Today, everybody needs a website. Your website is your online presence, store, office, and portfolio. It’s where your customers and target audience get a sense of who you are and what you can do for them.
So, whether you have a site already or need to build one, you’re probably wondering how much good web design will cost you. And that’s where we come in.
In this ultimate guide to web design costs, we’ll shed some light on the topic and even show you how to reduce your web design costs.
How Much Does It Cost To Build A Website?
Building a fantastic website is a lot like building a house. The more rooms and features you want to add to it, the more expensive it’ll become.
Just like you’ll pay a different price when buying a mansion instead of buying a cabin, the same rule counts when it comes to planning and building your first website.
But, in addition to features, there are some general costs to think of that will affect the overall cost including the following:
Domain Name
The domain name is your website’s address. The price for it depends on the extension (.com .org or .biz) and your domain registrar.
In our case, the domain name is legiit.com. Our extension is a .com extension. The pricing for various extensions often differs, with .com extensions generally being more expensive than others.
Hosting Fees
Hosting fees are similar to rent. You pay a fee to keep your website up and running. The hosting company that you choose to go with will determine the cost of hosting.
Each host will offer various hosting packages. The packages gradually increase in size, and features, getting more expensive the more features you require.
SSL Certificates
SSL certificates are essential for eCommerce stores. An SSL certification is an indication that a website uses SSL encryption.
This encryption protects transmitted data from being intercepted by malicious hackers. SSL encryption is generally required if you want your customers to pay you online.
eCommerce Functionality
If you want to launch an online store, you’ll have to ensure that your website has eCommerce capabilities.
Standard eCommerce capabilities that can run up your website development costs are payment gateways, shopping carts, and inventory management.
Web Designer
Another critical factor that affects the web design cost is whether you decide to do it yourself or hire a professional to do it for you.
The latter will be more expensive, but they can help you get your website up and running faster. We’ll get into more detail about this further down.
Marketing and SEO
To get traffic and potential customers to your website, you need to invest in search engine optimization and marketing. This will help ensure that your website pops up in the search engine results pages (SERPs) when people are looking for something that you offer.
Maintenance
The final cost factor to consider is that of maintenance. You need to do regular backups of your website, update your products, and continue to market your website.
Having a website is a lot like having a brick-and-mortar business. You’ll have everyday tasks to do, from cleaning to maintenance, to ensure that visitors have the best possible experience.
Why Web Design Costs Have Increased
Today, web design costs have risen quite a bit. Supply and demand drive the majority of this increase.
As ever more businesses realize the importance of having an excellent website, web developers and designers are getting swamped with clients.
Google also has something to do with this increase in pricing. In 2015, Google announced that its search engine algorithm would penalize your website if it isn’t mobile optimized.
This decision has seen thousands of websites redesigned to cater to mobile devices, such as tablets and smartphones.
We find that the ever-more complex websites have given birth to two new design roles. User experience designers (UX) and User Interface designers (UI) are in demand today.
These high-profile designers help businesses fine-tune their website design so that the website is easy to use. The easier your website is to use, the more people will use it, and the higher your sales and conversions will become.
All of this, and much more, has led to website costs constantly increasing.
3 Ways To Design A Website (Plus Pricing)
Luckily, we know a thing or two about web design, so here are our three ways you can design a website on a budget.
Hire A Freelance Web Designer
The easiest, fastest, and most cost-effective option for building a website is hiring the right freelance web designer.
Typically, you’ll need a budget of anything between $80 and $200 to get started. Remember, the more complicated you want your website to be, the pricier it’ll become.
So, to help cut down on costs, it’s essential to chat with a reputable freelance designer about your specific needs.
Website Design and Functionality
For instance, Scott Latham is a UK-based web designer with years of experience building some of the best websites.
He’ll design a stunning home page for you and then charge an additional $24 per page that you’d like to add to your website.
Typically, most businesses will have a HOME page, a SERVICES page, and perhaps a CONTACT page. So, you can expect to pay around $227 for a three-page website.
This flexibility gives you the option to design a website to suit your specific business goals. Their services and their cost will scale according to your ambition.
To make your life a little bit easier, most freelancers will also take care of hosting and domain name registration for you. These services are typically extras, though.
Hosting and domain registration can cost you, on average, an additional $195 per year. So, for $422, you’ll have a three-page website with a year’s hosting.
Search Engine Optimization
Search engine optimization, or SEO, is essential to the success of your website. Simply put, SEO is the science behind getting your website on Google’s first search results page.
You want to be on this page because it’s here where visitors will end up clicking through to your website. Once on your website, your excellent content can convert them into customers.
