One of the first questions we get asked whenever someone calls our office is how much a website costs. It’s a valid question and one of the most important questions when someone is trying to plan the marketing budget for their business. Unfortunately it’s not always a simple answer.

The cost of a website varies with the options you choose and the size you want to make it. In this way it’s similar to buying a car. You don’t go to a dealership and ask them how much a car costs because the price ranges based on style, size and features. You can buy the Porsche of websites with all the options and fancy features or you can buy a base-model Ford. Now, there’s no problems with a Ford, I own one myself. It all comes down to needs and budget. A basic website with a custom design and five pages of content might start you around $1,200-1,500 whereas a large corporate site with dozens of pages and custom features could get up into multiple thousands.

So what goes into the cost of a website?

There are many factors in determining the cost of a website.  Some of the most common factors are:

• Number of pages
• Is a custom design needed or will a pre-designed template be used?
• Are they static pages or is a content management system needed?
• Target market and competition research
• Features needed other than basic content (forms, newsletters, e-commerce, etc)
• Are stock photos or photography services needed?
• Is all content supplied or are copywriting services needed?
• Is the logo and brand identity in place or does this need worked on?

As you can see, there are a lot of decisions to be made, and this is just a few of the things that need considered.

When hiring a web design company, just like any other business, they have to take other expenses into consideration as well. Things like time, rent, utilities, employee wages and other operational costs always have to be factored in. This is why you’ll often see individuals offering website design for a very low rate compared to a web design company. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. You just want to make sure that whomever you hire has the experience and reliability to create an effective online presence for your business.

At Logix, our custom websites generally start around the $1,625 mark and increase from there based on client needs. We always aim to be flexible to suit any project and budget so we have a number of options available.

For new businesses just starting out or businesses that have a small budget there are always other options as well. We run a service called ckBusiness.ca for local businesses of Chatham-Kent. In an effort to promote local small business within our community we launched this service as a cost-effective way to get an online presence. A business can get a website for as little as $29.95. The cost here is greatly reduced because there is no custom design work involved. A design is chosen from several pre-designed layouts and then customized to include the client’s logo and colours. It doesn’t offer quite as much flexibility but it’s an easy entry in a time when all businesses should be online.

Hopefully this gives you a little insight into what a website costs. I know it’s not a definitive number like you may have been hoping for but it should give you a good idea of what to budget for.

If you’re interested in finding out more about having a website developed for your business, contact us. We’ll gladly answer any questions you might have.