Hosting & Running Costs
where the site runs, what it costs to keep running, and who maintains it
On option 1, hosting is the Squarespace subscription. The rest of this page covers options 2 and 3, where the venue pages run inside the main site's application on infrastructure MOWP already has.
What the site needs
| Component | Notes |
|---|---|
| Application and database | The main site's, serving the venue pages |
| Domain and certificate | Option 2, or a vanity address on either option: one domain, with a certificate issued and renewed automatically. Option 3 runs on mowp.org |
| Media storage | Photographs and video. The largest and least predictable line, and the one worth sizing after the photography plan is settled |
| Backups | The same schedule as MOWP's other sites |
| Uptime monitoring | The same monitoring MOWP's other sites use |
Ongoing costs
- No per-site subscription on options 2 and 3. The venue pages ride on infrastructure that's already running.
- A domain, annually, if one is registered.
- Media hosting scales with the video tour. A full video tour and a large photo gallery are the only components with a materially variable cost.
Whether hosting is billed to MOWP separately or folded into the main website's arrangement.
Maintenance
Maintenance folds into mowp.org's: framework and dependency updates on the same cadence, no plugin stack.
Squarespace patches itself; a self-hosted application doesn't.
Domains
Option 2 needs its domain settled before the build; a vanity address is optional on either custom option. Every directory listing built afterwards points at whatever is chosen, and changing it later means updating every listing and losing the search history the old one built.
The donor name is settled; whether it's also the marketing name isn't.
Error tracking and uptime
Both follow the pattern already established for MOWP's sites: a health endpoint the monitor checks, and errors reported to the same error-tracking project family. Neither needs designing for this site, only configuring.