StayCraft for Newspapers & news websites

For local dailies, weeklies and news websites, in English, Hindi, Pahari or Punjabi. You get your own news website, a newsroom that works from a phone with an editor's review, and pings when a story is waiting. Choose it because a reporter can publish from the scene in minutes, the site is ready for Google News from day one, and there are no plugins to update, no server to keep patched and no commission on your ad sales.

What every site gets

These are on both news plans.

• Your own news website at yourpaper.staycraft.co.in, or on your own domain, in one of three designs: Classic daily, Hindi classic or Modern magazine. Switch whenever you like; changing the design never touches your stories or photos.
• A newsroom made for a phone. Write, add a photo, publish or send for review, from a round "+" button.
• Editor and Reporter logins, with a review step before a reporter's story goes out.
• Google News-ready pages: news article markup, a news sitemap, large photos in search results, and RSS feeds.
• Your own domain, so a paper moving from WordPress keeps its address.
• Move from WordPress with every story keeping its exact old web address.
• Ad network slots for AdSense or similar, each in a safe frame of its own.
• Video pages from YouTube or Vimeo links.
• A WhatsApp tip line: "Send a news tip" on every story opens your WhatsApp.
• Your paper's accent colour on the site.
• Weather for up to two towns in the top bar.
• No commission on your ad sales. Advertisers pay you directly.
• Monthly report by email: on the 1st, last month's visits, stories published and story views against the month before, your five most read stories, your e-paper editions (News Pro), the Google searches that found you once Search Console is connected, your SEO score and one tip. A "Last month" card on the owner's dashboard shows the same. Switch it off in Settings or with one click from the email.
• Social posts: turn a review, an offer or a festival into a finished picture and caption in your own colours and fonts (a post, a story or a square), in English or Hindi, and share it to your WhatsApp status from your phone. On every plan; nothing is posted for you.

Plans and prices

A paper has two plans of its own. It never sees the homestay plans. Prices are per year.

Plan	Price per year	Who it suits	What it adds over the plan below
News Website	₹24,000	A local paper or news website publishing online, with a small team	Everything in "What every site gets". Up to 5 newsroom logins, the owner included. 10 GB of storage for photos and files.
News Pro	₹48,000	A daily with a print edition, live coverage and its own ad sales	The e-paper, sold ads with reports for advertisers, and live stories. As many newsroom logins as you need. 50 GB of storage.

GST. Plan prices are what you pay. StayCraft is not GST-registered, so no GST is added.

Add-ons. None. Everything a paper can have beyond News Website is on News Pro.

On News Website, the e-paper, sold ads and live stories show greyed in the menu. Tapping one says what it is and lets the paper ask for News Pro. Readers simply do not see them.

How paying works. No free trial and no card up front. We agree the plan and the price with the paper first. Payment is by UPI or bank transfer, the screenshot is uploaded in the Billing screen, and the plan is switched on the same day. A plan does not renew by itself: the paper chooses to renew, and we remind them before it ends.

Changing plan. Move up at any time and pay the difference for the time left. A move down waits until the current year ends.

Features in detail

Writing and publishing

• A story from a phone. Headline, a photo from the camera or gallery with a caption, the story, a category, then Publish now or Send for review. The "Out now" screen has a big Share on WhatsApp button.
• Breaking. Mark a story breaking for 2, 6 or 24 hours.
• More options when needed: standfirst, sub-category, tags, place, photo credit, photo description; editors also set the byline, featured, sponsored, the search headline and description, and Publish at to schedule.
• It saves itself every 10 seconds. With no signal, the words are kept on the phone and sent when the connection returns. If someone else changed the same story meanwhile, the writer chooses which copy to keep; nothing is overwritten silently.
• Photos. iPhone photos and motion photos work, every photo is turned the right way up, and the hidden camera details, including where it was taken, are removed before storing, so a photo never gives away a source's location. Up to 25 MB each.
• After it is out: Update changes it at once with the same web address; Unpublish or Delete takes it off the site; Take down removes the story and its photos at once for a court order or privacy complaint, with who, when and why recorded.
• Sponsored stories are labelled "Sponsored" for readers.

The newsroom team

• Editor: everything, including publishing, ads, paper settings and people.
• Reporter: writes their own stories and sees only Stories and Waiting for review. Their story goes to an editor first, unless the editor lets them publish directly.
• Review and send back. A story sent for review rings the bell for every editor. The editor publishes, edits, or sends it back with a note that stays pinned above the story. If the reporter changes the story while an editor has it open, publishing stops and asks for a reload, so nobody publishes words they did not read.
• Invites by email, valid for 7 days. Switching a login off stops it at once and frees its place.
• How many: up to 5 people on News Website, the owner included; no limit on News Pro.
• Newsroom in English, Hindi or Punjabi, chosen by each person for themselves.

The dashboard

• The day's paper at a glance: stories today, stories waiting for review, reads today against yesterday, and a Write shortcut.
• Tiles for videos this week, and on News Pro for ads ending this week, live stories open and today's e-paper.
• Most read for today and yesterday, and each story out today with its reads.

