Acume
Accounts payable automation · ANZ
Twenty-five pages of B2B software site with a dual theme system, an ROI calculator, seven solution pages and a dedicated page written for AI assistants.
View site — AcumeWebsite design · New Zealand
Custom WordPress sites for small businesses across New Zealand. Copy written, site built, hosted and looked after afterwards by the person who made it.
The usual deal
You pay for website design. What arrives sits on a platform you don't control, built with a page builder you can't edit, on shared hosting alongside a few hundred other sites.
Two years later the platform has put its prices up, the plugin running your booking form has been abandoned, and the person who built it has stopped answering email. You can't move the site because it was never really yours to move.
None of that shows up in the quote.
What I build
Roughly four in ten websites on the internet run on it. Not because it's fashionable, but because it's the only option that doesn't hold your business hostage.
The site sits on hosting you control. No monthly platform fee that climbs whenever the platform feels like it, no export that arrives as a broken mess. If you want to take it elsewhere or hand it to someone else, you can, and it still works.
Booking systems, member areas, custom calculators, automations, AI tools trained on your content. When the business needs something new, the site can do it. Drag-and-drop platforms hit a wall and the answer becomes a rebuild somewhere else.
Full control over structure, schema, page speed and content. That matters more than it sounds. A site nobody finds is a very expensive business card.
WordPress needs looking after, and that's the honest trade. Updates, security, backups, things breaking at inconvenient times. It's also why I host and maintain what I build rather than handing you a set of keys and disappearing.
Squarespace, Wix, Webflow, Rocketspark, Brizy, GoDaddy. I've worked in all of it and I'll work in yours if you're happy there. You'll get the same copy, the same design thinking and the same standard. I'll just be honest with you about what the platform can't do.
Selected work
Website design for a B2B software platform and website design for a tattoo studio are different jobs. Same standard either way.
Accounts payable automation · ANZ
Twenty-five pages of B2B software site with a dual theme system, an ROI calculator, seven solution pages and a dedicated page written for AI assistants.
View site — AcumeCustomer communications · New Zealand
Migrated off Webflow onto a custom theme. Light and dark image variants, modern formats with fallbacks, for a client list that includes the Heart Foundation, Coastguard NZ and Subaru.
View site — mimoBack-office operations · NZ, Fiji, India
Custom theme, twenty-five pages, three countries, thirty-plus staff. A business I co-own with my wife Irene, which means I live with every decision on it.
View site — Admin ArmyCelebrant and educator · Hastings
Seven strands of a working life that needed to sit together without flattening into a list. Expandable sections, a wedding gallery, and a workshop offer standing on its own.
View site — Gray RuffellFamily business advisory · New Zealand
Landing pages built onto an existing site, including an interactive scorecard that rates four pillars across three perspectives and returns a printable result.
View the scorecard — ekoYOUTattoo studio · Havelock North
A booking-led studio that wanted to stay on the platform it was already using. Custom code injected from my own server, so it stopped looking like a template.
View site — Burbeila InkedSix builds, several platforms, one person doing the copy, the design and the build on all of them. If you want to see something closer to your own situation, ask and I'll point you at it.
What comes with it
Twenty years working with people inside organisations, and a Masters in Psychology. Copy comes out of a conversation about what you actually do, not a brand questionnaire completed at nine at night. There's research behind why your website doesn't sound like you.
Sites run on managed cloud infrastructure with staging environments and automated backups. Not a shared box with three hundred strangers on it. If a site needs its own dedicated server, it gets one.
Structure, schema, page speed and content written for the terms your customers actually type. Not an SEO plugin installed at the end and left on default.
The person who built it maintains it. Updates, security, changes when the business changes. Not a ticket that goes to whoever is free that week.
What it costs
Guide prices, not fixed packages. You should be able to work out roughly what this costs before you email anyone.
From $3,500
NZD · 2–3 weeks
A custom five to six page WordPress site with copy written in your voice, contact and email capture, SEO fundamentals, mobile responsive and security hardened.
From $6,000
NZD · 3–5 weeks
Everything in Foundation, plus distinctive design and interactive elements, a blog system with posts written for search, content and SEO strategy, email setup, and the first month of maintenance.
From $12,000
NZD · 5–8 weeks
Everything in Signature, plus advanced interactive features, a full run of SEO posts, Google Ads setup, an AI assistant trained on your content, and three months of maintenance.
Hosting and maintenance runs from $150 a month. Managed cloud hosting, WordPress and plugin updates, daily backups, uptime monitoring, small content changes and a monthly health report.
Every number is a guide. If the build is right and the number isn't, say so. The full pipeline is set out here.
Questions
Because you own it. A WordPress site sits on hosting you control and can be moved or handed to someone else whenever you want. Platform sites are rented, and the rent goes up. There's also no ceiling on what WordPress can do, which matters the moment your business needs something the platform doesn't offer. That said, if you're already on Squarespace or Wix and you like it, I'll work in it.
Builds start from $3,500 NZD for a five to six page site, $6,000 for a full build with a blog and search content, and $12,000 for advanced work. Hosting and maintenance runs from $150 a month. All guide prices.
Yes. Text, images, blog posts and prices, all without touching code. Most people find they'd rather send me a message than do it themselves, which is what the maintenance plan is for, but the option is always there.
You can generate something that looks like a website in an afternoon. I use AI in my own builds every day. What it doesn't do is set hosting up properly, keep WordPress and its plugins from breaking each other, fix the site when it goes down on a Sunday, or work out what your business should be saying in the first place. The building was never the hard part.
Yes. I'm based in Hastings and work across New Zealand and Australia. If you're in Hawke's Bay we can meet in person.
Then the question is whether it needs rebuilding, moving, or just rewriting. Sometimes a site is structurally fine and the words are the problem. The Brand Mirror is a free five-minute way to work out which.