Ultimate Guide to Website Pricing

WEBSITE
PRICING
THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO
LEARN WHAT IMPACTS THE COST OF
A WEBSITE REDESIGN SO YOU CAN
BUDGET ACCORDINGLY

DIFFERENCES
THAT IMPACT
PRICING
Budgeting can be confusing when you ask one
developer a quote on a website and receive a
$500 quote, get a $15,000 quote from another
developer, and are then told $8,000 from a third
developer. Why is there so much variation in
pricing?
WEBSITE PRICING

TEMPLATED SITES VS. CUSTOM SITES
Templated sites have really proliferated over the years,
mostly due to the popularity of the WordPress platform.
While there are many good templates available, most
template sites lack identity and direction – a result of
both you-get-what-you-pay-for and one-size-fits-all
website solutions. Custom sites, as the name implies,
are sites that a developer specs out, designs, and
programs to your unique branding, product/service
offering, and target audience. In addition to better
presenting your business online, custom sites tend to
perform better in SEO and in converting traffic to
customers; however, they require more development
time, and thus more cost.
DEVELOPER DIFFERENCES THAT IMPACT WEBSITE PRICING
"Custom sites tend to erform
etter at SEO and in con erting
traffic to customers."
100
75
50
25
0

LONE DEVELOPER VS. DEVELOPMENT TEAM
A single developer working out of his/her house will
naturally have a lower operating cost, giving them the
ability to charge considerable less than a design firm.
However, they will be limited in resources and lacking a
depth of knowledge in all the facets of modern web
design and online marketing. A development team has
staff in place for all the different roles involved with a
project, including designers, programmers, search
engine optimization specialists, online marketers,
network administrators, copy writers and consultants.
"A good de elopment team will ha e
the depth of knowledge in all the
facets of modern eb desig ."

IN-HOUSE VS. OUTSOURCED DEVELOPERS
Outsourced developers tend to cost less, but have less
accountability and typically don’t interface with clients. They
also may be overseas, speak a different language (or the
same language, but not as well), have little understanding of
how your business works or how it needs to be marketed,
and can disappear at a moment’s notice. In-house staff work
as a team, consulting in person with one another and
complimenting each other’s abilities. They are invested in
the company they work for, can interface directly with
clients, and are not located in different time zones.
If the 're not i -house de elo ers,
then the 'r ... el , you kno ...

COOKIE CUTTER VS. SOLUTION ORIENTED
Creating the right solution for a client involves more work
than implementing a cookie-cutter approach. A low-cost
quote from a developer usually means they are not planning
anything different for your site than what was already done
for their last 10 clients. Additionally, a cut-rate price on a
website usually equates to sub-par quality of work. There is
a premium for the top talent.
"A lo -cost quote from a de elo er
usually means nothing different is
planned for your site than what was
already done for their last 10 clients."

AVAILABILITY
Low cost developers need to stamp out projects
as quickly as possible in order to make their
margins. When you ring their phone, it means
extra time they have to spend with you, which
cuts into those margins. Most low-cost
developers rely on voice mail or are email
contact only, and responses can take days or
weeks.
BEST PRACTICES
The web has changed dramatically over the years.
The process for building a website now is not the
same as it was in 2007. Small development
companies and independent developers have a
much harder time trying to keep up with all the
current best practices they need to adhere to. This
is why many of these developers are still creating
websites the same way as they did in 2007.
Investing in a developer that is developing with
current best practices will return better results and
a site with a longer usable lifespan.

QUALITY CONTROL
Attention to detail is crucial, but not something
you get with bargain-priced developers. Ask
your developer what kind of quality control
measures they use to ensure coding and content
mistakes are minimized.
LOCATION
The physical location of a developer will impact
development fees. Big cities have a higher cost of
living and doing business, which will be reflected in
the fees from a big city developer.

WEBSITE
FEATURES THAT
IMPACT PRICE
WEBSITE FEATURES THAT IMPACT PRICING
Even when talking to only one developer, there
are numerous website variables that impact the
final cost they will quote you for your website.
So what are the main variables that a
developer will refer to when determining a
price for your website?

CMS
A content management system (CMS) allows the
owner of a website to make their own content
updates in-house, without having to pay for (or
wait for) a web developer. Most websites are
built this way now, but the added convenience
and future cost savings a CMS allows does
impact the initial cost of the website.
VISUAL DESIGN
The extent and quality of the design work impacts
the final cost of a website. A visually stunning site
will naturally involve more billable design labor
than a generically simple design.

E-COMMERCE
Adding the ability for customers to buy products
on a website changes its structural foundation.
There is more groundwork that needs to be laid
for an e-commerce site than one that simply
displays informational pages.
CUSTOM LOGIC
The more unique your website’s functionality needs
to be, the more labor is typically associated with its
creation. For instance, do you have a proprietary
accounting software program that you want to
interface with? Do you have a brand new social
commerce idea? Then a programmer will need to
start from scratch for your project.

TOTAL SCOPE
The scope of your project has an obvious impact
on its final cost. Like the blueprints of a house, a
bigger scope will increase the final cost. There is
a cost in time and labor associated with every
page and feature added to your site.
CONTENT CREATION
If you don’t have existing content that can be used
on the website, new content will have to be
produced. Creating content and writing copy takes
additional labor time that gets added to your
project cost.

