How Much Does a Website Cost? A Complete Pricing Guide

The importance of spending on professional web design.

Why pay well for a good professional website? That is the question for most businesses who have so many other priority items and their budgets are already stretched. It is a valid question and varies from business to business and industry to industry.

As a web design agency with more than two decades of experience in the field, it quite often falls on us to try and convince the clients to shell out for a professionally designed website even at a higher cost.

Some of the points we put forward are obvious and some are not:

• A website is many times the first touch point with the client and the impression it creates dictates your entire sales cycle with the customer.
• A well designed site helps the prospective customer find the right information faster and hence speeds up the buying decision or allows them to get in touch with your sales team.
• Designing a website can be a difficult process. The more professional the team you hire the better the outcome will be and with less hassle and pain. An agency such as ours has proven SOPs and systems to create high quality sites fast, within time and budget. That’s a big plus.

Pricing varies based on different factors.

A website is a service based product. Unlike many products on the market, web design has a high degree of variability in pricing. Some factors are deliverables based and some are intangibles:

Tangible cost factors:

• Type of Website (Simple business site, eCommerce, portfolio, custom web apps).
• Design Complexity (Template-based vs. custom design).
• Number of Pages (Small vs. large websites).
• Functionality & Features (Forms, booking systems, payment gateways, memberships, etc.).
• SEO & Performance Optimization (Basic SEO vs. in-depth optimization).

Intangible cost factors:

• Country / region that the website is being designed due costs of talent and infrastructure
• Experience / Reputation of the web design agency
• Market supply and demand constraints

Cost Breakdown by Website Type

Below are some of the common types of web design projects we handle. The prices are for guidance only and will depend on the specific requirements of each client. But these can be used as a good rule of thumb to estimate your website design costs.

Additional Costs to Consider

Aside from design and development there are a few more costs that go along with a website design project. Most agencies will share these additional costs upfront and include them in the proposal. Some unscrupulous ones might spring them on you afterwards. It's always a good idea to ask for hidden/additional costs at the signup stage.

• Domain & Hosting Fees (Rs.5,000/- to Rs.1.00,000/- per year depending on provider).
• Premium Plugins & Extensions (Security, Live Chat, Chatbots, SEO tools, special functionalities).
• Licensed images & videos Most times the agency will use standard images from their library subscriptions without charging additional or they may take from a free resource. It’s always best if the clients provide their own photos and images as it creates more realistic content.
• Ongoing Maintenance (Rs.5000/- to Rs.15000/- per month for Website updates, security patches, backups). It’s a good idea to include an Annual Maintenance Contract with the main design project.
• Marketing & SEO (Ongoing costs for traffic generation and optimization). It is surprising how many clients expect the website to generate business as soon as it’s launched. Without marketing and SEO the site will not generate leads for you.

Many web design agencies will bundle a variety of these services into their main proposal so make sure you ask for a breakup of what’s included and what is not.

Types of website design vendors and what are their strengths and weakness

When selecting an agency for your website design project there are a myriad of options from the very expensive Ad agencies to low cost freelancers. There are tradeoffs in each as shared below:

How to Choose the Right Web Design Service for You

Depending on your situation you can evaluate based on the following

If all things are equal, how do I choose one?

I usually recommend the following factors for choosing an agency if all things are equal:

• How good is their past portfolio of work? Does it match your tastes and expectations? (Most important factor)
• How is their presentation? Does their representative know what he is talking about? Are they confident and experienced?
• Are they transparent? Have they outlined all possible costs for you and are not concealing hidden costs? (Trust your gut)
• Do they appear to be here for the long term.The relationship does not end at design alone. Can they support you in marketing, SEO and grow the site along with your business.
• A gut feel for who you should go with. The subconscious will notice many factors and give you a signal whom to go with.