Pricing
Pay as you go, like an old phone box: put credit in, and your site uses it. No subscription, no contract, and a change can never take your site offline.
Pay for what your site uses
Quoin has no subscription. You put credit in, and your site uses it: a few pence a day to stay online, and a small charge each time you send us changes. When the credit gets low, we tell you, just as the old phone boxes gave you the pips before the call ran out.
We start every site with £10 of credit. After that, you top up whenever you like, from £10, or pay a fixed amount each month. There's no contract to cancel, and any credit you don't use is yours: ask and we refund it.
All prices include VAT.
What uses your credit
Keeping your site online
About 5p a day for a typical small site: hosting, secure delivery, backups and the audit trail. A quiet site costs less, a busy one more.
A round of changes
About £19 for a round we check by hand before it goes live. One email can hold as many changes as you like: the price is per round, not per change.
An automatic change
About £5 for the small, routine changes you've told us can go live without a human check, such as fixing a typo or updating an event.
You see the price before you approve
Every round ends with a preview of your site and a summary of what changed. The same page shows what the round costs and what your balance will be afterwards. Approving the change is agreeing to the charge, so nothing is ever taken without you seeing it first.
You're never charged for a change you turn down, a question we have to ask you, or anything that goes wrong on our side.
What a year usually costs
It depends on how often your site changes. For a typical small site:
| How often it changes | Every round checked | Half the changes automatic |
|---|---|---|
| Four times a year | about £95 | about £65 |
| Once a month | about £250 | about £160 |
| Twice a month | about £480 | about £305 |
Most sites we work with change monthly or less. If you're not sure where you'd fall, tell us about your site and we'll estimate it for you.
Or pay a fixed amount each month
If you'd rather have the same bill every month, choose a monthly top-up, from £6 a month. It's taken from your card automatically and goes into the same credit: nothing expires, and you can stop it at any time and keep what's there.
A monthly top-up also has an upper limit. When your credit reaches it, that month's top-up is skipped, so a site that changes rarely never builds up a large balance. The limit starts at £50, and you can raise or lower it whenever you like.
As long as the monthly payment goes through, your site stays online.
When your credit runs low
Your balance always keeps 30 days of hosting in reserve. Changes can never spend it, so a change can never be what takes your site offline.
- The first pip. When your credit won't cover your next round, we let you know.
- The second pip. When your balance reaches the 30-day reserve, changes pause. Your site stays fully online, and anything you send us is held, not lost. Top up and we carry on.
- The third pip. A week before the reserve runs out, we remind you again.
If nobody tops up in those 30 days, your site goes dormant. Visitors see a simple resting page with your name, what you do and how to reach you, so your address keeps working and nobody finds a broken site. Top up at any time and the full site is back within minutes.
Sites that must never go dormant
Some sites can't ever rest: a council's agendas and minutes, say. For those, choose always on, in one of two ways (a monthly top-up counts too):
- Automatic top-up. We save your card securely with Stripe and top up your credit whenever it nears the reserve.
- A bigger reserve. If you can't store a card, you keep a larger reserve, such as six months of hosting, and we invoice you for top-ups.
- Talk to us — We'll estimate what your site would cost, and whether there's a beta place for you.
- How it works — What a round of changes looks like, from your email to the live site.