QC / TESTING
Attention to detail is becoming a rarity these
days. Quality Control (QC) and testing both deal
with attention to detail, and are frequently
overlooked, or avoided, by developers that need
to keep their costs down or who underbid their
projects. It is important that your site is right
when it goes live, so ask your developer what
kind of QC and testing, if any, is included with the
pricing you received.
RUSH FEES
All developers have a production schedule already
in place before you ever pick up the phone to call
them or walk in the door to meet with them. They
have projects with deadlines already established
and in process. If your new project needs to be
done immediately, usually the only way to make
that happen is for development staff to put in
overtime, which is an additional cost that gets
transferred to you via a rush fee.

INTEGRATIONS
Integrating with third party tools, plug-ins,
widgets and add-ons can impact the site
development cost a little, a lot, or somewhere in
between. Cost is determined on a case-by-case
basis, depending on the requirements by the
third party and the ease of interfacing with their
tools.
COMMITTEES
There should always be a single point-of-contact
and a single decision maker on a project. Websites
that are designed by committee have a bloated
development process that adds considerable time
to the project, and this time is billable. NASA
figured this out in the 1960’s and assigned only one
person to speak to the astronauts on a mission, the
CAPCOM. If the astronauts had to listen to and take
direction from everyone in the control room, we’d
still be trying to get to the moon - and spending
more money in the process!

MOBILE DESIGN
In years past, before smart phones and tablets,
web developers did not have to worry about
mobile responsive design – everything was
displayed on a desktop computer monitor and a
10-pound laptop was as mobile as it got. Now
developers have to worry about desktop, laptop,
small smart phones, large smart phones, and a
huge variety of tablet sizes and operating
systems. To create a website that is flexible
enough to adapt to all these screen and platform
options – and look good in the process – requires
more development time which adds to the site
cost. The same website built today costs more
than it did 10 years ago due to the extra displays
and platforms the site needs to work with.
SEO
Whether it is just making sure the proper HTML
tags are in place, implementing a full SEO strategy
with specialized landing page research and
development, or something in between, the
amount of time a developer spends on SEO impacts
the final cost of the website.

HIDDEN COST
HIDDEN COSTS
OK, so we’ve mapped out all the things that add
to the cost of building the website, but now let’s
talk about the costs involved with maintaining the
website – the “hidden” costs. Most people don’t
consider these post-launch costs, but they are
crucial to know before you have a realistic idea of
your website’s true long-term cost.

HOSTING
The website has to exist somewhere. Much like a
business has to rent office or store space for a
physical location, hosting is the renting of server
space so your site is available on the internet.
Hosting costs can vary greatly. If you are paying
under $20/month for it, you are on a bulk hosting
service, which will negatively impact site
performance. If you have an e-commerce website,
you’ll need to pay more than hosting of a
standard site. In rarer instances, if your site is
complex and involves extremely high amounts of
traffic, you may need a dedicated hosting service,
which can be hundreds of dollars per month.
However, having "extremely high amounts of
traffic" is what we call a good problem to have!
HIDDEN COSTS
E-COMMERCE FEES
If you have an e-commerce website you will have
additional fees to contend with. As mentioned in
the hosting information to the left, you will have a
higher hosting cost for e-commerce, but you will
also need an SSL certificate (actually, all websites
now need an SSL), a support plan for the shopping
cart platform, subscriptions to a tax service that
collects the correct amount of tax for your state(s),
and payment processing fees as just some
examples.

MAINTENANCE
If it’s built, it’s done, right? Not exactly. Websites
are never finished. Even if you never change your
site content, you still will have to update it to
keep up with changing browser standards, new
technologies, updates to third party integrations,
Google algorithm updates, security updates, and
a myriad of other external factors that can
impact your site. While most of these items are
minimal or gradual in their impact on your site,
they do add up and are hard to accurately plan
for in advance. These updates can be done as-
needed, or as part of an on-going maintenance
plan.
HIDDEN COSTS
MARKETING
People need to know your shiny new website exists
before they can go to it. Marketing is crucial to any
business, and your website is your business online.
With affordable costs compared to traditional
marketing, you will want to take advantage of
online marketing services such as Google Pay-Per-
Click advertising, social media campaigns and
retargeting techniques.

HOW TO REDUCE DEVELOPMENT COST
HOW TO REDUCE DEVELOPMENT COSTS
The best way to reduce development cost is to cover all the details in advance through the process of proper
planning. Determine what you need and eliminate what you don’t, so the proposal you sign is appropriately
spec’ed. While you still may have times when changes to the proposal spec makes sense, proper planning in
advance can minimize the need for costly change orders during development.
Providing your developer with hi-res and/or vector digital copies of your assets at the beginning of the
development process helps control costs. If a developer has to recreate your logo because the only copy
you have of it is a scan from a business card, you will have to pay for the extra labor of creating the
appropriate file.

CONCLUSION
CONCLUSION
As you can see, a lot goes into determining the price for a website. It would be easy to read this
information and become quite depressed at all the variables that can cost you money. However, a
properly developed website can be a valuable asset and a major contributor to your bottom line,
repaying for itself many times over. Be wise, plan appropriately and you will make the right decision for
your budget and your business.

AUTHOR:
BRENT HAESEKER
CONTACT US
Brent Haeseker started in website development in 1998 and has
been working for NetSource Technologies since 2000, when he
started as a website designer. Since 2004 he has been a website
consultant and he has helped hundreds of businesses, both large
and small, navigate the redesign process. He is also the author of
"Redesigning Your Business Website", available on Amazon.com.
To speak with Brent about your website, call him today at:
1-800-709-3240 or email him at: bhaeseker@netsourceinc.com

Ultimate Guide to Website Pricing

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