Legal Notices &
Privacy
Mandatory regulatory disclosures for 2026, GDPR policy, and TCO comparative analysis report.
1. Regulatory Disclosures (Publisher)
Publisher:
- Commercial Name: SiteForge (represented by Tristan)
- Registered Office: Place de la Cathédrale, 4000 Liège, Belgium
- Email: contact@siteforge.be
- VAT: Small business tax exemption scheme (Art. 56bis of the Belgian VAT Code)
Hosting:
- Provider: Vercel Inc.
- Address: 340 S Lemon Ave #4133 Walnut, CA 91789, USA
- Website: https://vercel.com
2. Privacy Policy (GDPR)
This policy aims to be as transparent and respectful of your rights as possible, in full compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
Collected Data
The only personal data collected is what you voluntarily provide through the contact form (Name, Email Address, Message). This data is exclusively used to answer your requests and is never sold or shared with third parties.
No Advertising Cookies or Intrusive Tracking
I use Beam Analytics to measure traffic. This solution strictly respects user privacy: it stores no cookies, does not keep IP addresses, and does not perform cross-site tracking. This is why this website does not require an annoying cookie consent banner.
Your Rights
You retain full rights to access, rectify, and delete your personal data at any time. To exercise these rights, simply email contact@siteforge.be.
3. Annex: Comparative TCO Analysis Report
To justify the pricing claims and savings displayed on SiteForge.be (e.g., €150+/year on hosting or €1,200+ over 3 years), the comparative financial analysis is detailed below.
// TCO COMPARATIVE & FINANCIAL ANALYSIS REPORT
Established in Liège on June 9, 2026
// 3.1 ANALYSIS SCOPE & METRIC SCOPE
This study establishes the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) for a standard showcase site for a local business in Belgium over a 3-year amortization window (standard fiscal policy for intangible assets under Belgian accounting rules).
The audited functional scope includes a site of 5 to 6 pages, custom design, a secure contact form, GDPR compliance, and basic search engine optimization (SEO) setup.
The compared web architectures and vendors are:
- Classic WordPress Model: Hosted on standard shared Apache/PHP servers (Combell 2026 pricing). Requires regular technical security maintenance.
- Wix / Proprietary SaaS Model: "Wix Core" subscription formula (2026 public pricing). Maintenance is handled by the platform, but hosting is constrained and proprietary.
- Astro Architecture (SiteForge): Static compilation, distributed hosting on Vercel's global Edge Network (Hobby/Free tier). Corrective maintenance is obsolete by design.
// 3.2 COMPARATIVE REPORT OF DIRECT COSTS (3-YEAR TIMELINE)
| Expense Item | WordPress Model | Wix / SaaS Model | Astro Model (SiteForge) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Conception (CAPEX) | €1,500 | €0 (DIY / Template) | €390 |
| Web Hosting (3 years) | €360 (Combell ~€10/m) | €972 (Wix Core ~€27/m) | €0 (Vercel Free Tier) |
| Domain Name (3 years) | €36 | €30 (1st year free) | €36 |
| Technical Maintenance (3 years) | €1,440 (Security retainer ~€40/m) | €0 (Managed by platform) | €0 (Compiled static, unbreakable) |
| Real Direct Cost (3 years) | €3,336 Excl. VAT | €1,002 Excl. VAT | €426 Excl. VAT |
| Net SiteForge Savings | +€2,910 Excl. VAT | +€576 Excl. VAT | — |
* Wix: The first year of domain name is included for free in the SaaS subscription, hence €30 over 3 years (then €15/year renewal).
** Astro + Vercel: Free hosting applies within Vercel's generous Hobby tier limits (100 GB bandwidth per month), which is more than enough for small businesses (< 20,000 visits/month). The absolute absence of a PHP database in production makes the site unbreakable and renders security retainer maintenance obsolete.
