The Transportation Analogy
When we tell people what we do for a living, we often get asked the question, “How much does a website cost?” Answering that question is a lot like asking, “How much does it cost to get from Madison, Wisconsin to Alaska?” The answer is: it totally depends.
Web design pricing is all over the place. There is an enormous range of options for building your own website and having a website built for you, just like there is a wide range of ways to get from Madison to Alaska. The cost of building a website could be totally free if you do it yourself, up to tens of thousands of dollars for a huge website with tons of heavy-hitting functionality. Take a look a below to understand more.
1. Absolutely Free Website = Hitchhiking
If you really wanted to get to Alaska for free, you could hitch a ride with someone else. This is the equivalent to starting a free blog on a website like Blogger.com or a free website on Google. Your URL might be something like www.newbusiness.blogger.com, which means you don’t have any costs associated with it, but it also means that you don’t really own it either.
Who should have these kinds of websites:
This type of site is fine for someone who wants to display their resume or post family photos or have a personal blog, but a business owner should at the very least have their own domain name if they want to be taken seriously.
2. Practically Free = Taking the Greyhound
There are a lot of do-it-yourself, build your own websites out there. Usually you have to pay for hosting and a domain name, but those costs are very minimal (around $15/month). You can usually pick from a wide array of templates and customize those with colors you want and add your business logo, etc. If you have a lot of time on your hands, are generally tech savvy and have a bit of a design eye, these websites can look fine.
Some of the time, however, these do-it-yourself-websites don’t look professionally done because, well, they weren’t done by a professional. It is difficult to find a professional web designer or website developer who will work on this kind of website even once you have a little cash to spend. These content management systems are created for people who don’t know any “code” (which is a benefit for laypeople), but it also means often you can’t actually change the code behind the scenes, so there is only so much a person can do to change the way the website looks. It is frustrating as a designer or developer to try to finagle these websites into doing what you want without the ability to access the code or site files, so most professionals won’t bother with it.
Another disadvantage is that you do not own the code on a website like this, so for example, if the company were to double its hosting fees, you would either have to pay up or start from scratch at a new company. You can’t take the files or the work you’ve done with you.
This type of website is equivalent to riding the Greyhound to California. It totally works to get you from one place to the other, but it usually takes a long time and sometimes it stinks.
Who should have these kinds of web sites:
These type of sites are fine for the truly budget strapped start-up business owner with a lot of time on their hands. You can at least get your information out there to possible customers and have a real domain name to put on your business cards. Keep in mind that going the free route or the almost free route could be both painfully slow and somewhat dangerous.
3. The Monthly Plan Website = Leasing A Car
Some web design companies have a business model where they charge a monthly fee for your website design instead of a one-time design and development fee. Usually these companies will build the website for you using professional web designers (a plus!) and they will make you sign a contract for a year or two years. Often they will include hosting, and an annual or bi-annual website refresh as part of the deal. These sites can run anywhere from free setup and $100/month fee to a $2000 set-up fee and $500/month. These websites can have the advantage of not costing an arm and a leg to get started, but you could set yourself up for being held hostage by the web design company. Usually companies with this business model control your website hosting, your Google Analytics and other important accounts. And if you want to change providers (either because your are unhappy or because they raise their rates), you will usually have to start from scratch.
In addition, usually your monthly fees don’t actually include additional work like change content or doing search engine optimization. That would be extra.
The advantages to these sites are that you have a professional web designer develop the site for you, saving you a lot of time and frustration. The site will look and function great, and your customers will be impressed.
The main disadvantage to this kind of a website is that usually you don’t get to own the code, so again, if the company goes out of business or doubles their prices, you either have to pay up or start from scratch.
The other thing to note is that if you are paying $250/month just to have the website running (I’m not talking about any service agreements for maintenance or SEO you might have), then the website over the long run could cost a lot more money than a one-time fee site. It’s like renting a car for your trip. It might be a more affordable solution, but you don’t have much freedom and you don’t own the car.
