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A pricing structure where customers are charged a recurring fee for each separate documentation site or project they create.
The Per-Site Model is a subscription pricing approach commonly used by documentation platforms, where organizations are billed based on the number of separate documentation sites or projects they maintain. Unlike per-user or per-seat pricing, this model ties costs directly to the documentation infrastructure itself, making it particularly relevant for teams managing multiple products, clients, or documentation portals simultaneously.
A growing SaaS company has launched three separate products, each requiring distinct documentation with unique branding, navigation, and content. Managing them under a single portal creates confusion for users and makes version control difficult.
Adopt a Per-Site Model to create isolated documentation environments for each product, ensuring clean separation of content, branding, and access controls without paying extra per contributor.
1. Audit existing documentation to identify logical site boundaries per product. 2. Create a dedicated site for each product on the platform. 3. Assign product-specific writers and editors to each site. 4. Configure unique domains or subdomains per site (e.g., docs-productA.company.com). 5. Set up separate analytics tracking per site to monitor engagement. 6. Review monthly costs as new products launch and budget accordingly.
Each product team owns their documentation portal, user confusion is reduced, and the company pays a predictable flat fee per site regardless of how many writers contribute to each project.
A documentation consultancy manages documentation for 10 different clients. Sharing a single platform account creates privacy risks, makes client-specific branding impossible, and complicates invoicing.
Use the Per-Site Model to create one site per client, enabling isolated environments that can be white-labeled and directly billed back to each client as a line item.
1. Create a new documentation site for each client onboarded. 2. Apply client-specific branding, logos, and domain configurations per site. 3. Invite only the relevant client stakeholders to each site. 4. Calculate per-site platform costs into client project quotes. 5. Archive or delete sites when client contracts end to control costs. 6. Maintain a master account dashboard to monitor all active client sites.
Clients receive fully isolated, branded documentation portals, the agency maintains clean separation of work, and costs are transparently passed through to clients on a per-project basis.
An enterprise organization needs to maintain both customer-facing product documentation and internal employee knowledge bases. Mixing these in one site creates access control challenges and inappropriate content exposure.
Leverage the Per-Site Model to create separate sites for external documentation and internal wikis, each with distinct access permissions, authentication methods, and content strategies.
1. Define the content categories requiring separation (public docs, internal SOPs, partner portals). 2. Provision a dedicated site for each category. 3. Configure public access for customer-facing sites and SSO/private access for internal sites. 4. Assign dedicated content owners and editors per site. 5. Establish a governance policy for when new sites should be created versus extending existing ones. 6. Review site usage quarterly to consolidate or expand as needed.
Sensitive internal documentation remains secure and separate from public content, access management is simplified, and the organization gains clear cost visibility per documentation function.
An open source project needs to maintain active documentation for three major software versions simultaneously. Keeping all versions in one site creates navigation complexity and risks outdated content being served to users on older versions.
Use the Per-Site Model to host each major version as a standalone documentation site, allowing independent update cycles and clear URL structures per version.
1. Identify the active software versions requiring dedicated documentation. 2. Create a separate site per major version (e.g., v1-docs, v2-docs, v3-docs). 3. Migrate or clone existing documentation into the appropriate versioned site. 4. Set up a landing page that routes users to the correct version based on their selection. 5. Assign maintainers responsible for keeping each version's docs current. 6. Deprecate and archive older version sites when support ends to reduce costs.
Users always access accurate, version-specific documentation without confusion, maintainers can update each version independently, and the project controls costs by retiring old sites as versions are deprecated.
Before creating new documentation sites under a Per-Site Model, establish clear criteria for what constitutes a separate site. Without defined boundaries, teams often create redundant sites that inflate costs unnecessarily or, conversely, cram too much content into one site causing navigation problems.
Since the Per-Site Model ties costs directly to the number of active sites, organizations should map each site to a cost center, team, or client account. This ensures documentation costs are visible and accountable across the business rather than buried in a single IT or marketing budget line.
Documentation sites for discontinued products, completed projects, or deprecated software versions can accumulate over time, silently driving up monthly costs under a Per-Site Model. Establishing a regular review cycle ensures you only pay for sites that are actively serving users.
Many documentation platforms offering a Per-Site Model provide volume-based pricing tiers where the per-site cost decreases as the number of sites increases. Organizations managing five or more sites should proactively negotiate these discounts rather than waiting for the platform to offer them.
Under a Per-Site Model, teams frequently create new sites as products or clients are added. Without standardized templates, each new site requires significant setup time for navigation structure, branding, and boilerplate content, which indirectly increases the cost of provisioning each site.
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