How Much Should Web Design Cost?
When starting the process of building a new website, there’s a heck of a lot to take into account.
You need to know…
- What you actually need
- How much money you’re able to invest
- How much of you’re time you’re willing to invest
- How you want the site to be managed once it’s built
Please note that this is a general guideline for freelancers, small companies, and non-profits. The more specific, complex, and grand your plans are… the bigger the pricetag will be.
There’s a lot to consider here: How much research you put in & your industry, as well as the designer/design firms experience, location, and specialties cause an extreme amount of variance in prices you’ll find.
So take this as your first step for deciding what you need, as you begin your research for building a new site.
The Freebies
$0, plus time for learning, creating, and possibly $15 for optional domain name registration
There are various free website building tools out there. If you’re willing to invest your time into figuring it out and building it, you’ll have a decent website without having invested any money.
This is better than having no website at all. However, for creating an effective website that will allow you control over content… especially for business purposes… I would not recommend this at all. There’s very little room to grow, the tools available won’t be as powerful as you need when you grow.
Also, don’t rely on anyone who is providing services for no compensation. Even if you have “an uncle’s best friend who is good with technology” you’ll never be a priority and won’t have the control you need.
Essentially, you get what you pay for.
Do-It-Yourself
$80 – $300, plus time for learning and creating
From here on out, I’ll be covering development for websites developed with a self hosted installation of WordPress (Info can be found on WordPress.org, this is not the same as the blogging site WordPress.com).
Here, your only essential expense is web hosting. This is where your website will live. Once you have one, you can easily install WordPress (it’s free) and start building a site.
Your next task is to install a WordPress theme. There are plenty online available for free, and many high-quality professionally designed ones available for anywhere from $40-200. This allows you to buy great design and implement it immediately.
You have lots of control here, but there’s a bit of a learning curve. Not nearly as much as was required 5-10 years ago where you’d have to learn a lot of code… with this method there’s no coding required.
You can make this route easier by finding online training for how to set up a host, WordPress, and more.
Done For You WordPress Basics
$500 – $1,500; you provide the content
This will be a fairly similar process to the above, except that someone else will be doing all of the technical set up for you.
The higher end version of these services may provide you with some recommendations for what features, plugins, and content you’ll need. They may also do some consulting on marketing or a limited amount of customizing the theme to fit your brand.
Contrary to popular belief, using a pre-made WordPress theme doesn’t necessarily make your site look like a cookie-cutter site. Once your logo is uploaded, your content added, a few images placed, and some basic color changes, your site will look very unique.
In most cases, you’ll be asked to provide a set amount of content to publish. A certain number of pages or posts, your logo or other branding, and possible some images.
These will be posted, and your site will be set up with a theme of your choice or one that the service provider recommends. The cost of the theme may or may not be including in the cost of the service. Hosting usually is not.
This is a great way to get a high quality website started very quickly. Most freelancers and small business actually don’t need much for than this when starting out.
Custom Design
$2,000 – $5,000
When you know what you need, and you need more… this range will include an entirely original design (often including a logo design) based on your specifications.
You’ll get a new WordPress theme custom built from scratch, or an existing theme framework that’s heavily modified for you.
This could include your branding and design wants, marketing needs, and possibly some simple e-commerce solutions for selling goods or services online.
Sites will be created keeping in mind the designer or developers expertise which could be aesthetic design, user-friendliness, marketing effectiveness, or a combination of those and others.
The main benefit to this is that you will have the only website on the internet that looks like it, and you won’t have to deal with abundance of features that you don’t need that some pre-made themes come with.
Above and Beyond
$10,000 – $50,000+
This is more likely a price ranger for a design firm who will have a large team working on creating everything for you…
Implementing a full branding package with logos and other custom graphics, e-commerce ability, integration with a host of services, custom copywriting, Search Engine Optimization, and possibly a branding/marketing strategy & design that can span your entire online presence from website, to blog, to social media, to email.
May also include large amounts of custom coding for plans that are not available in existing free and premium theme or plugins for WordPress.
When your needs are vast and a large facelift of your brand’s web presence will bring you a significant lift in sales, this is a great option.
Not One Size Fits All
You can see that there are many different options, and depending on who you go to, you may get slightly different numbers.
The most important thing to keep in mind is what you need. If you’re just starting out, don’t shell out $10,000 before you know you’ll make any money.
You may do better investing $1,000 and getting something that fits your basic needs. Then build your audience from there until it makes sense to upgrade.
Also remember your own time commitment.
The lower priced options cost less money, but they cost more of your time. Especially the DIY version. Decide which would be the more cost-effective resource to invest and use it!
What questions about pricing do you still have? Leave a comment below.