Who should have these kinds of websites:
These sites are good for small businesses who simply can’t afford to hire a web designer that charges larger one-time fees. They usually look professional and function well. You save time and frustration by not having to build the site yourself, but you forfeit a lot of control.
4. The Open Source Content Management Site = Driving Your Car
Open Source Content Management Systems such as WordPress, Joomla! and Drupal are in our opinion the way to go for business websites. Open source means that the code that runs the website is free and totally transferable. No one person or company owns it. The cost of these kind of sites ranges widely based on how many pages the site is, what kind of functionality you need and how much experience the web designer has. The range is anywhere from $500 to $25,000. Are you talking about a basic 1-page informational website, or are you talking about a 140-page website with built-in ecommerce and a shopping cart?
Every major web hosting company will support these type of websites, and there are probably dozens of web designers and developers in Madison alone who would be able to work on this type of site for you if you want to add features, change the design, etc.
And another benefit is that the site is scaleable, so if you start out with a $1,000 website and decide you want to add a shopping cart a few years down the road, you can do that without having to start from scratch.
Open source websites provide value, freedom and the ability to get help whenever needed. You can’t be held hostage by one website company as long as you have the hosting and domain passwords. It is like driving your car to Alaska. You have freedom to take whatever roads you want, listen to whatever music you want, eat at whatever restaurants you want and you can ride in style.
Who should have these kinds of websites:
These web sites are ideal for small and medium sized businesses. You can have high-functioning, great looking professional websites that rival even the largest corporations.
5. The One-of-a-Kind Open Source CMS Website = Driving Your Luxury Car
A one-of-a-kind professionally designed WordPress website (or other Open Source platform) has all of the awesome features of the above, but it has the added benefit that the website is designed expressly for your business. This means that your site will be totally unique looking and branded exactly the way you want. There are design details and bells and whistles that will wow your customers and differentiate yourself from your competitors.
The cost for a custom WordPress website ranges anywhere from $5,000 to $50,000. Again, this depends on the size and functionality of the website and how much experience the web design company has.
Who should have these kinds of websites:
These sites are perfect for any size of business that wants a high-functioning website with special functionality that also looks amazing. If your business focuses heavily on branding and wants a unique website to showcase your business’s style, creativity or attitude, a custom design is a must.
6. The Custom Website with Maintenance Plan = Taking a Commercial Flight
These kinds of websites are all of the same benefits of #5 and #6, but the main difference is that the business owner does not want to making changes and updates themselves. They want someone else to manage the website for them. This is a good idea if the business owner can make more money doing something they are good at rather than trying to fiddle with the website. Of if the website if fairly complicated, it may be too difficult for a layperson to handle without knowledge of html, php, javascript or CSS.
The start-up cost would be similar to the above option with more ongoing fees. Depending on whether you are on a monthly contract or hourly deal, you could pay anywhere from $40-150/hour for maintenance to $200-$1,000/month for a contract. This is still cheaper than having a staff person, and then you know your website will always look and function beautifully.
Who should have these kinds of websites:
Medium and large businesses that can’t quite afford a full-time staff person for their website but that are going to need a lot of attention, design, content management and development for their website on a regular basis.
7. The In-house Website Staff = Taking Your Private Jet
If you want an ecommerce or social media website that looks and functions any way you want, and you don’t ever want to have to look at it or do anything to it yourself, you may want to think about hiring a few people on your staff. Corporations like Target and Facebook have dozens of people on their staff who manage their websites. They usually have designers to do the beauty work and developers to do the nerdy work. They also usually have writers and editors for the content, social media specialists for updating their Twitter, Facebook and Linked In profiles constantly. This type of operation could cost several hundred thousand dollars a year. I doubt anyone reading this article is interested in setting up this type of operation, but if you are, I’d love to take you out for lunch and discuss business!
