1 in 5 schools we run pays nothing.

Why this exists

The schools with the least money have the most to gain from a working website and are the least able to buy one. They are also the schools where a bad website costs the most — a family deciding whether to enroll, a parent trying to find a form, a donor who gives up at a broken checkout. Meanwhile the going rate in this category runs from $3,600 a year to five figures.

We would rather cross-subsidise than means-test people into a worse product. Paying schools fund free ones. That ratio — about one in five — is a real constraint, not a marketing line: it is exactly how many free builds we can run well at a time.

Who qualifies

• A NYC public school receiving Title I funding, or
• A school where 75% or more of students are economically disadvantaged, or
• A school that meets neither threshold on paper but is plainly under-resourced — tell us the situation and we will look at it.

If you are not sure, ask. There is no application fee and no form to fill out first — the worst outcome is that we quote you the normal $900 rate, which is still the lowest in the category.

What a free school actually gets

The same thing a paying school gets. A visibly cheaper free tier would defeat the point of having one.

• The full custom build — same design work, same process as a paying school
• Content migration from your current site: every page, link, PDF, and photo
• Cloudflare hosting, backups, and uptime monitoring
• A CMS your staff and board can run without calling anyone
• WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility, checked on every deploy
• Events calendar, newsletters, photo galleries, and forms
• Stripe donations that land in your own account — we take 0%
• Training, and ongoing content help
• The domain, the content, and the source code, owned by your school

What we ask in return

Nothing financial. Two practical things, both of which make your site better anyway:

1. One contact who can make decisions. A principal, parent coordinator, or board member who can answer questions within a few days. Builds stall on unanswered questions, not on engineering.
2. Permission to say we built it. A credit in the footer and the right to show the site as work. If there is a reason that does not work for your school, say so and we will drop it.

Common questions

Is the free school website program really free?

Yes — $0 per year, not a discount and not a trial. Qualifying schools get the same build a paying school gets, including migration, hosting, accessibility, and ongoing support. There is no setup fee and no card on file.

What's the catch?

There isn't one, but there is a limit: the number of free builds we can run is capped by the number of paying schools funding them, so places are finite and we take them in the order they come. You also own everything outright, so there is nothing to claw back if you leave.

How is a free school website funded?

It is cross-subsidised. Schools that can pay $900 a year fund the ones that cannot. Roughly one in five schools on our roster pays nothing, and that ratio is the actual constraint on how many free builds exist at any moment.

Which schools qualify for a free website?

NYC public schools receiving Title I funding, schools where 75% or more of students are economically disadvantaged, and schools that are clearly under-resourced without hitting either threshold on paper. If you are unsure, ask — the worst case is we say the paid rate.

Do free schools get a worse website?

No. Same build, same process, same accessibility standard, same ownership terms. A visibly cheaper tier would defeat the point, and we would rather run fewer free builds well than many badly.

What happens if we later can afford to pay?

Tell us and we will move you onto the $900 rate, which funds another school's free build. Nobody is going to chase you about it.