Reference framework: 10-year cost model — rebuild-every-3-years vs foundation-first (Canadian SMB, CAD)

10-year cost projection for a typical Kitchener-Waterloo SMB site (~20-40 pages, professional services or local commerce, CAD). Ranges are wide because the work is wide.

Scenario A — Rebuild every 3 years on typical agency platform stack:

• Year 0 initial build (WP + page builder): $8k-$18k
• Hosting + plugins + 5 hr/mo support, years 0-3: ~$8.5k
• Year 3 full rebuild: $10k-$25k
• Years 4-6 maintenance + Year 6 second rebuild: ~$37k-$55k
• Years 7-9 + Year 9 third rebuild: ~$39k-$60k
• Year 10 residual: ~$10k
• Total: ~$115k-$185k CAD

Scenario B — Foundation-first, maintained continuously:

• Year 0 initial build (semantic HTML + headless/lean CMS): $18k-$35k
• 10 years hosting (cloud/CDN): ~$3.5k total
• 10 years minimal plugin licenses: ~$2k total
• 10 years continuous retainer (~10-15 hr/mo @ $140/hr): ~$200k
• Year 5 significant refresh: $8k-$15k
• Total: ~$235k-$260k CAD

Reading the model honestly:

• Naïve dollar total is HIGHER for Scenario B — but misleading without including (a) the opportunity cost of 3× 523-day SEO recovery curves ([[sej-892-migrations-523-day-recovery]]) and (b) lost lead value during rebuilds
• Scenario A loads ~3× 523 days of degraded organic traffic + a 17% probability per rebuild that traffic never recovers
• Scenario B benefits from compounding domain age, citation graph, structured-data depth — none of which appear as line items but determine cost-per-lead by year 5
• For SMBs doing $1M+ revenue with non-trivial lead value, Scenario B's payoff is on the order of 1 rebuild avoided over 10 years; for sub-$250k micro-businesses, the math is closer to neutral

Gaps: Ontario retainer pricing not well-publicized (extrapolated from CSP/2Marketing/Databending ranges); plugin licensing inflation held flat (likely too generous); doesn't account for breach response (Verizon median ransom: US$115k — see Verizon DBIR 2025: 88% of SMB breaches involved ransomware vs 39% of enterprise; median ransom $115k).