Roundup of paid CMSs

Here is a large list of Australian CMS vendors. Guessing that means people that make custom commercial solutions and then help install and set them up custom for whoever buys them. http://www.steptwo.com.au/resources/australian-cms/

Stuff out there:

Traffik

http://www.playintraffik.com/Detailed_Features

Part of this new breed 'hosted application' type thingy.

A hosted website CMS / shopping cart / hosting / blog / customer database /community / email marketing / customer database / everything you can think of. Its about $30 per month minimum, goes up to $160 per month. You only pay month by month.

They offer a 30 day trial where you can build your own thing and see if its good. From brief looking at it it looks like pretty amazing and they have thought of everything. So if its a large site, and your going to be looking at paying $30 per month just for hosting anyway, then this could be good to look at because you get an all in one solution forall the things a business generally neeeds. But its a bit risky because its their own proprietry solution, so your wholebusiness is tied into them - and the web is meant to be FREE. It could get messy if you try and port over to someone else. Still, a neat looking solution.

Light CMS
http://www.speaklight.com/how-it-works
Another monthly paid CMS / hosting solution. Seductive because they also offer slicing services. You could pretty much hand them a psd and then soon enough client would have their own editable site - then they can make the million rounds of changes themselves then using the CMS. Fuck they could even design it themselves in microsoft paint and send it to these guys and i bet theyd be stoked with the result and if they wanted changes there'd just a buy addition paypal button or something on the support ticket I bet. Cant argue with that button. Future is now.

GOOD

• They can slice and CMS and host - all in one go. Quick and nasty and done yesterday.
• They let you brand the CMS and support.
• They reckon you should markup their monthly bill... (lets all get rich together sort of deal)
  
• Good for clients who dont have much capital to invest in a custom CMS right at the beginning. They can pay for it over a few years. By then they'll want a new site anyway. So when you look at it that way - it could actually turn out to be a decent option for microsites and whatever for startups, if they go bust, at least they havnt spent heaps on a custom CMS, just the easy to manage monthly bill - better for SMB cashflow.

BAD

• They dont do email hosting - they recommend gmail...
• Imagine having to chase a client up for their web hosting fees every month or even year - what a drag! Youd spend the money your making admining the payments (or getting overdraw fees for the company billing you monthly whether or not the client wants to pay). Think this only good if you have an accounts department. Or you get the clients credit card details.
• The internet is meant to be free. (but guess hosting isnt and they are providing hosting in a way. HTML is free, php is free.
  
• if the company disappears - you have to salvage the site and recode the cms yourself because its proprietary... what a drag. Thats if you even have a backup somewhere.
• imagine anything beyond basic youd want to add they would charge you for customisations...
  

Still - its a pretty seductive idea- i think it will catch on.