Sections, authors and the site

• Sections with one level of sub-sections. Tick "On the home page" to give a section its own block. Renaming a section keeps its old address working.
• Authors are the bylines. Link one to a login so a reporter always writes as themselves.
• Reader pages: home page, section pages, story pages, author and tag pages, search, most read, and RSS for the site and each section.
• Paper settings: the site language (English, Hindi, Pahari or Punjabi; a Punjabi paper is set in Gurmukhi on every design), a WhatsApp channel link ("Get our news on WhatsApp"), a link to an other-language edition, and the weather towns.
• Three designs: Classic daily (navy on white, a scrolling breaking ticker, a featured carousel and Latest, Popular and Trending), Hindi classic (oxblood on newsprint, a Devanagari masthead, for Hindi, Pahari and Punjabi papers) and Modern magazine (photo first, teal and a display serif). Demo papers show each, including one in Punjabi.

Google News and search

• Every story carries the markup Google News reads, with the paper's name and a 600 x 60 logo made from your logo.
• News sitemap (the last 48 hours) and the full sitemap are sent to Google Search Console when a story goes out, at most once an hour.
• Being in Google News is Google's decision. The manual explains the Publisher Center step once the domain points to StayCraft.

Ads

• Network ads (both plans). For each place on the page, paste the code your ad network gives you and switch it on. Each place keeps its size, so a story never jumps. Every ad runs in a closed frame, so a bad ad cannot act on your page or your admin. ads.txt lines are served for you.
• Sold ads (News Pro). Ads you sell to a local advertiser yourself: a picture with a click address, or HTML, in one place, from a first day to a last day. A sold ad runs ahead of network code in its place.
• Counts you can show an advertiser (News Pro). Impressions served and clicks (one click per reader per ad in 10 minutes, newsroom staff and search engines not counted).
• Monthly report (News Pro), per day and ad, for one advertiser or all, with a CSV download to send them.

E-paper, live stories and video

• E-paper (News Pro). Upload the day's print PDF, up to 150 MB and 80 pages. Its pages appear on the site within a few minutes, readable page by page, with tap-to-zoom on a phone. An edition dated tomorrow waits for its day. PDF download for readers is off unless you switch it on.
• Live stories (News Pro). An editor makes a story live; the newsroom posts updates as things happen. Readers with the story open see new, edited or deleted updates within a minute, without reloading. Editors can pin an update, approve a reporter's update first, and close the live story when it is over.
• Video (both plans). Paste a YouTube or Vimeo link with a title and a few words. Each video gets its own page, and the site gets a Video page.

Moving from WordPress

• Four steps: upload the WordPress export file (or connect with an application password), a dry run that shows what will come across, the import itself with a progress bar, and a report.
• Every story keeps its exact old web address. Old section, tag and author pages, feeds, AMP pages, page 2 links and old image addresses all lead to the right place.
• Every image is copied, from the old site and from any other.
• Run it again before the switch to bring in anything published since.
• The StayCraft address stays out of Google until the switch, so your stories are never found on two sites at once.
• Never locked in. "Download everything as a WordPress file" exports every story, page, author, section, tag and photo.

On your phone

• The newsroom is built for a phone, and the admin can be added to the home screen like an app.
• Pings. Editors get a ping when a story or a live update is waiting for them, and a reporter when their story comes back. Turn them on under Settings, Notifications, on an Android phone, a computer, or an iPhone (Safari, added to the home screen).

What it does not do (yet)

• No reader comments on stories.
• No notifications to readers. Pings are for the newsroom only.
• No paywall or reader subscriptions. The site and the e-paper are free to read.
• No video uploads. Videos play from YouTube or Vimeo.
• AdSense Auto ads (anchor and vignette ads) do not run. Use display ad units for each place instead. Some networks may fill a closed frame less often than an open page.
• Ad counts are "impressions served", counted when a page with the ad opened, not whether the reader scrolled to it. Network ads are reported by the network, not by StayCraft.
• News tips are not stored. The tip button opens the paper's WhatsApp; tips never reach the admin.
• Inclusion in Google News is not something StayCraft can promise. It is Google's decision.
• The site is not machine-translated. A paper picks its one site language (English, Hindi, Pahari or Punjabi). The rest of the owner panel outside the newsroom is in English.
• The e-paper takes one PDF of up to 150 MB and 80 pages per edition.
• No billing of advertisers. Advertisers pay the paper directly; StayCraft does not invoice them.
• The Android app is not on the Play Store yet. Pings work today through the browser.

Good to say to a customer

• "We are on WordPress. Will we lose our Google traffic?" Every story keeps its exact old web address, and old section, tag, author, feed and image addresses all lead to the right place. The StayCraft copy stays out of Google until your domain switches over, and you can export everything back to a WordPress file at any time.
• "Can my reporters publish from the field?" Yes. A story is a headline, a photo, a few paragraphs and a category, from a phone. It saves itself every 10 seconds and keeps working with no signal. A reporter's story waits for an editor unless you let them publish directly.
• "Can we keep our AdSense money and sell our own ads?" Yes. Network ad codes work on both plans from day one. On News Pro you also run ads you sell yourself, with impressions, clicks and a monthly CSV report for each advertiser. StayCraft takes no commission on any of it.
• "We are a Hindi (or Punjabi) paper." The Hindi classic design is made for Hindi, Pahari and Punjabi papers, a Punjabi paper is set in Gurmukhi on every design, and each person in the newsroom can work in English, Hindi or Punjabi.
• "Can we use our own domain?" Yes, on both plans. Your staycraft.co.in address keeps working too, and HTTPS is set up for you.