I had a call the other week from a potential client that wanted to know what we charged for a website, but got frustrated when, rather than giving an immediate number, I asked them what they wanted the website to do.
“Why can’t you just give me a price?” They demanded.
Well, in short, because if you want a website that actually works for you, it’s a bit more complicated than that.
“It’s unwise to pay too much, but it’s unwise to pay too little”
John Ruskin 1819-1900
A wise man was John Ruskin – and despite it being said a long time before the Internet, it’s a quote with a lot of relevance to web design.
Racing to the bottom
Over the last few years, there’s been a relentlessly downward push on the cost of websites and we’ve now reached a point where there are a huge range of prices being quoted: tens of thousands of pounds from big London agencies down to just a few hundred pounds by smaller one man bands.
Now competition is no bad thing. It’s good for customers – and If it means that web companies profits are squeezed a bit, then that’s the nature of the market.
However, this rush to the bottom has another effect – corner cutting. Many of the web designers working in the market know technically how to build a website, but they don’t know how to make that website engage your customers and drive them to buy from you.
Instead their customers often get a website by numbers. One that ticks the basic boxes but doesn’t provide value for money.
The work to create an effective website is significant.
It means taking time to understand the products and services being sold, researching the customers, carrying out user testing, creating an information architecture that meets the customer and clients needs, laying out the content required for each page and writing the copy, producing (or searching for), editing and optimising images, building the website, designing the look and feel, testing, bug fixing, putting it live and making sure the old website has been smoothly migrated to the new one.
The idea that all these tasks can be properly carried out for a few hundred pounds just isn’t realistic: it would mean a day rate less than the minimum wage – before the costs of business development and post-launch support are taken into account.
Depende*
The title of this article was ‘how much should a website cost’, so it’s only fair I actually answer the question! The short answer though is “it depends”.
The cost of a new website can vary a lot depending on what you need, who does the work, how it’s delivered and how much time they put into it.
Here are some factors that affect the price, and an idea of what you’d get for your money…
Design & Development
Web design typically falls into two parts: working out how the website should look, and then building it.
A lot of small developers use a pre-built template and customise that to fit their customer’s requirements. This is obviously a lot quicker and cheaper than designing and then building something from scratch, but you’ll have a less flexible website.
Equally the complexity of the user journey adds costs. A simple blog is fairly simple compared to an e-commerce site that requires product pages, checkout, thank you emails, fulfilment and more. Integration into third party systems, event ticketing all take extra effort – and even simple functions like a contact form, mean a couple of hours of extra styling to look good and work on all devices.
Roughly speaking then, you should probably think about:
Type of Website:
- Simple Personal Blog: £100 – £500
- Small Business Site: £500 – £5,000
- E-commerce Site: £1,000 – £10,000
- Complex Custom Site: £5,000 – £50,000 or more
Approach to Design:
- Template-Based Design: Cheaper, around £100 – £500
- Custom Design: More expensive, around £2,000 – £10,000 or more
Features and Functionality:
- Basic Features: Such as contact forms, image galleries, etc., usually £100 – £500 extra
- Advanced Features: Like booking systems, member areas, or custom integrations can cost £500 – £5,000 extra
Content and Marketing
It’s not enough to build a site, it’s got to engage users and get them to act. You can write content yourself, but you’ll find that getting expert help to ensure that the messages resonate with your users is well worth the investment in the long run. You should also make sure that your content is optimised for search engines so that traffic can find your site more easily, and consider content marketing or paid advertising campaigns to drive traffic – all of which carries cost.
Don’t forget about photography too. Whilst you might be able to get away with your own pics taken on a mobile, have a look around at other websites. Often as not, you’ll notice that good photography makes a huge difference to how professional the end results appears.
Content Creation:
- DIY Content: Free, but time-consuming
- Professional Content: Somewhere between £50 – £500 per page
SEO and Marketing:
- Basic SEO: £100 – £500
- Advanced SEO and Marketing: £500 – £5,000 +
Ongoing Costs
Once you’ve built a site, that’s not the end of it. There are some basic recurring costs you can’t avoid: Domain Name rental (normally between £10 and £20 a year), and hosting – renting a server (or part of one) where your website will be held. You can buy cheap hosting from about £5 a month, but you’ll typically find a reliable fast server (particularly for busy sites) will cost more.
Most websites also need to have maintenance updates regularly, to stay ahead of virus and hackers, and to make sure that they stay compatible with operating systems. You’re also likely to want to change things once in a while and may well look to have expert help changing and optimising your website for you. it’s possible to do all of this yourself, if you’re reasonably confident technically though.
Maintenance and Updates:
- Monthly Maintenance: £20 – £150 per month
- Website Updates: £20 – £1,000 per month
Domain and Hosting:
- Domain Name: £10 – £50 per year
- Hosting: £40 – £300 per year
So, depending on your needs, you might be able to get a website live spending just a few hundred pounds – especially if you’re happy to do a lot of the work yourself. Equally, a complex, highly optimised, custom website could be well into 5 figures.
Sound a lot? Well, yes it is. And clearly some businesses, particularly those just starting up, may not be in a position to invest that amount of money.
But, if you’re an established business and believe you can’t invest a few thousand pounds on your website, then maybe you should relook at your business plan and see if your business is as viable as you think it is.
Alternatively, you might want to look at why (even in this Internet-centric age) your website isn’t that important to you? Is it that your existing website just doesn’t deliver value to you? If so, perhaps you should ask yourself why that is?
Paying too little
Back to our friend John Ruskin. In the full quote, he goes on to say:
“When you pay too much you lose a little money, that is all.
When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing you bought it to do. The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot. It can’t be done. If you deal with the lowest bidder, it’s well to add something for the risk you run.
A website fit for you
Whatever your budget, we’re happy to have a chat, so feel free to get in touch.
We can either put together a package that fits your budget and needs or, if we don’t think we’re the right fit for you, we’re happy to give you advice about how to best get a website that meets your requirements and suits your wallet!
*Forgive the inside joke: we did some consultancy in Brazil a while back (I know – tough gig), but the answer to pretty much all of our questions from one of the locals to our translator there was a very expressive ‘it depends’ in Portuguese, and it’s kind of stuck.