How Much Does a Website Cost?

So, your company has finally decided that you need a website for your business? Or you’ve been in business for some time and want to improve your business leads with a new quality website. However, you have no clue how much you should spend on a website. You’re in luck! In this blog we will go over how much your organization should spend on a shiny new website.

First, you need to ask yourself what is the purpose of the website?

1. Sell things online.
2. Educate your customer about your business.
3. Generate business leads.
4. Showcase your work and or expertise

 

Now that you have figured out the purpose of the website let's understand how much it’s going to cost.

Price Ranges
$0 to $500: Family Member or Overseas Freelancer
In this range, the business owners might have a family friend build the site. Or maybe they saw a deal for a $500 website in a local Google Ad. Odds are the family member or freelancer will use a free website builder like Wix, Squarespace or WordPress. Using these free website builders, you will pay a low price for a domain name, web hosting and website maintenance. The site design will be a pre-made template which your upload your content and images. This may be a good start for a startup business with very little capital. However, understand that you get what you pay for and make sure the website can grow as your company grows.

 

$2000 to $8000: Professional Freelancer or Small Web Agency  
Small business might find this range appealing. A professional freelancer or small web agency will normally have experience creating custom designed sites with matching content. They may create a custom design or reconfigure an existing template to fit their design. They still might use a free website builder, however they might have more knowledge and experience to customize these platforms.  

 

$8000 to $30,000: Small to Medium Web Agency   
This is a good range for an established business that wants to improve their existing web presents. The agencies in this range normally deal  with local and state governments to provide custom websites and maintenance. They normally have dedicated designer, developers, content strategist and project managers that work on various projects. These agencies are normally very good at creating sites that can increase an organizations profitability and visibility in the digital landscape.

However, some overseas agencies that work in this price range may have substandard design and development practices. Even with the higher price range. Make sure you do your due diligence researching these firms.

 

$30,000 and Up: Medium to Large Web Agency   
These agencies deal with large scale web site builds. They might have federal government contracts to maintain and continuously innovate sites like www.sba.gov or www.whitehouse.gov. They normally have a large team of people working on several projects. When a new project is started, they do extensive research (called project discovery) to get all the information they need to create a successful website. These website builds can go on for months and even years.  

These types of agencies use specialized software, high end web hosting services (Google Cloud Services or Amazon Web Services) and have designers and developers with high levels of technical knowledge.

 

Conclusion

Understanding what your business needs are and what do you want your website to accomplish is critical. In a perfect world, your website budget should be as high as your business can afford while still being able to turn a profit. With that being said, finding a happy medium between spending and revenue is the tricky part of any website build. The real questions you should be asking yourself is what does my business need to grow and expand?

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