Local Sunshine Coast business sets its sights on big tech

Built on the Sunshine Coast

Astra IT is developing Astra Genesis to tackle a familiar small-business problem: too many separate systems, and too much time spent keeping them in step.

A business might have its website with one provider, bookings with another, and separate tools for email, invoices and counter sales. Each does a job, but the owner often ends up copying details between them and chasing support when something stops working.

Genesis brings those jobs into one system, with a professionally managed website as the starting point. It is an ambitious project for a local Sunshine Coast business, aimed at owners who want their technology looked after without having to become experts in it.

Connecting the website to the work

The broader Genesis system covers websites, ecommerce, bookings, quotes and invoices, point of sale, hosting, business email, SEO and AI automation. The goal is to keep business information connected as a customer moves from an enquiry to a booking, purchase or completed job.

For a workshop, that could mean taking an enquiry online, preparing a quote and organising the job from the same workspace. For a retailer, it could mean managing online and counter sales without maintaining two separate sets of product information.

Those everyday tasks are guiding the development. The aim is to save owners time on repeated admin and give them a clearer view of what is happening in their business.

Taking on the big-tech stack

Wix, Shopify and Square are familiar names for business owners setting up websites, online stores and payments. Astra is tackling the work involved in joining these kinds of services together and managing them day to day.

There is still a place for specialist tools. Astra’s current offering includes support for connecting a Shopify storefront, for example. A business should be able to keep a service that works well and get help connecting it to the rest of its setup.

Genesis is Astra IT’s own project and is not affiliated with Wix, Shopify or Square. It is being developed in stages, rather than offered as a feature-for-feature replacement for every platform.

A managed website from A$59 a month

Astra IT’s A$59/month managed website plan has no upfront setup fee. It includes a professionally managed one-page website, mobile-responsive design, hosting, SSL, a standard domain while subscribed and one business email account.

The plan also covers a contact, enquiry or booking request form, on-page and local SEO foundations, sitemap and Google Search Console setup, analytics, technical maintenance and a customer web design portal. Unlimited minor content or design changes are included each month, so the site can stay up to date as the business changes.

Extra pages, email accounts, an AI chatbot, calendar sync and other services are priced separately. Ecommerce, POS and advanced workflows are scoped around the business and current availability. Third-party subscriptions, payment processing and hardware may also carry separate costs.

Practical uses for AI and automation

AI can help a website visitor find an answer, capture an enquiry or take some of the repetition out of admin. Astra’s focus is on those useful jobs, with business owners able to review the work and step in when needed.

SEO is part of looking after the website too. Good structure, clear content and proper search setup give a business a sound starting point. They do not guarantee a particular Google ranking.

What comes next

Astra is rolling out the wider Genesis platform in stages. Businesses can start with the managed website plan and discuss which other tools are ready for their needs, what they would cost and what can wait.

Astra IT is based on the Sunshine Coast and offers managed websites Australia-wide, alongside web design, business IT and automation services. For owners in Gympie, the Sunshine Coast, Brisbane or further afield, the first step is a conversation about the parts of their current setup that are causing the most work.