FAQ · Irish small business · Waterford, Ireland
Straight answers on cost, ownership, GDPR and AI.
Fifteen questions Irish small businesses ask before they hire FMOps: what a website costs, who owns it, how long it takes, whether Claude is GDPR compliant, and whether the Grow Digital Voucher can help pay.
Prices below match pricing.md. If your question is not here, ask it on the free call. A short call, no pitch, and I will tell you if it is not a fit.
Pricing
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With FMOps a small business website costs €500, €750 or €1,000 one-off, plus VAT where it applies. Starter (€500) is a fast site, live inside a week, with your Google Business Profile set up and two rounds of changes. Standard (€750) adds an enquiry form and call tracking, and is the tier most people choose. Full build (€1,000) adds a structure you can add pages to over time. There are three tiers because the right site depends on what it has to earn you, not on page count: on the free call I ask what one new customer is worth and recommend the tier that pays for itself soonest. Detail on the websites page and in pricing.md.
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The care plan is optional and costs €50, €75 or €100 a month, matched to the tier of your build. It covers hosting, software updates, backups and small changes such as swapping a photo, changing opening hours or adding a team member. It is never bundled into the build price, so you can see exactly what you pay for. You can cancel at any time; the plan stops at the end of the month already paid and the site stays yours. If you would rather host the site yourself or have someone in-house look after it, that is fine. I hand over the files and a short video showing how to update it.
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No. All prices on fmops.ie are in euro and exclude VAT. VAT is added where it applies, and your invoice shows it as a separate line. If your business is VAT-registered you can normally reclaim it in the usual way through your VAT return. If you are not VAT-registered, the VAT is a real cost, so plan for it when you compare quotes. This is the same rule for every service: website builds, care plans, automation projects, AI visibility retainers and Claude for Business setup and support. Ask on the call if you want a fully-inclusive figure for your budget and I will write it into the quote.
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Yes, for one-off work. Websites, automation projects and Claude for Business setup start with a 50% deposit and the balance is due at launch or hand-over, unless the quote says otherwise. Monthly services such as AI visibility retainers, care plans and Claude support are invoiced monthly in advance. All invoices are due within 14 days. The deposit is not refundable if you cancel a one-off project before delivery, and any work done beyond it is invoiced. Nothing goes public before you have approved the copy and the layout, so the balance is paid on something you have seen and signed off. The full wording is in the terms.
Ownership
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You do, once the final invoice is paid. The domain is registered in your name, not mine, so you hold the keys. The site files, the design and every word of content are yours to keep, move or edit. Automation workflows are built inside your own Make, Zapier and software accounts, so they are yours as well. What I keep is my own tools, templates and know-how, which I reuse for other clients. Third-party software, such as your Claude licences, stays with its owner under its own terms. There is no proprietary platform, no hostage hosting and no fee to get your own site back.
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You keep everything and nothing breaks. A website stays live and stays yours whether or not you keep a care plan; if you cancel the plan I hand over hosting access and the files. Automation workflows keep running because they live in your accounts. What is already built on a Claude for Business install keeps working; only the monthly support ends. Monthly services end with 30 days' written notice from either side. You pay for work delivered or invoiced up to the end date, and I hand over deliverables that have been paid for. I would rather you leave cleanly than stay because leaving is hard.
How long things take
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Most builds are live inside a week. The clock starts when the deposit is paid and I have your logo, photos, opening hours, services and any existing copy. Day one is structure and draft copy, days two to four are design and content, and you get two rounds of changes on the draft. Nothing goes public until you have approved the copy and the layout. Slower builds are almost always waiting on content, so the fastest thing you can do is send me what you have on the first day. Automation projects and Claude installs are scheduled after the free call, with the timeline written into the quote.
