How Much Does a Website Cost?

Ah, here’s the big question, and the one I usually close my eyes for a moment when I have a prospective client on the line who asks this question shortly after saying “hello”.

A thousand analogies rush through my mind in those quiet moments. I would like to say “That’s like asking a painter on the phone, how much will you charge to paint my house?”, or asking a car dealership “How much do cars cost?”. I think you get my point. A painter simply cannot quote a price until he spends considerable time determining how big my house is, where it is, what kind of paint I want, what rooms need to be painted and so on. As for the car dealer analogy, well, that’s just too silly to talk about.

The point is, that a website can have so many factors that need to be considered before a price can be determined. Ok, let’s go to the car dealer again. He might have a small economy car on the lot for $10,000 and at the other end of the scale, a Suburban SUV fully equipped for $65,000. The SUV isn’t necessarily better than the economy car, and in fact may be a totally stupid choice if all you want is a car to run errands around town one in a while. In that case, the small car is by far the best choice.

Talking with a good experienced website designer who is really interested in putting you behind the wheel of what will work best for you is a critically important element in setting up your new site.

There are some basic costs however, that you should know about.

Domain Registration for example can cost you anywhere from approximately $10 per year for a .com name, to $50 or more per year for the more exotic domain extensions.

Hosting, good hosting that is, will cost you in the neighborhood of $150 ?$200 per year. This fits the needs of the majority of website requirements, but if your site is to include large database functions, e?commerce, and so on, you can expect to pay a little more for your annual hosting.
Search Engine Optimization

Very difficult to give you cost expectations on this one. A good website designer will often talk frankly about this with you up front. He will include basic optimization in his designs and construction of the website and provide good basic optimization in his initial quote.

If high placement in a very competitive market is critically important to you, then he will work with you to put together an ongoing optimization package that works best for your site and your budget.

I can’t stress enough the importance of having an up close and personal relationship with your website designer. This can be a problem when dealing with the larger companies where numerous departments and technicians may work on a portion of your project. You can easily get trapped in the “that’s not my job, let me pass you on to…” whenever you have a problem.

The next chapter should give you some peace of mind in this area.