School website platforms differ less on features than on three things a board only discovers after signing: who keeps the site running when people leave, who does the migration labor, and who owns the domain and content at the end. Educational Networks runs about $3,600 a year (invoice-verified at one NYC PTA); the enterprise platforms are reported at $5,000–$15,000 on multi-year terms; Full Stack Tech is $900 a year flat with no setup fee and you own everything.
School website platforms compared on the three things that actually decide it: who keeps the site running when people leave, who does the migration work, and who owns the asset. Educational Networks runs about $3,600 a year (invoice-verified at one NYC PTA); the enterprise platforms are reported at $5,000–$15,000 on multi-year terms; a custom build from Full Stack Tech is $900 a year flat and you own the domain, content, and code.
Most comparison pages start with a feature checklist. That is the wrong place to start, and we know it from losing on it.
Start with continuity, not price
Here is a real thing that happened. A NYC PTA had a working replacement for its Educational Networks site in hand — finished, free, built by a parent who is a professional engineer. The board still hesitated. Not over money. Over this:
“It makes sense that we decided last year to outsource the website to a company rather than have a parent take it on… because parents all eventually leave the school. Transferring all the knowledge about the website from one outgoing parent to another seems like an unnecessary burden. Plus, whomever is working on the website needs to be in close contact with school leadership and readily available to make changes. Paying a company to be consistently available feels more realistic.” — PTA co-president, April 2026
That is not naïveté. It is a correct fiduciary instinct: do not trade a paid vendor with a phone number for a single unpaid volunteer with a graduation date. Savings do not beat continuity fear, and a board that has been burned once will not be argued out of it with a spreadsheet.
So the first question for any vendor — including a parent offering to do it for free, and including us — is: what happens when the person who knows this site is gone?
Good answers sound like: there is a company with a term and a contact, the site lives in a repository the school owns, nothing critical lives in one person’s head, and any competent developer could pick it up. Bad answers sound like: don’t worry, I’ll handle it.
The three questions that decide it
| What to ask | Why it bites later | |
|---|---|---|
| Continuity | Who runs this in three years, when the board, the parent coordinator, and I have all turned over? | The most common cause of a dead school website is not a bad platform. It is a good platform nobody remembers how to use. |
| Migration | Who moves the existing pages, PDFs, photos, and links — and is that in the contract? | Unnamed migration labor lands on a volunteer over a summer. It is the single biggest hidden cost of switching. |
| Ownership | Who is the registrant on the domain, and in what format do I get my content if I cancel? | A vendor-registered domain converts “we’re leaving” into a 60-day authorization process at the worst possible moment. |
Everything below is downstream of those three.
What these platforms cost
Be careful with numbers in this category, including ours. Here is what we can stand behind, with the sourcing attached to each line so you can weigh it yourself.
| Platform | Annual cost | Term | Setup fee | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Educational Networks | $3,600 | 1 year | waived on the quote we saw | Invoice-verified — two paid $1,800 half-year invoices at one NYC PTA, 2024–25. The 2026 renewal quote held at $3,600. |
| Finalsite / Blackboard | reported $5,000–$15,000 | multi-year typical (Finalsite commonly 5-year) | yes | Industry reporting and pricing aggregators. We have not seen an invoice. |
| Edlio | enrollment-scaled subscription | annual | yes | Industry reporting. We have not seen an invoice. |
| Wix / Squarespace | $200–$500 in subscriptions | monthly or annual | none | Public list pricing — but see the labor note below. |
| Full Stack Tech | $900 | 1 year, cancel anytime | $0 | Our published rate. Locked for three years. |
Two honest caveats. First, only the Educational Networks figure and our own are verified — the enterprise numbers are what industry reporting says, and real quotes vary widely by enrollment and module mix. Second, the DIY row’s sticker price is real but incomplete: the subscription is cheap because you supply 40-plus hours of build labor and then own the accessibility obligation yourself.
Who does the work
This is where the sticker prices stop being comparable.
The enterprise platforms (Finalsite, Blackboard) are built for districts with a communications office. They are genuinely powerful, and if you have staff whose job is the website, they are a reasonable buy. If you are a single school whose “web team” is a parent coordinator with fifteen other responsibilities, you are paying for an org chart you do not have.
Educational Networks sits in the middle: a real vendor with a support line, which is exactly why schools stay. The complaint we hear is not that support is bad — the staff member at the school we know best specifically valued being able to “get assistance right away and customize my forms and pages.” The complaint is the price against what you get, and that board members cannot self-serve.
