A website is like an office: you can rent a desk in a corner, or you can have a building put up. Both are "an office", and there's an order of magnitude between them. That isn't a pricing trick, it's a difference in the task.
The good question isn't what it costs. The good question is what it has to do, and what it's worth to you once it does.
What drives the price up?
Five factors explain most of the difference between proposals.
- The number of pages and the content. A one-page introduction and a twenty-page service structure are not the same job.
- Custom design or a template. A template is cheaper and faster, but it will look like your competitor's.
- Features. Booking, a shop, payments, customer accounts, several languages — each is separate logic and separate testing.
- Who writes the copy and who supplies the images. This is the most frequently underestimated item. If there's no content, somebody has to make it.
- Integration. Connecting to an existing system is always more expensive than connecting to nothing.
What the price usually leaves out
The one-off development fee isn't the total cost. Worth asking separately about, on every proposal:
- the annual cost of the domain and hosting;
- maintenance, updates, backups;
- content changes after handover;
- photography, video, copywriting;
- the advertising budget, if you also want to advertise.
A cheaper proposal is often cheaper because several of these aren't in it. That's fine — but you should know about it.
What should a one-off project fee include?
A bespoke website is best ordered for a one-off project fee, and the quote should itemise what is in it: research, structure, copywriting, design, development, search engine optimisation and launch. If SEO is left out of the first version, it costs more to add later — which is why a search-optimised website is built on that structure from the start.
What comes after — hosting, maintenance, further development — is best ordered separately, when you need it. That way the site is your tool, and you decide what to spend next. This is how we work too.
How to work out what it's worth to you
Simple arithmetic, and no marketer required. Take these three:
- what one new client brings you, on average, in a year;
- how many enquiries it takes to make one client;
- how many enquiries you expect from the site each month.
If you don't know any one of these, that's a finding in itself: the first task isn't the website, it's measurement. If you do know them, the price of the website reduces to a single question — how many months until it pays for itself.
Three questions for any proposal
Whoever you ask for a proposal, these three questions are surprisingly revealing:
- Who owns the domain and the content if I cancel?
- What happens if something needs changing in a year's time?
- What isn't included in this price?
Where to next
Related articles and services.