How much do you charge to build a website?

That’s usually one of the first questions we get asked when clients call. Short Answer: It depends. We know that’s not what you want to hear. You’re looking for a ballpark figure you can use to determine how much you need to save, or you need a quick quote to carry back to your boss. We get it. But so many factors go into a website that it’s almost impossible to give you a figure without getting some more information from you. Here’s the great news, though… There is no cost involved in calling us and speaking to someone who will help you figure out exactly what you want in a website, and develop a quote based on your needs.So feel free to give us a call or send us a message and we’ll help you get started. To give you a better understanding of what goes into pricing a website project, here are some of the factors which go into preparing your quote:

1. Brand Identity

Does your business have an existing brand identity, i.e. a logo, colours, preferred fonts, etc. or will we have to create one for you? It will cost more to create an identity from scratch, which is needed for the design process.

2. Redesign

Is this a redesign of an old site or will this be the first website for the business? In some cases, there are elements from the old site which can be brought over to the new site, which will reduce the cost and time spent in development.

3. Special Features or Requests

If you have specific must-have features in mind based on concepts you’ve seen before, these may cost extra to be developed.

4. Budget

Our clients often have an idea of how much they ideally want to spend on their website. If we know that figure, we can suggest ideas that fit into that budget. If what you want is outside of your budget, we can suggest alternatives.

5. Photography

It’s hard to find a website without beautiful images these days. Those pictures have to come from somewhere. We often ask our clients to provide these images themselves, however we can source stock photos or hire a photographer on your behalf to take them for you.

6. Web Content

Another essential element of any website is the copy. ‘Copy’ refers to the words that provide information to your audience. We also ask our clients to provide this as well, however we can find someone to create this content if required.Of course, you can write this content yourself, but a professional will be better equipped to include the right keywords to get found by search engines, and write in a tone that’s perfect for your audience.

7. E-Commerce

If you want visitors to be able to browse your products and/or buy from you online, this is going to require additional work to create your online store.

8. Domain

Do you have an existing website URL (ours is hypertextwebsolutions.com) or will we have to purchase one for you?

9. Hosting & Maintenance

Do you plan to take over the site and do everything yourself (or hire someone to do it for you) once we have completed the building process, or would you like us to continue monitoring it and updating it for you? (Quick Note: Your website is really a set of files, and hosting is a rental fee you pay for storage space for these files so that they may be accessed on the Internet. More details on this and other website jargon to come in a future post.) As you can see, there really is a lot to consider when providing you with a quote for your website. Hopefully, this information can help you with identifying some of the requirements you might have, which will make our conversation a lot smoother when you contact us to provide a quote for your website.