DIY builders move all the labor to you and are honest about it. The tool is not the problem. The problem is that the site’s future depends on one volunteer’s continued enrollment.
A custom build should name migration as a deliverable. Ours does: every page, link, PDF, and photo comes across before anything switches, and no volunteer is assigned to it.
Who owns what at the end
Ask this in writing, because the answer differs sharply and nobody volunteers it.
- Domain registrant. If the vendor is the registrant, leaving means requesting a transfer authorization and waiting out a 60-day window. Insist the school or PTA is the registrant, today.
- Content export. “You can export” is not an answer. Ask what format. A proprietary database dump you cannot import anywhere is not portability.
- The code. Most platforms are software you rent; there is nothing to own. That is a legitimate model, but it means a switch is always a rebuild.
What we do instead: the whole site lives in a GitHub repository under the school’s own account. Cancel and you keep the domain, the content, and the working code — any developer can take it from there. That is the part we think is worth more than the price difference, and it is the one thing on this page no rental platform can match structurally.
Accessibility is not a feature, it is a liability
The NYC DOE publishes an accessibility report scoring school websites on average weighted errors per page. From the April 2026 vendor table:
| Platform | Avg weighted errors/page | Score |
|---|---|---|
| EduTech | 0.49 | 5 |
| eChalk | 1.18 | 4 |
| Educational Networks | 3.38 | 4 |
| Google Sites | 10.52 | 2 |
| Weebly | 15.57 | 1 |
The spread is the point. Platform choice moves your score by four bands before anyone writes a word of content.
It also drifts. A site that launches compliant falls out of compliance the first time a volunteer uploads an untagged PDF or a low-contrast graphic. Ask whether accessibility is checked continuously or audited once at launch — and in the meantime, run your current site through our free accessibility checker to see where you actually stand.
So which one should you pick?
- You have communications staff and a district-scale budget. The enterprise platforms earn their price. Negotiate the term down and get migration in writing.
- You are happy with your vendor’s support and the price is approved. Stay. Switching costs real goodwill, and “our current site is fine” is a legitimate answer.
- You are paying enterprise money as a single school and cannot edit your own site. That is the case for switching, and the savings are real — but lead your board through continuity and migration first, or you will lose the vote on a concern you never addressed.
- You have a genuinely committed volunteer. DIY is fine. Put the domain in the school’s name, add a second admin today, and write down how it works.
One more thing worth saying out loud, because it is the question we got asked: if a PTA cannot find the money, ask whether the school can. At these numbers it is noise on a school budget, and it removes the annual PTA-vote friction permanently.
Written by Full Stack Tech NYC. We build and host custom school and PTA websites for $900 a year flat — migration included, accessibility checked on every deploy, and you own the domain, content, and code outright. Title I and high-need public schools can apply for a free build. See pricing and process →
Common questions
What is the most important thing to compare between school website vendors?
Continuity — who keeps the site running as staff, board members, and parents turn over. Boards that switch on price alone often end up back where they started, because the cheaper option depended on one person who eventually left. Ask every vendor, including a volunteer, what happens when the person who knows the site is gone.
How much does a school website platform cost per year?
Educational Networks billed one NYC PTA exactly $3,600 a year, verified against paid invoices. Industry reporting puts the enterprise platforms (Finalsite, Blackboard) at roughly $5,000–$15,000 a year, typically on multi-year terms with a setup fee. Full Stack Tech is $900 a year flat with no setup fee.
Do school website vendors let you keep your domain and content?
It varies, and it is the question most boards forget to ask. Some vendors register the domain in their own name, which turns leaving into a transfer-authorization process. Ask, in writing, who the registrant is and in what format you get your content if you cancel.
Who does the content migration when a school switches website vendors?
Usually the school, unless the contract says otherwise. This is the hidden cost in most switches: a volunteer spends a summer moving pages, PDFs, and photo galleries by hand. Get migration named as a vendor deliverable before you sign, not after.
Is a DIY builder like Wix or Squarespace good enough for a school?
It can be, if you genuinely have a volunteer with the time and the intention to stay. The tools are fine. The failure mode is not the software — it is that the person who learned it graduates, and accessibility obligations stay with the school regardless of who built the site.
What accessibility score do the common school website platforms get?
The NYC DOE publishes average weighted errors per page by vendor. In the April 2026 table EduTech scored 0.49 errors, eChalk 1.18, Educational Networks 3.38, Google Sites 10.52, and Weebly 15.57 — mapping to scores of 5, 4, 4, 2 and 1 respectively.