How much should I spend on a new website?

Having done website development for the past 20 years, a question we commonly get asked is “How much should I spend on a new website?” It's a fair question, given the investment of both time and money that goes into a website project, and the wide range of options that exist for website development. Unfortunately, the answer isn’t always as straightforward as one would hope. 

The question of “how much should I spend on a website” is akin to “how much should I spend on a car.” Well, what kind of car do you need? What do you need it to do? How many passengers should it carry? Should it have seating for seven, heated seats and 4-wheel drive? Should it have a sports-car engine, lots of horsepower and be fully electric? Do you need something utilitarian and simple that gets good gas mileage, or something more luxurious and well-appointed with all the available options? 

• Some of the variables that would affect the total cost of the website include: 
• the choice of website platform that the site will be built on;
• the number of pages the new site will contain; 
• the number of templates needed to accommodate your content needs; 
• integrations with outside systems; 
• custom scripts and ecommerce requirements;
• Support for multiple languages.

Standard Website ($15,000-$25,000)

If your website only has a few pages, and you’re not looking for anything customized, small businesses can oftentimes meet their website requirements using a do-it-yourself service like SquareSpace. While these templated sites tend to look more cookie-cutter and offer less customization, they can be a quick and cheap method to launching a basic site. However, if you’re looking for an agency like 454 Creative to bring more strategy and expertise to the project, you should expect to make a $15,000-$25,000 investment, even for a simple website like Portillo Sales & Marketing. 

Advanced website ($45,000-$65,000)

Medium-sized businesses with websites that require more customization, want more dynamic and engaging design, and desire to post regular blog content will spend closer to $45,000-$65,000 for a fully built-out site in WordPress. Check out the sites we built for myPSFCU and Pacific Business Sales as an example of these mid-range sites. 

Enterprise Website ($65,000-$200,000)

Enterprise-level websites requiring custom APIs to outside systems, advanced content management, ecommerce functionality, and multi-lingual support will require advanced development and start at $65,000. You’ll see many of those features on the website we built for Bromic Heating, a global manufacturer of outdoor heaters. This website features a centralized product information management system, IP redirects based on the country of the visitor, and versions for 12 countries in 9 different languages. 

At 454 Creative, we answer the “how much should I spend” question by first performing a needs assessment during initial conversations to establish a price range that we would expect you to invest in order to get the kind of website you are looking for. Once agreed upon and our engagement begins, we begin a formal Website Roadmap process where we dive in deep with your team to more fully understand your current website challenges, your needs, expectations and your dreams for the future iteration of your website. We develop a comprehensive document that reflects your goals, reviews our objectives for development, provides direction for design, outlines your homepage with a wireframe, and details the total price you will pay for your website, along with the schedule for payments. 

Once your team approves the Website Roadmap, our team can begin the design and development of the new website, and you can be reassured knowing you’re getting exactly what you paid for, without hidden costs or surprise expenses. 

If you’re interested in developing a new website with 454 Creative, let us know! Visit our website to see some of the websites we’ve built for other clients and fill out this form to start a conversation with our team.