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Google usually indexes a new site within days once it is submitted; ranking for useful searches takes longer, typically two to three months for local terms if the site and Google Business Profile are set up properly. AI assistants such as ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity draw on the same public web plus directories and reviews, so they lag further behind. On an AI visibility retainer, months one and two are entity groundwork, making the facts about your business consistent everywhere the models read; from month three it is two optimised pages and one placement a month, with a scoreboard and screenshots each month so you see the trend.
GDPR and your data
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Claude can be used in a GDPR-compliant way if your business is on a business plan (Team or Enterprise), accepts Anthropic's Data Processing Addendum, and puts a few plain rules in place for staff. No AI tool is GDPR compliant on its own; compliance is about how you use it. On business plans Anthropic does not train on your inputs or outputs by default, and EEA customers contract with Anthropic Ireland, Limited. Do not put client personal data into a personal Pro account: it has no DPA. I go through this in detail in Is Claude GDPR compliant in Ireland?. This is practical guidance, not legal advice.
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Your data stays in your own systems: your email, files and accounts. Claude reads only what the connected login can see, and nothing sends, files or pays without a person clicking approve. On a Claude business plan the DPA is included when you accept the Commercial Terms; it uses EU Standard Contractual Clauses for transfers outside the EEA and commits Anthropic to delete customer data within 30 days of termination. True EU-only data residency is only available through AWS Bedrock in an EU region, and I will tell you if your requirement needs that. On top of Anthropic's terms, FMOps signs its own DPA with every Claude for Business client. See the privacy notice for how fmops.ie handles your details.
Worries about AI
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Not the way it is set up here. What a Claude for Business install takes away is the repeated admin: drafting the same emails, chasing the same invoices, summarising the same reports, filing the same documents. Your staff review and approve every action, so the person stays in the loop and their judgement is what the business is paying for. In practice a five-person firm gets back hours a week and uses them on customers, not on losing a job. Where a role is only copy-and-paste, that is a conversation for you as the owner, and I will be honest on the call about what will change and what will not.
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It can, and the setup is built around that fact. Language models sometimes state something plausible that is wrong. So on every install the rule is: nothing goes out without a person reading it and clicking approve, and anything that acts outside the business (an email, a message, an invoice) needs that approval unless you tell me in writing to remove the step. Claude is connected to your real data, so it drafts from your records rather than from memory, which cuts errors sharply. Staff are trained on live work to spot the rest. Treat it like a fast junior: excellent first draft, always checked.
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No. If you can read an email and click approve, you can run this. The setup day is spent with your team on their real work, not on theory, and you get a written handover and a recorded training session to go back to. Ongoing support from €600 a month covers changes as connectors, staff and workflows change, with one new or improved workflow each month. You never have to touch a prompt, an API or a setting unless you want to. What I do ask is that someone in the business owns the one-page AI policy: what the tool is used for and who checks its output. I write the first draft.
Grants
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It can cover half of an eligible project, up to €5,000, if your Local Enterprise Office approves it. The scheme's cost list names analytics software including AI systems, plus the training and IT configuration to set it up, which is where a Claude for Business setup fits: a €1,750 setup can cost you €875 after the grant. You must complete a LEO Digital for Business project first and get written approval before you spend, order or sign anything. Bespoke software and website builds are not eligible, and marketing retainers are a poor fit. I write itemised quotes your LEO can read. Full guide: Grow Digital Voucher for AI.
Getting started
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Book a free 30-minute call or email fionn@fmops.ie. No form, no pitch. On the call I ask what you do, who buys from you and what has to happen; if the honest answer is that nothing would help yet, I say so. If we go ahead you get a written quote and a start date. For a website I need your logo, photos, services, opening hours and any existing copy. For automation I need a list of the repetitive jobs and access to the accounts they run in. For a Claude install I need one day with your team on-site and admin access to Google Workspace or Microsoft 365. Everything else is my end.
Still have a question?
FMOps, Waterford, Ireland · +353 86 107 2373 · fionn@fmops.ie. Tell me what you do and who you sell to, and I will tell you what would help most, or that nothing would, yet.