPs, with submissions routed to whichever inbox you choose.

Directories & resource libraries

Board and committee rosters, chapter lists, document libraries, newsletter archives, with search and filters.

Site-wide search

Full-text search across every page, event, and record you publish, and it is quick.

How updates work

Make the change yourself, or hand it to us.

Essentials puts an admin mode on your own website. Same unlimited updates either way.

1

Sign in on your website

There is no separate admin address. You sign in on the site itself, and edit controls appear on the things you can change.

2

Edit it, or request it

Click the thing you want to change, edit it in place, and press Publish. Would you rather we did it? Use the request tool built into the site: attach your photos and files, say what you want, and send.

3

It goes live

Your own edits are usually public within minutes. Requests you send us are usually done the same day, and anything urgent, like a weather cancellation, goes to the front of the line.

All of it is included. There is no cost per change.

Nobody on your board ever has to decide whether fixing a typo is worth a ticket.

An honest fit check

Is Essentials right for your association?

It is not the right answer for everyone, and we would rather say so up front than sell you the wrong thing.

Essentials is a good fit when…

Your website informs

  • One or two people look after the website
  • Your content is pages: who you are, how to join, events, news, the board
  • Dues, registration, and payments already run in outside tools, shown on the page or linked from it
Custom WordPress is the right call when…

Your website transacts

  • Several departments each own content and need their own logins and sign-offs
  • Members transact on the site: portals, submissions, or purchases completed on your own domain
  • Your staff live in WordPress already and want to stay there

Custom WordPress websites are Cantata’s main line of work, and we will tell you if that is the better fit.

Explore custom association websites
Choose your configuration

One service, two configurations

Every Essentials site is built the same way, on the same platform. Moving from Essentials to Plus later is a setting on our end, not a rebuild.

Essentials
$149 a month

The public website, built and cared for.

  • Professionally designed pages on your own domain
  • Hosting, SSL, and backups included
  • Unlimited content updates, made by you in admin mode or by us
  • Forms, directories, news, and site-wide search

Best forAssociations whose website exists to inform: who you are, why to join, what is coming up, how to reach you.

Essentials Plus
$179 a month

Everything in Essentials, with the events and membership modules switched on.

  • Enter each event once. Listings build themselves from it, archive on their own once the date passes, and carry the markup search engines use to show dates and locations
  • Members sign in on your own website, and the pages you mark as member-only are served only to signed-in members
  • The site holds no payment details. Dues, renewals, and payments keep running wherever they run today
  • Running an AMS already? It keeps the roster and the renewals, and we can mount its member area at your own address

Best forAssociations with a real calendar to keep straight, members who need somewhere to sign in, or both.

Already running an AMS? Keep it.

Joining, renewing, dues, and member records belong in the system built for them, and Essentials leaves them there. Most association platforms let us place their member area at your own address as a configuration job, and a few need a different approach. You can look yours up before we ever speak.

See if your AMS integrates

Pricing

What Essentials costs

Two numbers: a flat monthly fee that covers everything ongoing, and a one-time cost to build the site, quoted in writing before anything starts.

Every month
$149/mo

One flat fee that stays flat. Essentials Plus, with the events and membership modules, is $179 a month and includes everything listed here.

  • Unlimited content updates. As many as your year requires, at no cost per change.
  • Admin mode on your own site. Edit in place, or send the change through the built-in request tool.
  • Fast turnaround. Your own edits are live within minutes. Requests are usually done the same day.
  • Hosting and care. Hosting, SSL, and backups, with no separate bill and nothing for you to renew.
Plus, one time: building the site
Starting at $600

A design path plus $40 per page. Content you already have makes the build cheaper, not pricier.

  • Refresh the look you have. From $600.
  • Tailor one of our design directions. From $1,500.
  • Full custom design. From $4,000.
  • Spread the cost. Commit to one to three years and earn a credit of 10 to 30 percent against the build. The balance can be financed into your monthly fee at 8 percent APR. Month to month is fine too.
Estimate your project cost

Content updates are unlimited. Here is where the line sits.

A content update changes or extends what your site already has: wording, photos, dates, documents, events, news, new pages of the same kind. Those are unlimited and included. Support requests and new project work, meaning new features and new design work, are billed separately at $140 an hour in 15-minute increments, so a fifteen-minute job costs fifteen minutes.

Before you ask

Fair questions, straight answers

Is AI writing our content?
No. You decide what the site says, and the words are yours. We use AI tools to make the changes you request faster, and we draft copy only when you ask.
Does Essentials replace our AMS or member portal?
No. Dues, renewals, and payments stay in the system built for them. The website links to it, and with Essentials Plus we can place its member area at your own address. Curious about deeper connections? See our AMS integrations page.
Can we move over from our WordPress site?
Yes. Content that already exists usually makes the project cheaper, because writing is the expensive part. And if your current site genuinely needs WordPress, we will say keep it, because custom WordPress work is our main business anyway.
What happens if we leave, or outgrow it?
You take the site with you. It is plain HTML, so you leave with the files and any competent host can serve them. If you outgrow it, we build you the custom WordPress site, and everything you published comes along.
Our budget is tiny. Can this still work?
Usually, and associations your size are exactly who this exists for. Between the lighter design paths and the commitment credit, the numbers can flex quite a bit. The project cost estimator shows how the pieces move.

Tell us about your association.

Describe your organization and the job its website has to do. You will get a straight answer about whether Essentials fits, including when the answer is no. No pressure, no pitch deck.

See if Essentials fits Schedule a discovery call