You most likely came here researching websites and their cost. We like to help our clients maximize their website budget by educating them on how to save money and avoid costly mistakes. With that idea in mind, we are providing you with information to aid in your search.
Your website can cost from hundreds to thousands of dollars. The price depends on a number of factors:
- Is it a new site or an existing one?
New sites usually cost more than reworking an existing site. - Do you already have a domain name and hosting?
While these are minor costs compared to the development of the site itself, they need to be in your budget. - What is the purpose of your website?
This is the first question we ask a new client. Will it be an informational website, an e-commerce website, or an online application? It gives us an idea of our clients’ expectations and goals. - What size will your site be?
How many pages will it have? How much content will there be and how many images or graphics are we going to create or provide? If you are adding the content through a CMS, the actual number of pages doesn’t matter. - What level of design do you want?
A design can be professional and simple or high-end and complicated. The more complicated the design, the higher the price. - Who is writing the content?
If you are writing and entering all the content yourself, you will save money on your project. Even if you supply the content for us, cleaning up and optimizing it will cost less. For any developer or copywriter to write good content, they will need to learn your business. An important note: You cannot copy the content from your competition or another site. Google will flag your site for duplicate content and penalize you. - Who is adding the products and images?
The most time consuming thing of an e-commerce project is adding the categories, products, images and options. This can often be reduced if the products are already in a database or spreadsheet that can be imported. - Who is responsible for search engine optimization?
If you are entering the content, we will guide you on how optimize it and your pages. If we are entering, writing or rewriting your content, we will optimize it and the pages in the process. There are a number of additional SEO functions that can be done both on- and off-site. We are happy to discuss those and their costs with you and how they fit into your budget. - Do you need continued support?
A number of companies want to charge you for a support contract that often provides you nothing. We support all our clients and answer their questions without a support contract. - What about updates and additions?
After your site is up and running, you may want additional functionality, new pages, or new content. We are always happy to provide those services. For small items, we work on an hourly basis. For larger items, we can provide an estimate.
Website Pricing Estimates
Do it yourself sites: usually $25-$50 / month
There are a number of online do-it-yourself website builders for people to try and make their own sites. Unfortunately, a number of them are not as simple to use as they look, often they don’t place well in search engines, and you don’t have the ability to truly customize them unless you know some web design. Most importantly, if you don’t want to use the service anymore, you lose everything you built. You cannot take it with you. We have helped a number of customers convert over from these types of system sites.
Basic websites: starting from $1000 – $1500
This is an informational site for a small to medium business that basically works as an online brochure. It establishes your online presence by letting customers know who you are, where you are, and what you do. Designs can be from simple to complicated, and usually include as many pages as you want.
Adding features such as galleries, sliders, unique design elements, a blog, multiple forms and tracking all add to the price. In the lower price range, clients are adding their own content and images through the CMS. Writing copy from scratch involves us learning your business in order to do it right. If you’re supplying basic copy that we can edit and optimize, it will save time and money.
Advanced websites: starting from $2500 – $3000
Advanced websites include everything that you will find in a basic website but it built to serve a specific purpose. These sites can include:
- Real estate listing
- Classified ads
- Directories
- Event or class scheduling and reservations
E-Commerce websites: starting from $3000 – $3500
E-Commerce sites, like informational sites, can very widely. They range from simple Pay Pal buttons for donations or a few products. This simple variation can usually be done for $50 to $300. To large, purpose created, shopping cart systems containing hundreds or thousands of items.
Full e-commerce system are more complicated and need more setup time for the additional requirements involved a complete online store. We provide our clients with setup and / or guidance with:
- Secure server hosting
- Payment processor
- Merchant account
- Shipping
- Emails
Custom online applications: starting from $5000
As more companies have people working off-site, they are looking for cloud-based solutions for applications they used to have on an internal network only. Custom applications encompass as many purposes as there are companies.
A few examples of these are:
- Personnel scheduling
- Asset tracking
- Appointment scheduling
- Quote generation and sales tracking
- Lead request, response and tracking
This level of project is the most difficult to price because they are usually quite complicated and foreseeing every possible option and use is difficult for a developer and the client. You may have a good idea of how you want it to work, but as it becomes a reality, you’ll want to make changes. We will work with you beforehand to try and go over all the possibilities. We will detail how the system will work for your review. We will then provide a price range for the project. This range will include small adjustments and changes as the project is developed. Larger changes could affect the overall price. With these types of projects, there is usually continued development after the initial project is complete.