Instead of sitting and slogging through SEO on your own, we suggest hiring a professional freelancer, such as KickStartSEORanking.
Typically, an SEO optimization package starts around $40 and can go all the way up to at least $200. SEO is essential if you want your website to succeed so it’s worth putting some money aside for it.
eCommerce
An eCommerce website sells products online. Suppose you’re planning on building an eCommerce website with no experience. In that case, it’s best to choose a reliable freelancer to help you out.
Most freelancers, such as Subrata Barua, offer eCommerce development starting from $120 to $200, depending on your specific requirements.
They’ll typically develop your eCommerce site using software such as WooCommerce or Shopify.
Maintenance
Many freelancers also offer monthly maintenance contracts.
Some, like AplusSEO, will take care of all the behind-the-scenes maintenance tasks and issue a monthly detailed maintenance report.
A monthly maintenance contract will only set you back $10 or $20. However, these types of packages can quickly go up to $100 a month for more on-demand support.
Having a webmaster on standby to take care of backups, updates, and general technical issues is a good idea. It’ll save you loads of time and ensure that clients have a pleasant experience on your website.
Design Your Own Website With WordPress
If you’re more of a hands-on entrepreneur, then building your own website using WordPress is an option.
It’ll help cut costs. However, you should expect to invest more time and effort to create a well-designed website. You also run the risk of having a sub-par website that won’t perform well.
If you’re taking a DIY approach, you’ll have to keep the following essential costs in mind:
- Website hosting: starting from $1.60 a month to $50 a month.
- Domain name registration: anything between $10 a month to $20 a month.
- SSL certificate: depending on the provider, anything between $0 to $200 a year.
- Plugins and other integrations: you should budget between $0 and $100 a year.
- WordPress Themes: anything from $0 to $80.
As you can see, you can start a WordPress website for as little as $140 up to $1,220 and beyond.
Website Design
WordPress is one of the most popular web design tools around. Its popularity mainly depends on its ease of use, being open-source, and its customizability.
There are thousands of themes available, from paid to free themes. You can easily customize these themes to suit your business and your branding.
Paid themes will often provide you with more customization options and extra features than free versions. So, depending on your requirements, it may be best to purchase a theme.
If you’re planning on buying a WordPress theme for your website, we suggest that you look at sites such as Envato.
Here you’ll find WordPress themes from as little as $5, all the way up to $55.
Each theme has its strengths and weaknesses and can provide your business with an excellent online presence. It’s essential, though, to choose a suitable theme, or else you’ll end up with a poorly designed website.
If you feel unsure about installing a WordPress theme, you can easily hire a freelancer to do it for you. Typically, it costs as little as $15 to install a premium WordPress theme within 24 hours.
Plugins and Integrations
There are tens of thousands of plugins available to WordPress users. A plugin is a small piece of software that adds new features or enhances existing features.
With plugins, you could add various features, such as social share buttons, payment portals, and even tools to help you optimize your content.
While there are many free plugins available, you may need to pay for certain ones to achieve the functionality you want.
In addition, when installing a WordPress plugin, you need to make sure that it’s compatible with the WordPress theme that you’ve installed.
If you’re worried about the technical specifics, we recommend chatting to a freelancer to help you install those plugins. Their services start from $15.
Search Engine Optimization
With WordPress, you can do SEO on your own.
There are plenty of excellent plugins, such as Yoast, Hubspot, and MailChimp, to help you stay in control of your digital marketing and SEO ranking efforts.
While most of these plugins are free to use, they do have paid plans that open up a plethora of new features.
If, however, you feel that SEO and digital marketing are too complicated for you, you should think about hiring a freelancer. Typically freelancer SEO rates start around $8 a month.
eCommerce Functionality
If you’re a business owner that wants to have an online store, you can expect the cost for your website to increase by quite a bit.
Typically, setting up an online store, including the special plugins, will set you back another $100 to $500 and beyond.
A couple of things that you’ll have to keep in mind are:
- The cost of integration with payment gateways
- The cost of plugins to help with inventory management
- Designing a checkout page
- Adding functional shopping cart tools
- Creating interactive product pages
All of this can quickly drain your budget and take quite some time to set up.
WordPress Maintenance
Once you’ve launched your website and your digital marketing and content creation efforts are running smoothly, you need to look at WordPress maintenance.
Maintenance, and the frequency of it, will depend on the complexity of your website. eCommerce stores will need daily care to ensure that everything runs smoothly.
On the other hand, a website for a small business can do with only regular backups. Typically, you should budget around $100 to $600 a year for maintenance costs.
