What Should Website Design Cost?

by Rick Morris.  May 6, 2008

Did you know that website designers can demand up to $150 per hour?  Or that some mid-level websites are being built for $50,000+?  On the other hand, you see some web designers offering low-budget websites for a couple hundred dollars.

How does one read between the prices to see what is really included in any particular website?  Simple . . . find out what the average hourly rate is for website design in your area.  Additional measures should include a thorough understanding of what you actually need in a website, and whether you are going to require monthly hosting and maintenance.

What Do I Need in a Website?

For the layman, hiring the right web developer can be a daunting task.  You typically have no clue as to what is required in getting a website live on the Net.  Worse yet, you don't know what to expect when budgeting for a website.  You know you need a site to go with your marketing plan, at least just to even the playing field with your competitors.

Questions come to mind when you first start your search for a good web design company.  What do I need to do before I can even consider entering the cyber world with a professional presence?  Where do I start?  More importantly, what's it going to cost? 

The best way to determine what a website is going to cost is to first develop a plan.  Figure out what your message is going to be.  Do I want a flashy website full of eye-candy and movement?  Do I want a standard (static) website that will direct people to contact me?  Or, do I just want to collect leads via an online form? 

Unless a need for selling products or services is in order, the average small business typically can get by with a simple 5-30 page website.  This will be enough to splatter the business logo, and offer information about the business, what it does, and a quick overview of products or services.  It can also present a nice photo gallery of items for your visitor's viewing pleasure, and will most certainly have "Contact", "About" and "FAQs" pages.

After you determine the style of website you require (flashy or not, static or dynamic), it's best to next identify the pages you are going to need on the site.  As I said in the previous paragraph, at a minimum you should have three or four essential pages.  Other pages may include:

• Warranty
• Sub-product pages (describing individual items)
• Services
• Photo Gallery
• Free Quote
• Sitemap
• Policies
• Terms
• Etc.

And, this is just a small list.  Your page names will vary depending on the type of business you have and what you want to display to your potential viewers.

If you look at this site (WebDesignerLive.com), you will see there are several hundred pages.  An extensive listing of design template categories are shown in the left column, along with the primary links at the top left corner of each page (depicting my most important elements, err . . . products).  Then, you have a combination of the basic links (Home, FAQs, Web Design Articles, About, Policies, and Contact) shown at the top and bottom of the page(s).

Take a look at some of your competitor's websites to get an idea of what they are doing.  Write down the names of the links on their websites.  Then, see if some of these links are necessary for your website.  In many cases, you will want to present similar information your your website.

Get a Website Design Quote

Now that you have your plan, and an idea of what and how many website pages you are going to need, and what those pages should be named, it's time to get a website quote.

Hourly or page rates for web design work can vary from one designer to the next.  Some designers, especially start-ups, a friend of the family, or college students will just dream up a price they think is fair to the client.  Two or three hundred dollars for a few pages seems fine with them.

Of course, with low-budget prices come low-budget websites.  Then, there's the question of keeping the site maintained.  Who is going to do your changes?  Better yet, what is that going to cost?

Also, it's important to consider where your site will be hosted and what happens when the hosting account expires.  It's scary to think what would happen to your site if you lost contact with your web designer.  Essentially, you're website will go down.  Worst yet, your college friend, who has now graduated, is long gone.  Or that start-up has gone out of business . . . with your domain name in tow.

As a professional web developer, I hear this all the time.  Potential clients call me frantically asking if there is some way to recover their domain name or website.  They have spent hundreds or thousands of dollars on promoting the name and site.  And, they had plenty of site visitors before things went sour.  They didn't get an Agreement in writing and were never provided a copy of their web site's files.  And, now their designer is nowhere to be found!

I can usually help when this happens.  But, often times a complete website plan is in order. 

Professional web designers will provide a written agreement for your future website.  It will outline the number of pages, domain name registration, website hosting, and other key elements.  This is important since both the web designer and the client want to know a solid plan is rendered.

To determine what it may cost to get your website live on the Net, you can submit your needs to several web designers and see what each of them will quote.  Some quote by hourly work, while others, like WebDesignerLive.com quote by the number of pages you will need.

After doing your research, you'll soon discover that getting a professional website developed (designed, hosted, maintained) is typically going to warrant about $250 to $300 per page.  Hourly rates for the same will be between $75 and $300.

Prices, of course vary depending on the location of the web design business.  If the designer is located in a larger city, you are typically going to pay more than you would for a designer located in small-town America.  The services are essentially the same.  It's just that a web designer in a larger city can demand more because the client base is greater.

WebDesignerLive.com is located near Asheville, North Carolina.  This is a small city representing the western part of the state.  Because of this, and the fact that the cost of living is far better than say, New York or California, we charge on the low end of the spectrum.  Of course, our customer satisfaction is high because we take care of our clients.  And, our websites rest on GoDaddy.com servers (just like the sites of our competitors in larger cities).

Other elements to hiring the right web designer involve:

• Choosing someone you can talk to

• Knowing you can rely on the designer to deliver when it comes time for updates to your site

• Choosing a designer you can trust

• Finding an experienced web design business

• Making sure your website is hosted on a professional server at a respectable company (like GoDaddy.com)

• Understanding what monthly fees are associated with your website

Can I Have Fries with That?

After you have an idea of what your website requires in pages, and you have that solid quote from a respectable web design business, you now want to determine what it is going to take to keep your site active on the Internet.  Where is it going to be hosted?  Who is going to maintain it?  What about changes, updates, etc.?  What's that, you say?  I thought I already paid for the site? 

Well, sure you did.  Your site was built to your specifications.  But now you need to put it somewhere.  And that's where this talk about "hosting" and "maintenance" come into play.

Make sure you clearly understand what the monthly rates for not only hosting, but the maintenance of your website, are going to be.  Usually, you can have it one of two ways.  You can choose to be happy and content with your newly designed website and simply pay for hosting.  This can range anywhere from a few dollars to about $100 per month.  Or, you can choose to include a maintenance plan so you will be able to send in changes to your website (which are usually handled by your designer).  Add another $50 to $200 for the maintenance plan.

A maintenance plan is like insurance.  You pay a little bit each month to know you are covered should something go wrong . . . or, in this case, should you need a few updates here and there.  You could opt to just pay the hourly rate for any updates that arise.  But, this is where unethical web designers will stick it to you.  $150 just to add a few images and a block of text?!!!!  That's right.  A web designer who charges by the hour can quote you anything and you'll likely take it.  I mean, you got to get those changes up!

At WebDesignerLive.com, we charge a small monthly fee for hosting.  This includes unlimited change requests to your site.  Clearly, we scrutinize potential web clients prior to "bringing them onboard" so we aren't bound into updating a particular website 5 times per day, every day of the year!  And, we don't include this option for clients wanting an e-commerce website.  Our clients can cancel the hosting and maintenance fee at any time.

In closing if this confuses you, don't be alarmed.  Getting a website is like purchasing the services of an Attorney.  You are usually going to be at the mercy of the one you choose.  So, it's important to select a web designer that is experienced.  Moreover, you want a web designer who you can trust.  An honest web designer will take care of you without dropping a bomb in your marketing budget.

At WebDesignerLive.com, we have built a reputation on trust.  We believe our clients come first and foremost.  And, we don't put our name at the bottom of any website until we have built it to perfection.

So, to answer your question, "What does web site design cost?" you can expect to pay a minimum of $500 to $1,000 for a standard 5-10 page website with some functionality.  Most of our clients choose our Silver Plan, which comes with 25 pages and virtually every option for a dynamic website.  It costs about $2,000.