It's the first question almost everyone asks, and the honest answer is that it depends on what the website has to do. A five-page site for a dental practice and an online store with three hundred products are different jobs, and they should be priced differently. This guide explains what actually drives the cost, so you can compare quotes properly instead of guessing.
What decides the price
- Pages and content. How many pages, and how different they are from each other. Ten pages built from the same layout cost less than five that each need their own design.
- Custom design or a template. A design made around your business takes longer than a theme with your logo dropped in, but it's the difference between looking like you and looking like everyone else.
- What the site has to do. Contact forms are simple. Bookings, registrations, payments, member areas and calculators are software, and they're priced like software.
- E-commerce. The number of products, how they vary (sizes, colours, custom options), payment gateways, shipping rules and stock management all add work.
- Integrations. Connecting to accounting software, a CRM, a courier or a mailing platform is where a lot of hidden effort lives.
- Who supplies the content. If the copy and photos are ready, the build moves quickly. If they need to be written or sourced, that's extra time.
Template sites versus custom builds
Template sites are cheaper upfront because most of the design already exists. The catch is that you inherit everything the template does, including the parts you don't need, and changing it later can cost more than building it properly in the first place. A custom build starts from your business, your content and what you want visitors to do, and it only includes what you actually use.
Custom doesn't have to mean exotic. Most of the websites we build run on WordPress, which your team can update themselves. The difference is that the design and structure are made for you.
The costs that come after launch
A quote for the build is only part of the picture. Budget for these too:
- Domain name. Renewed every year.
- Hosting and email. Monthly or annual. Cheap hosting is often slow and poorly supported, which costs you more in lost visitors than you save.
- Maintenance. Updates, backups, security monitoring and small changes. Skipping it is how sites get hacked. Our website maintenance page explains why.
- Changes and additions. New pages, new products or new features as the business grows.
Why a fixed quote matters
A range like "between X and Y" tends to end at Y, or above it. We quote every project as a fixed figure once we've seen your specification, and the quote stays valid for ten working days. A 50% deposit starts the work and the balance is due before handover, so you always know exactly what you're paying and when.
Red flags in a cheap quote
- You won't own the site, or the developer keeps the logins.
- Hosting is bundled in and you can't move it elsewhere.
- No mention of how it will work on phones.
- No backups, no updates and no plan for after launch.
- No examples of live work you can actually click through.
How to get an accurate quote
The more a developer knows upfront, the more accurate the quote. Before you ask for one, put together:
- What the website needs to do, in plain words.
- A rough list of pages, or the number of products for a store.
- Two or three websites you like, and what you like about them.
- Whether your copy and photos are ready.
- Any deadline you're working to.
Send that to us through the contact form and you'll usually have a fixed quote within one working day.