It is the first question most people want to ask and the one web designers are worst at answering. The honest reply is “it depends”, which is true and useless. This guide explains what it depends on, so that when you ask for quotes you understand what you are reading, and so that the quotes you get back can be compared.
I do not publish prices, and I will not quote figures here, because a number without a scope is a guess. What I can do is show you what moves the number.
Why quotes vary so much
Ask three designers for a price and you can receive three figures that differ by a factor of ten. Usually they are not quoting for the same thing. One has assumed you will supply all the text and photos; another has included writing and a photographer. One is adapting a template; another is designing from a blank page. One includes a year of support; another includes nothing after launch. The variation is mostly in the scope, not in the greed of the people quoting. The fix is to control the scope yourself.
The decisions that move the price
How many pages, and how different they are
Pages cost in two ways: designing a type of page, and filling each instance of it. Five pages that share one layout are cheaper than five pages that each need their own design. A site with a service page template and ten services is not ten times the work of one service page; a site with ten unique landing pages might be. When you brief a designer, list the pages and say which can share a layout.
Who writes the words
Writing a website is a real job, and whether it is in the quote changes the number significantly. If you write the copy yourself, budget your own time honestly: it usually takes longer than expected and it is the single most common cause of a stalled project. If the designer writes it, you are paying for interviews, drafts and revisions. Either is fine; just know which you are buying. See copywriting for what that involves.
Photography and imagery
Real photography makes a site; stock imagery quietly undermines it. A half-day with a local photographer is a modest line in the budget and often the best value in it. If you already have good photographs, say so; it removes a cost and an assumption.
Template, customised, or bespoke
A template adapted to your brand is the cheapest route and looks like it. A custom design from the ground up costs more and gives you a site that fits your business rather than one that your business has been fitted into. There is a middle ground: a bespoke design built lean on WordPress, which is where many small business projects sensibly sit; for a marketing site that rarely changes, a hand-coded build is often the better value.
The platform
The platform shifts cost around rather than simply raising or lowering it. A hosted platform may cost more per month and less up front; a WordPress site may need a care plan; a hand-coded site may cost more to build and almost nothing to run. Ask for the running costs as well as the build cost, over three years, and compare those. Hand-coded vs WordPress goes into the trade-offs.
Functionality
A contact form is standard. Online booking, a members’ area, a shop, a quote calculator, integration with your CRM or accounting software: each of these is a piece of software inside the website, and each adds design, build and testing. Be clear about which you need now and which are “maybe later”, because building for “maybe later” is the most expensive kind of building.
Ecommerce
Shops are a category of their own. Product count, variations, payment methods, shipping rules, tax, stock, and whether products need photographing and describing all move the price. A shop with twenty products and simple shipping is a small project; one with two thousand products and trade pricing is not.
Search
Planning the site around what people search for, writing it to be found, and setting up the technical foundations properly is part of a good build and should be in the quote. Ongoing SEO, content and local visibility month after month, is a separate service with its own cost. Ask which the quote includes. Why that matters.
What happens after launch
Updates, backups, security, small changes and someone to call. Some quotes include a period of support; most do not. A care plan is a monthly cost that is easy to compare across designers, as long as you compare what it includes.
Who you are paying
An agency carries offices, account managers and several specialists, and its prices reflect that. An experienced independent designer carries less overhead, so more of the budget goes into the work, at the cost of relying on one person. Neither is right in general; the question is what your project needs.
What a good quote contains
- A scope: the pages, the page types, the features, and who supplies what.
- What is excluded, stated plainly, with what it would cost to add.
- Who does the work and who you will deal with.
- Timescale, with what it depends on from you.
- Revisions: how many rounds are included at each stage.
- Running costs: hosting, platform fees, licences, care.
- Ownership: that the domain, hosting, design and code will be yours.
- Payment terms: usually a deposit, a stage payment and a balance on launch.
How to brief so the quotes are comparable
- Write down what the site is for in one sentence, and how you will judge success.
- List the pages you think you need, and the features. Mark the must-haves.
- Say what you will supply (text, photos, logo) and what you need help with.
- Say whether you have an existing site, and whether any of it ranks or brings in work.
- Give a budget range if you have one. It is not a weakness; it lets a designer tell you what is possible for it, rather than guessing.
- Send the same brief to everyone.
The cheapest website is rarely the cheapest
A site that is slow, hard to find and quietly embarrassing costs the business every week it is live, in enquiries that go elsewhere. The right question is not “what is the lowest price?” but “what will this earn, and what will it cost to run?”. A website that brings in two extra jobs a month pays for itself quickly at almost any sensible price; one that brings in none is expensive at any price.
If you would like a quote from me, the contact page is the place to start. I will ask about the goal first, then the scope, and only then put a number on it, in writing, with everything it includes.
