Websites are one of the funniest things to quote, literally a website range from absolutely nothing (Build a Website) or just $100 (Can you put up a website for less than $100?) to thousands, tens of thousands or even millions or dollars to build so how do I effectively answer a question like How much does a new web site cost?
Let’s look at a couple of different methods for estimating what you should spend on the web.
Do it yourself.
Technically, everything you need to build an effective website is already on your computer or can be downloaded from the Internet for free. As long as you have access to a few basic things, you’re set and the cost of building a website is nothing. Here’s what you’ll need:
- A text editor such as Notepad or Textedit
- An FTP client to connect to your hosting provider
- A hosting account on a web hosting provider
- A domain name
- Basic HTML skills and/or a copy of WordPress
- Knowledge of PHP or similar programming language
Hiring a Professional
If you don’t know how to do it yourself or prefer to hire a professional, the cost to build a website is pretty difficult to estimate because it involves two factors;
- How complicated is your website
- How expensive is your web professional
When you’re estimating how much time your website will take, I think it’s important to get three quotes from three qualified web professionals. As tempting as it is to work with just one, when it comes to the future of your business it’s a great idea to get a few different opinions but as for the quote itself? Expect it to range dramatically.
Sample Pricing
While I can’t speak for other designers / developers I can tell you that I know many web professionals who price themselves in one of three price ranges:
- Entry Level – $20 – $35 / hr
- Mid Career – $40 – $60 / hr
- Senior Level – $75 – $100 / hr
- Webmasters – $150 (+) /hr
One of the problems answering the question however is that the amount of time that it takes for somebody to do a job varies, even within the same career levels. For example, my time to SEO a website is fairly low because it’s what I specialize in but my great friend Chris Bavota does it just as fast even though he considers himself less experienced. On the other hand, my custom programming is faster in both prototyping and execution … his rich media on the other hand? Faster and cleaner than I could ever dream. This is why the same project, quoted from three designers / developers can be dramatically different.
A basic website – If your looking for a small website, using WordPress as a content manager, minor customizations to a theme, advice to select some great plugins and installation on a new domain name you should expect to pay for anywhere from three to ten hours of time plus consulting of course.
A large business website – Larger websites are significant investments for a company, while they’re equally difficult to judge one measure that I’ve found fairly accurate in the past is to look at the companies annual print advertising budget and assume the development of a website to compete will cost 75% of the existing budget for the first year and 50% for each additional year.
For example, if your yellow page ad budget is $150 per month ($1,800/yr), you should anticipate your website costing ~$1,350 once completed. This of course represents between 10 and 60 hours of time for a web professional, depending on their experience and level.
A website just like X - Just to put it out there (because I’m asked the about twice a month), building a website like another popular site is possible, so here are some quick estimates:
- Facebook – 4,000 hours development & 300 hours per month marketing / maintenance
- MySpace – ditto.
- Elance – 2,500 hours development & 200 hours per month maintenance
- eBay – 2,000 hours development & 200 hours per month maintenance
- Plenty of Fish – 2,000 hours development & 200 hours per month maintenance
What should you ask your web design firm?
There are a couple of things that I would always recommend you ask your web design firm before getting started with them.
- Talk to some previous clients to see how responsive and supportive the firm was
- Ask a few previous clients what the cost / timeline overruns turned out to be
- Did they find working with the team pleasant?
Web designers are notoriously grumpy sometimes, so you should be able to forgive a little bit of that (it’s a stressful job, like working in a kitchen) but what matters (also like working in a kitchen) is how well the final piece turned out and if it got out on time.
