How Much Should A Website Cost?

How Much Should A Website Cost?

The price of a new website can range from virtually free to many thousands and thousands of dollars. Below are a few reasons for why these differences in price are so enormous.

Hopefully, this will help you understand why asking how much a website should cost is an extremely difficult question to answer.

Reason #1

Making websites doesn’t require a lot of expensive software, so it can be done on a small budget. However, gaining the knowledge and experience necessary to make a high-quality website is not free.

Amateur developers can offer you a basic site for less than 100 dollars, but a highly reputed web design firm may charge a seemingly exorbitant fee. Quality makes all the difference.

Think of it this way: you can carry all your stuff in a plastic bag for free, but if you want the quality and status of a designer handbag or wallet, you should expect to pay for it.

Reason #2

Building a website involves a great deal of planning. Planning takes time and time is money. You can forego all this planning by setting up a free blog and sticking to all the defaults but you likely wouldn’t be able to offer your visitors the web experience you want.

Every extra feature adds additional complexity to a website, and this complexity comes with a certain price tag attached.

Reason #3

The upfront cost of building a site is only part of the total cost. If you want a more accurate picture of the price, you also have to factor in the price of the domain name, the monthly hosting, and maintenance costs, the price of consistently creating great content and optimizing it for search engines, the internet marketing costs, and more.

 

The price of a website depends on many factors, but the most important one of all is that of your own expectations. To get a good idea of how much you should reasonably expect to pay, think about all the things you want your website to do and write down as much as possible in as much detail as you can. Then do some research on good web designers and developers in your local area (if you prefer to buy locally, that is) and ask for some price quotes based on your website plan.

Because no two design firms are the same, different companies will give you different quotes, but at least you’ll have a better idea for a realistic price estimate. At that point, it’s up to you to either keep searching or decide on a firm to do business with.

In conclusion, no one knows how much a website should cost. All that can be said with absolute certainty is that you pay for quality.

A well-designed, professional website with great features will be more expensive than a basic site designed by an amateur. But considering that the quality of your website speaks volumes about the quality of your brand, it may very well be worth the additional cost.