What Does a SharePoint Intranet Cost in Australia?

Short answer: a practical SharePoint intranet for an Australian organisation of 50 to 150 staff typically costs between $15,000 and $50,000 (ex GST) to set up, with no extra Microsoft licence if you already have Microsoft 365. The final figure depends on how many page templates you need, how much content has to move, and whether the intranet also manages your controlled documents. Below is what drives the cost, what you are already paying for, and how to keep the price down.

What you are already paying for

SharePoint is included in Microsoft 365 Business Basic, Standard and Premium, and in the Enterprise plans. If your staff already use Outlook and Teams for work, you almost certainly own SharePoint. A SharePoint intranet is built in that existing licence, so there is no per-user intranet fee on top.

That is the main difference from off-the-shelf intranet products, which usually charge per user, per month, for as long as you use them. A SharePoint intranet is a one-off build cost, plus whatever ongoing support you choose.

What drives the cost

1. Structure and design. Working out what goes where and who owns it, then designing a home page and a small set of page templates. A clear structure is what makes an intranet usable, so this is time well spent.

2. Number of templates and sites. A home page, news, a policy hub and a few department pages is a small build. A hub with a site for every team, location or country is a bigger one.

3. Content migration and clean-up. Moving policies, forms and pages from an old intranet, a file server or shared drives. Content that needs rewriting, retiring or re-approving takes the longest, and much of that work sits with your own people.

4. Document control. If policies and procedures need version control, approvals and review dates, the intranet becomes a document management system as well. That adds workflow and permissions work, or you can start from a ready-made option such as Applecart DMS.

5. Languages and locations. Multilingual content and country or regional sites add design and setup time. Our Dovida case study shows one intranet and document system working across countries and languages.

6. Connections to other systems. Staff directories, forms, apps built in Power Apps or approvals in Power Automate. Each connection is usually small on its own, but they add up.

7. Training and handover. Editors need to know how to publish news and keep pages current. Budget for it: an intranet nobody updates goes stale within months.

Typical project sizes

Most intranet projects for growing organisations fall into one of three shapes:

• Starter intranet. Home page, news, a policy and forms hub, a staff directory and a handful of team pages. Sits at the lower end of the range.
• Intranet with document management. The starter intranet plus controlled documents with versions, approvals and review dates. Usually mid-range.
• Multi-site or multilingual intranet. Separate areas for locations, brands or countries, often in more than one language. Sits at the upper end of the range, or above it for larger groups.

These are set-up costs. Ongoing costs are whatever support you choose: some organisations run the intranet themselves after handover, others use our Service Desk for changes and new work as needed.

How long does it take?

A practical intranet usually takes 6 to 12 weeks from first workshop to launch. The biggest variable is content: how quickly pages, policies and approvals are ready on your side.

Costs people forget

• Content owners’ time. Someone has to decide what moves, what gets rewritten and what is retired.
• Cleaning up first. Moving a messy file server into SharePoint just moves the mess. A short clean-up before migration saves money later.
• Keeping it current. Name an owner for every page and a review date for every policy, or the intranet loses trust.

How to keep the cost down

1. Start with the pages people use every week: news, policies, forms and the staff directory. Add the rest later.
2. Use a small set of page templates and reuse them.
3. Retire old content instead of migrating it.
4. Use what Microsoft 365 already includes before paying for add-ons.
5. Train two or three editors properly rather than everyone a little.

SharePoint intranet or an off-the-shelf product?

Off-the-shelf intranet products can be quicker to start and look polished, but you pay per user every month and your content lives in another system. A SharePoint intranet sits inside the Microsoft 365 you already own, works with Teams and your documents, and has no ongoing licence fee. For most organisations of 50 to 150 staff, SharePoint is the better long-term value. If you also need an external portal for customers or suppliers, see SharePoint intranet vs Power Pages.

Get a fixed price for your intranet

Applecart Digital designs and builds SharePoint intranets for growing organisations across Brisbane, Queensland and Australia, working alongside your IT team. We start by understanding what your people need, then give you a fixed price before any work begins. See how we approach SharePoint intranets and document management, or talk to us about your intranet.