“How much does a website cost?” It’s the first question most clients ask us, which is fair enough. Nobody wants to send an enquiry into the void and get a number back with three too many zeros on it.
Here’s our attempt at a straight answer.
Why “it depends” isn’t just a cop-out
It genuinely does depend, as a five-page brochure site for a local tradesperson and a bespoke ecommerce platform with custom integrations are not the same job, and pricing them the same would be daft. What actually moves the number is things like:
- How many pages and how much custom design work they need
- Whether you need bespoke functionality (booking systems, member areas, integrations with other software) or a more standard build
- Content: are you writing it, or do you need copywriting, photography and video too
- Ecommerce or not, and how many products you’re selling
- SEO foundations built in from day one, versus bolted on later
The honest answer is that a decent business website can run anywhere from a few hundred quid for a basic template through to tens of thousands for a fully bespoke build with more complex functionality. The trick is working out where your business actually sits on that scale and the job your online presence is doing.
The real cost isn’t just the build
Here’s the bit nobody mentions enough: a website isn’t a one-off purchase, it’s more like a company car. You don’t just buy it and forget about it, you’ve got to keep it running.
Website maintenance covers things like security updates, hosting, backups, plugin updates and the odd bit of troubleshooting when something breaks (and something always breaks eventually). Skip it and you’re looking at a slow, vulnerable, increasingly broken site a year or two down the line. It’s not the exciting part of the conversation, but it’s the part that actually protects your investment.
Cheap now, expensive later
We’ve lost count of the number of businesses who’ve come to us after going for the cheapest option first time round, only to end up paying twice; once for the bargain build, and again for us to fix or rebuild it properly a year later. A website built on shaky foundations, weak code, no proper SEO structure, no thought given to how it’ll scale, tends to cost more in the long run than getting it reyt the first time.
That’s not us saying “always go premium.” It’s us saying ask what’s actually included before you say yes to a number. A cheap quote that doesn’t include proper planning, strategic decisionsmaking, testing, mobile optimisation, basic SEO setup or any support after launch.
What we’d suggest
Before you go shopping for quotes, get clear on three things; what you actually need the site to do, roughly how many pages or products you’re working with, and what are the business aims and objectives from the website.
We’re always happy to have that conversation properly, hard sell, just an honest chat about what you need and what it’ll actually cost to do it well.