You could also hire a freelancer to maintain your website for you. Doing this will enable you to focus on growing your business rather than spending loads of time on maintaining it.
Create A Website Using A Website Builder
Our final solution is excellent for anyone that doesn’t want to work with WordPress. If you want a more straightforward system, then a website builder is a great option.
Most website builders, such as Webflow and Wix, are user-friendly visual editors that let you build a website within minutes.
Since they are far less complicated than WordPress, keep in mind that they offer a limited set of features. So, they are best for a small business that needs only a basic website.
Website Design and Themes
Website builders tend to include hosting and even domain name registration in their subscription packages.
Webflow, for example, has different packages that start from $12 a month up to $36 a month. Some plans also include an SSL certificate, helping you save even more money.
Plugins and Integrations
Unfortunately, website builders aren’t nearly as flexible as WordPress. Plugins and extensions will be minimal.
We advise you to check with your favorite website builder before opening an account and putting in hours of effort.
Some website builders, such as Zyro, offer integrations only with Google Analytics, Facebook Pixel, Hotjar, and a few others.
Search Engine Optimization
Usually, a website builder will have some SEO tools included with your package. It’s up to you to use these tools to improve your website’s ranking.
While they are incredibly user-friendly, advanced users may find the features somewhat limited.
However, since the website builders included the tools with your subscription, you won’t have to pay extra to optimize your website.
eCommerce Functionality
If you want to create an eCommerce store with a website builder, you’re in luck. Website builders can help you quickly get your online store up and running without the need for a large budget.
To start an online store with a website builder, you should budget around $42 up to $235 a month.
This fee usually includes domain registration, payment gateways, shopping cart tools, and several staff accounts.
Some website builders will also charge a commission fee. If you don’t like splitting your hard-earned profits with a third party, a website builder may not be the solution for you.
Maintenance
Maintenance, such as backups and security features, is also somewhat limited for website builders.
Typically, your subscription package will include some maintenance features. Obviously, the more extensive your selected package is, the more maintenance and security features it’ll have.
Website builders often include general maintenance features with your monthly subscription. So, the only additional costs here will be for your time to use those tools.
How Much Does Web Design Cost?
Like we’ve seen, the cost for web design will vary depending on your development method and the complexity of your website.
Here are some guidelines to give you a better understanding of the costs you can expect.
A small business website
Hiring a freelancer
A typical small business will require at least a three-page website. The website will also need to have some content to help the website rank higher.
There’s also very little maintenance required on a small business website. So, these types of websites will be the most affordable websites you can find. You should budget for:
- Hosting: $30 to $190 a year
- Web design: $80 to $180 once-off
- SEO and Marketing: $40 to $200 a year
- Maintenance: $10 to $100 a year
When you hire a freelancer, the total cost may be between $160 to $670 to get your website off the ground.
DIY with WordPress
If you’re a small business owner and have some web design skills, WordPress is a great option to help you save development costs.
Here’s an average budget you’ll need to create a small business three-page website with WordPress:
- Hosting: $30 to $190 a year
- Themes and Plugins: $10 to $100 once-off
- SEO and Marketing: $8 to $60 a year
- Maintenance: $10 to $100 a year
So, the total cost will be between $58 and $450 when you do it yourself with WordPress.
Using a website builder
The other option available to business owners is using a website builder. Website builders are fantastic for small, basic websites and help your business save even more money.
If you want a basic, three-page website for your small business, it’s best to have the following budget:
- Subscription: $144 to $432 a year
- SEO and Marketing: $10 to $100 a year
If you want to use a website builder, a small, basic three-page website will set you back to anything between $154 and $532 a year.
An eCommerce website
Hiring a freelancer
Suppose you want to launch an online store. In that case, your budget will be pretty different from what we’ve seen.
A typical eCommerce store with around 50 products will require frequent maintenance, a fantastic inventory management platform, and several security tools.
If you plan on hiring a freelancer to develop an eCommerce store, then this is what your average budget should look like:
- Hosting: $30 to $190 a year
- Web design: $120 to $200 once-off
- SSL Certificate: $0 to $200 a year
- SEO and Marketing: $40 to $200 a year
- Maintenance: $120 to $1200 a year
When hiring a freelancer, the total cost should be around $310 to $1,990 to start your first online store.
DIY with WordPress
WordPress is always an excellent option. With its robust features and great plugins, you’ll be able to create a fantastic online store.
