A licence or theme price is only part of a CMS cost. Compare the spending and work required to publish, correct, develop and hand over the site over several years, using the same functional scope for each option.
Describe the daily work
List the people who will publish, page types, languages, approvals and essential integrations. Time a representative task: create a service page, replace a photograph, correct a price or remove an expired notice. The CMS selection guide starts with these tasks rather than a feature catalogue.
Gather starting costs
Include design, implementation, migration, training, content preparation and acceptance testing. A tool that costs less to install may require more custom work for essential functions. A feature-rich platform may instead bring subscriptions that a small team will never use enough to justify.
Estimate recurring costs
Review hosting, licences, extensions, backups, support, updates, possible payment fees and internal publishing time. Name the owner of each item and how its price might change. Distinguish defect fixes, monitoring and the creation of new features; they are different kinds of work.
Test your ability to leave
Ask for a demonstration of exporting useful content, media, URLs and data. Check what can move to another tool and what depends on a proprietary format. A future exit cannot be priced exactly today, but its dependencies should be explicit. The handover guide suggests practical checks.
Compare three scenarios
Model a stable site, a site publishing more content and a change of team or supplier. Write your assumptions next to the figures. A sensible choice is a tool the team can actually maintain, not simply the lowest initial column.