For Canberrans setting up on their own: consultants leaving a department, home-based bakers and makers, mobile trades, and founders with a product to explain. We build the first site, register a .com.au in your name and set up email on it, and you pay only after you've approved the draft.
If you're starting out in Canberra, you probably bring years of experience from somewhere else: an agency, a firm, a commercial kitchen, a trade. The first site's job is to turn that background into something a stranger can check in a minute, and to sit comfortably inside the ACT's rules on homes, food and premises instead of running into them.
If you're leaving the public service to consult, the people who might hire you will look you up before a first meeting. One page listing your services, the kinds of projects you've delivered, your ABN and any procurement panels you've been appointed to answers most of a buyer's early questions without a phone call. The words are yours; we arrange them under headings that are quick to scan.
If you hold a security clearance, read ASIO's public warnings about advertising clearances online before deciding what goes on your site (there's more below). Whatever you settle on, a page can still show the depth of your work: the sectors, the size of the programs, what changed because of you.
Under the ACT's planning rules, a home business stays exempt from development approval only while it brings no more than five vehicles a day to the premises, averaged over seven days. A hairdresser, tutor or massage therapist working from home can use a booking setup that releases a fixed number of appointments each day. If clients never come to you, the site shows your suburb and the areas you cover, not a street number.
A home business that's exempt from development approval can still need one for a sign, so a board out the front may not be worth the paperwork. Your web address goes on the car, the business card and the letterbox flyer instead, and the site carries what a sign never could: services, prices if you want them shown, and how to book.
Home kitchens in the ACT are only registered for low-risk, shelf-stable food such as biscuits, cakes, bread, jam and honey. The product list on your site should stick to what a home kitchen can be registered to make, and packaged food sold through an online store needs product labels. When you add a new biscuit or loaf to the range, putting it on the site is a text and photo change covered by hosting.
Say where you're based and how far you'll go. A mobile dog groomer in Gungahlin and a bookkeeper in Kambah are serving very different parts of the city, and work in Queanbeyan, Jerrabomberra or Googong happens in NSW, which has its own rules for home businesses and some trades.
We can register your .com.au and set up email first, so the address is ready for grant forms, business cards, LinkedIn and your Google Business Profile while we build. No logo yet? We'll help with one at no charge. Most sites are live within 5–10 days of us getting your words and photos; bigger sites (up to 8 pages) take 2–3 weeks.
Free help with the business side. In January 2026 the ACT Government launched Start a Business in Canberra, an eight-step guide that runs from testing the idea through structure, registrations and licences, with a printable checklist. For advice from a person, the government funds the Canberra Business Advice and Support Service (CBASS), delivered by Lighthouse Business Innovation Centre: up to four hours of free tailored advice for new and established businesses, held online unless you ask to meet in person, on (02) 6163 8301. Access Canberra's Business Assist Team (13 22 81) works out, at no cost, which permits, licences and approvals apply to fixed-premises, mobile, home-based and online businesses. The government's help and advice page also lists Badji, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Business Support Service, which connects businesses with service providers and offers mentoring and coaching.
Leases and working from home. Premises in the ACT come with a Crown lease that sets out what the property may be used for, and the government's guide suggests buying a copy of the title and lease from the Land Titles Office before you buy or lease, to check whether it can be an office, a shop or a restaurant. Working from home is usually simpler. According to the ACT planning website, a home business needs no development approval if no more than two people work on the premises at any time, everyone who works there also lives there, the business takes up no more than 40 square metres including storage, vehicles park off the road, goods are stored out of sight, and no more than five vehicles a day come to the premises, averaged over seven days. Renters need their landlord's approval, unit owners have unit titles rules to consider, and the guide names motor mechanics, carpenters, spray-painting booths and coffee roasteries as unsuitable for residential areas. The residents-only rule is stricter than in NSW and Victoria, where up to two people who live elsewhere can work in a home business. So if you have staff, your site should say where the work happens (at clients' premises, on site or online), and show a street address only if visitors are welcome and fit within the limits.
Food from home, and food on wheels. A home-based food business must be registered under the Food Act 2001 before it opens, and the ACT Government only approves home kitchens that make low-risk food. Meat, dairy, cooked rice or pasta, chopped fruit or vegetables and raw egg products aren't approved, and icings and fillings can't use cream, custard or cut fruit. You'll need to have completed or started food safety supervisor training, and a public health officer inspects the kitchen once you apply. Region reported in August 2026 that the territory's registered home-based food businesses had grown from 113 in 2016 to 222. Mobile food businesses need a free Hawkers Permit to trade on public land, while on National Land the permission comes from the National Capital Authority, so a food van's weekly locations belong on its site only once those approvals are in hand.