However, creating an eCommerce site with WordPress will take quite some time, and you’ll still have to budget for essentials, such as:
- Hosting: $30 to $190 a year
- Themes and Plugins: $10 to $100 once-off
- SSL certificate: $0 to $200 a year
- SEO and Marketing: $8 to $60 a year
- Maintenance: $120 to $1200 a year
So, the total cost will be anything between $168 and $1,750 when you create your online store with WordPress.
Using a website builder
You could always create an eCommerce store using a website builder. Keep in mind that most website builders will charge a commission fee per item sold on your website.
This commission fee will shrink your profits substantially. Typically, you should budget for the following:
- Subscription: $504 to $2,820 a year
- SEO and Marketing: $10 to $100 a year
So, we see that a complete eCommerce website with at least 50 products will cost anything between $514 to $2,920 a year if you want to use a website builder.
That cost doesn’t include maintenance or adding new products.
Luckily, there are several things that the savvy entrepreneur can do to help lower the cost of web design considerably.
7 Tips to Reduce the Cost of Web Design
Whether you decide to go with a freelancer, do it yourself, or use a website builder, the following tips are great for helping you reduce your initial web design costs.
Think about what you want
No matter how eager you are to get your website launched, sit down and carefully think about what you want from your website.
Some great questions to answer are:
- Do you want to increase sales?
- Do you want to show off with your services?
- Do you want something interactive and complicated?
- What will the website bring to your business?
- Would you need to maintain and regularly update content on your website?
By answering these questions, you’ll start to understand better what type of website you’d like to have. Your next step would be to do some research.
Do your research
Whether you plan to do the web design yourself or hire a freelancer, it’s always a great idea to do some research.
Here are some common questions to answer when you research your potential website:
- What does my competitor’s website look like? What do I like about it? What don’t I like?
- What are the common ideas and information found on websites in my industry?
- Are there any standard pages or content that I’ll have to create?
This research will help you create a better idea of what your website should look like.
You can always show this research to your freelance web designer. It’ll help them better understand your needs and possibly give you better rates.
The next step in lowering your web design costs is creating a roadmap.
Create a roadmap
A roadmap is a detailed plan of what you or a freelancer need to do and in which order.
For example, if you want to create an online store, do you have all the photos and information about the products on hand? Do you know what fulfillment centers or shipping companies you’ll be using?
A roadmap is also a great guide to keep your design process on track when it comes to working with deadlines and meeting short-term goals.
Using a roadmap can also help lower your costs. You will be able to identify the most important things and cut out any frills that aren’t really necessary.
Communicate your ideas clearly
Another way to lower your web design costs is to communicate your ideas clearly.
If you are working in a team or with a freelance web designer, you’ll have to ensure that your communication is on point.
If you’ve done your research and created a roadmap, it’ll be easier to explain your needs to your team or freelance web designer.
When you communicate clearly, you’ll cut back on redesigns and an endless back and forth. Avoiding that will ensure that your website launches faster and save you some money.
Start small
You don’t have to add all 10,000 products to your online store from day one. You also don’t need to have several eBooks, videos, and other content when you first launch your website.
To save costs, start small. Start with a couple of products, and then slowly, over time, add more products to your store. The same rule goes for adding content to your website.
When you do this, it’ll save you loads of money, and you can start making money while still improving and building your website.
Define your long-term goals
If you’ve followed our advice up to this point, your next step would be to think big.
Define those long-term goals.
Some general questions to help you think about the long-term goals are:
- What do I want my website to do for me?
- How can my website improve my business?
- Can my website make my customers’ lives easier?
- How can my website build my business?
Defining long-term goals can help you better plan for the future.
Perhaps you’d like to add an eCommerce arm to your business one day. Or maybe a forum where users can interact with each other.
Knowing your long-term goals will help you choose the best development for your website right from the start.
Avoid subscriptions
Our final piece of advice is always to try and avoid subscriptions. Sure, that one plugin seems excellent, but are you really in a position to pay an additional $10 a month for it?
Countless, small plugins can quickly add up. Before you realize it, your website is costing you way more money than it’s generating.
When you have to pay a subscription, make sure that you get as much benefit out of it as possible.
Remember, doing research or chatting to a freelance web designer is always a great idea to make sure you’re getting the most out of your website.
Key Takeaways
When figuring out the cost of web design, things can quickly become complicated. The general rule of thumb is, though, the more complex your website is, the more expensive it’ll be.
While there are benefits to trying to do a website on your own, we always recommend hiring a professional web designer to help you out. They’re much more affordable than a web design agency and can create a customized website perfectly suited to your needs and your brand.
When you do it right the first time, you won’t have to spend any more money trying to fix it later.
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