There are tons of people out there who will try to convince you they can build a cheap website – uncles, cousins, friends, overseas companies, shady SEO businesses – but how much does it cost to build a real website? By “a real website” I mean, not just a poorly-coded template brochure site. I mean a well-thought out, effective business tool that will generate sales and make you money. What’s involved in building a fully functioning website that actually helps your business, and how much does it cost? Let’s explore the possibilities in 2017.
The best way to ballpark a fair price is to break down the different types of websites, and assigning a proper cost estimate to each one.
One-page landing site
Landing pages are all the rage right now, and cost anywhere between a few hundred dollars to a few thousand. To be more specific, a marketing landing page, or a one-page website, is usually a destination site for a company’s marketing promotion or sale. It’s where the users will quite literally “land” when they click on an advertisement. If well designed, these types of websites are fantastic at converting users into buyers. Expect a well designed landing page to take anywhere from 8-20 hours to create, depending on the scope. Most agencies in Ottawa charge $100-$125 per hour, so that can add up to anywhere between $800 to $2,500. Expect to pay around $50-75 dollars an hour for a quality freelancer.
Small 5-10 page informational website
Most small business websites that serve as a sort-of online business card are typically composed of 5 to 10 pages. They usually contain simple information about the company, a few images, maybe a few promotion or product descriptions, and a contact page. This type of website can take anywhere from 20-60 hours to develop. Expect to pay anywhere between $1,500-$3,000 with a quality freelancer or $3000-$6000 with a full-service agency.
Medium 10-25 page informational website
Some larger-sized companies, or even medium-size businesses opt for more engaging websites, and those can include a lot more than your standard brochure information. If you want your website to really stand out from the competition, want a fully custom, original design, and need interactive animations throughout the site, you can expect to pay anywhere between $2,500-$5,000 with a good freelancer, or $5,000 to $10,000 at agency price.
Small e-commerce website
By small e-commerce websites, we mean simple online stores with a few products built with online platforms like Shopify, or Woocommerce for WordPress. Assuming that you already have product photography, and a good understanding of how you want to sell those products, your cost will most likely be the same as a medium-sized business website. That doesn’t include the monthly costs of running an online-store, though!
Corporate website with very large number of pages and posts
I’ve worked on a $50,000 website for a large national corporation that had over 300 pages and posts – yes, those do still exist. For any large scale projects where content is king, you can usually expect the site to take at least 6 months to be completed, and that will probably cost your company anywhere between 100-500 hours of development time.
Large e-commerce website or Custom Web Applications
Unfortunately, if you are looking for these types of websites, you and I might not be a good fit. While I have the skills and capabilities to help every organization, there are not enough hours in the day for me to undertake this type of work alone. All I can tell you is that there is no fixed-price for this type of project – some companies spend millions of dollars on massive web-apps and online stores.
Now that you have a better understanding of the costs involved with each type of different websites, you can make a more informed decision on what your next re-design budget should be. Ready to get started? Contact me today!