// 3.3 SCIENTIFIC & TECHNICAL SOURCES AUDIT
To rigorously validate the impact of speed on business revenue and prevent inaccurate or oversimplified marketing claims, the audit of original publications by global technology leaders confirms the following figures:
• Akamai Technologies (2017) — "State of Online Retail Performance"
Methodology: Analysis of over 10 billion user visits on major global e-commerce websites.
Key Findings: Just 100 milliseconds (0.1s) of additional mobile latency causes conversion rates to drop by 7.0%. Furthermore, a 2-second loading delay increases the bounce rate by 103% compared to an instant load.
• Google / DoubleClick (2016) — "The Need for Mobile Speed"
Methodology: Large-scale behavioral study analyzing over 11 million mobile web pages.
Key Findings: 53% of mobile visits are immediately abandoned if a page takes longer than 3 seconds to load. Publishers whose sites load in under 5 seconds earn, on average, twice as much mobile ad revenue as those whose sites load in 19 seconds.
• Amazon — Greg Linden (2006) — "Make Data Useful"
Methodology: Internal A/B testing conducted by Amazon's engineering teams by artificially introducing latency to search results and checkout processes.
Key Findings: Every 100 milliseconds of additional page load latency translates directly into a 1% linear decrease in Amazon's overall revenue.
• Bing & Google Search (2009) — Velocity Conference
Methodology: Controlled latency experiments presented by Eric Schurman (Bing) and Jake Brutlag (Google).
Key Findings: On Bing, a programmed 2-second delay caused a 4.3% drop in ad revenue per user and a 3.7% decrease in clicks. On Google, a 400-millisecond latency reduced search query volume by 0.59%.
// 3.4 OPPORTUNITY COST STUDY (SLOWNESS FINANCIAL MODEL)
To evaluate the financial impact of latency for a local business, we apply the Akamai decay curve to a baseline annual revenue of €50,000 directly generated or influenced by the website.
The average observed speed for standard WordPress and Wix websites is 3 seconds on mobile, compared to under 1 second for an optimized Astro site (representing a 2-second excess delay).
// ROI CALCULATION BREAKDOWN:
- • Mobile Traffic Share (Baseline): 50% of overall traffic.
- • Excess Delay: 2.0 seconds = 20 increments of 100 milliseconds.
- • Mobile Conversion Retention Rate: (0.93)^20 ≈ 0.234 (only 23.4% of conversions are retained).
- • Mobile Conversion Drop: 100% - 23.4% = 76.6% drop.
- • Global Conversion Drop (weighted at 50% mobile share): 76.6% × 50% = 38.3% global decrease.
• Annual revenue loss: €50,000 × 38.3% = €19,150 / year
• Total lost revenue accumulated over 3 years: €19,150 × 3 = €57,450
This invisible opportunity cost (lost business from early user abandonment) is usually the largest cost of a slow website, far exceeding initial design fees.
// 3.5 COMBINED TOTAL COST OF OWNERSHIP SUMMARY (3-YEAR TIMELINE)
By combining direct development/maintenance costs (CAPEX/OPEX) and indirect conversion losses (slowness opportunity cost), we calculate the global TCO:
| TCO Component (3 years) | Classic WordPress | Wix / SaaS | SiteForge (Astro) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cumulative Direct Costs | €3,336 | €1,002 | €426 |
| Opportunity Costs (Speed) | €57,450 | €57,450 | €0 |
| Global TCO (3 years) | €60,786 Excl. VAT | €58,452 Excl. VAT | €426 Excl. VAT |
| Total SiteForge Savings | +€60,360 Excl. VAT | +€58,026 Excl. VAT | — |
Analysis Conclusion: For a small business generating €50,000 in annual revenue through its website, investing in a high-performance Astro architecture yields an estimated overall financial gain* of over €60,000 over 3 years compared to WordPress, and €58,000 compared to Wix. Direct hosting and maintenance savings alone account for €2,910 and €576 respectively.
* Important Note: These financial projections are provided for illustrative purposes only and do not constitute a contractual or legal commitment. Every business situation is unique, and the actual impact on costs and savings may vary (lower or higher) depending on your actual mobile traffic distribution, sales funnel efficiency, and the nature of your conversions.