Founders and consultants. For tech and product founders, the Canberra Innovation Network (CBRIN), which the ACT Government supports, runs First Wednesday Connect, Female Founders, the Griffin Accelerator and an SME Accelerator. The same government page points to Innovation Connect (ICON) grants, which provide matched funding of $10,000 to $30,000 for innovative entrepreneurs. For consultants leaving the public service, one local habit deserves a second thought: listing security clearances. ASIO's Director-General, Mike Burgess, said in February 2023 that advertising a clearance on a professional networking site was reckless, and in November 2025 he repeated the warning to Defence staff. A business website is just as public. What goes on yours is for you and your security adviser to decide; we'll lay out the experience either way.
Your web address, the border and working with us. Sydney and Melbourne have web address endings of their own, but there's no .canberra, so a .com.au is the obvious choice; we register it in your name for about $20 a year. If you'll also trade from Queanbeyan or elsewhere across the border, NSW's home business rules and the Service NSW Business Bureau apply on that side, and our page for new Sydney businesses covers them. We're an Adelaide team on Hutt St and work with ACT businesses by phone and email. Our current clients are in SA, NSW, VIC and QLD, and we haven't built for a Canberra start-up yet. Canberra is 30 minutes ahead of Adelaide year-round, so a morning call suits both ends.
Neither of these clients is in Canberra, and we don't call them start-ups, because we don't know how long each had been trading when they came to us. Both are professional services sites, the shape a new consultancy usually needs: credentials and an easy way to start a conversation in one, published fee ranges and file uploads on the quote request in the other.
A Melbourne specialist anaesthetist who coaches doctors one-on-one. An about page sets out her credentials, one overview covers the services, and online discovery-call booking is linked from every page: a pattern that suits a former public servant selling advisory work.
Visit the Dr Tabara Dione site (opens in a new tab) See it in our portfolio
Adelaide structural engineers. The quote form shows fee ranges and accepts file uploads, and 16 articles sit alongside four service pages. Articles like these let a small firm show what it knows before it has a long client list.
Visit the Simple Engineers site (opens in a new tab) See it in our portfolio
“He listened to my feedback and made no hesitations to revise and adjust my website until we were completely happy with it.”
★ 5.0 from 33 Google reviews (opens in a new tab)
See all 14 recent client sites in our portfolio.
$399
One page with your services, background, the districts you cover, your ABN and an enquiry form. Enough for a home baker, a mobile trade or a side business going full-time, with the domain and email set up at the same time.
Our usual suggestion for a consultancy
$899
A home page, a services or capability page, and an about page with your experience and qualifications, plus a photo gallery if your work is visual. The shape we'd suggest for a new consultancy or practice.
$1,499
Separate pages for each service line or type of client, a news or articles section, custom forms, and Google Analytics visitor stats. Room to add case studies as projects finish.
Yes. We work with businesses Australia-wide by phone and email, and our current clients are in SA, NSW, VIC and QLD. For a Canberra start-up that usually means a call about what you'll offer and who you're aiming at, then email for your words and photos, and a draft link you can check on your phone or forward to a business partner. We reply within 24 hours.
That's a decision for you and, if you have one, your security adviser. ASIO's Director-General has publicly warned against advertising clearances online, calling it reckless on professional networking sites in 2023. A site can describe the work instead: sectors, programs, outcomes and the experience of the people involved. We'll lay out whichever approach you settle on.
Within limits. A home business is exempt from development approval only while no more than five vehicles a day come to the premises, averaged over seven days, everyone who works there lives there, and the other conditions on the ACT planning website are met. If you're near that number, booking that caps daily appointments can help: we build booking systems into sites, quoted per job, or link a tool you already use, such as Calendly or Fresha. For your own situation, Access Canberra's Business Assist Team is on 13 22 81.
No. Sydney and Melbourne have their own endings, but .canberra isn't in the list of top-level domains. A .com.au needs a connection to Australia, usually through an ABN or ACN, and a name connected to your business under auDA's rules. We register it in your name for about $20 a year, connect it to the site and set up business email on it.
Once your food business registration is in place, because the ACT requires it before you open. We can build the site beforehand and switch on ordering when the registration comes through. A simple order request form suits a small range; an online store is $799 for up to 25 products with one payment gateway. List only the products your registration covers, and check your labels if you're posting packaged food.
It helps to have somewhere that explains the product plainly when mentors, program staff or early customers look you up, though the grant decision has nothing to do with us. We arrange your words and photos into the pages; we don't write grant applications or pitch decks. A one-page site, the domain and email can be ready while you work on the application.
Tell us the name you've chosen, what you'll sell and to whom, and whether customers will come to you. We'll check the .com.au is available, quote the pages and send a draft link; nothing is owed until you approve it.
We reply within 24 hours. Prefer email? info@webcraftstudio.com.au