Costs of A Good Website by a Professional Designer
How Does a Good Website Design Cost? The answer is, good website design cost varies a widely. But, this post will give you some insider information about how most web designers price websites, and what you can expect. But in general, good website design will cost you a minimum of $5,000 for most websites. A really good website, can cost anywhere from $35,000 up to $150,000.
At Stay Wild Digital Marketing in Salt Lake City, we have designed very small websites for as little as $2,500, but – those were websites with only a few pages. We have even designed a one page website for $750, but it was one page and required very little “web design.”
This the reason I chose to write this article to give business owners, especially business owners in Utah who are looking for good web design, a real picture of what good website design will cost and what to expect.
Most Web Design Companies Charge “what they can get”
Here is that insider information about the web design industry I promised you. Most web companies charge whatever they think you can afford. They stick a price tag on it, and see if you will pay it, and if you won’t, then they lower the price a bit. This is how most web companies determine what your website is going to cost.
Most web design agencies are going to have a minimum fee for websites. We have seen this as low as $3,500 and as high as $12,000 (Yes, we know an agency whose minimum fee is $12,000 for any website). How do these web design companies come up with their pricing? Experience, guessing, good sales people. Etc.
In fact, this is one thing we do differently at Stay Wild Digital Marketing when it comes to website design cost – we charge
#1: By the Page Count
#2: By the amount of Design on Each Individual Web Page
#3: By The Amount of Customization and Functionality Each Page Requires
As an example – if you want every page on your website to have as much design and information as your home page, then each page may cost $750 – $1,500 depending on the information and what you want displayed.
We developed this pricing so our customers would know exactly what they were buying, and how the price increases or decreases based on what they want on their website and how important it is to them.
In general, we are just trying to cover out time at the rate of $200 per hour. Because of this, we do a lot of planning up front with our customers so they (and we) know exactly what we are building before we begin. This enables us to come to an exact price with exact outcomes.
What is the Lowest Cost Way to Design A Good Website?
If you are designing your first website and are really looking to cut costs, then the cheapest way to design a good website is to hire a freelancer off of a freelancer website like Upwork – AND – insist them build you a website on Wix.
Also, make sure the website is owned by you before they design it. Lots of web companies like to make extra money off of you by insisting you pay them some kind of hosting/maintenance package. With Wix, you just pay Wix.
Can’t I Hire Wix to Build a Website For Me?
Yes, you can, but what you need to know is that Wix is just bidding that work out to a bunch of Freelancers and uncharging you for it.
Plus, a lot of designers that design on Wix are not that inexpensive. We have priced out those websites and they aren’t cheap.
Why Not Hire A Freelancer to Build an Inexpensive WordPress Website?
WordPress is a nightmare. We build on it every day. Plus, we find that lots of freelancers tend to disappear pretty regularly and then you can’t even get into your website. If you are going to hire someone to build you a WordPress website, do not use a freelancer. Hire a real company, with real employees, who is going to be around at the end of the year.
I would NEVER let a freelancer build a WordPress website for me no matter how inexpensive they are, because it will cause you never ending long term headaches that you, the novice person cannot solve on your own.
Then when you try to get some other web designer to fix it – they will insist you start over from scratch because they won’t be able to fix the mess someone else created. On Wix, both you, and pretty much any web designer can work on your website.
Information from a Survey Done by Forbes About How Much Good Web Design Costs
I saw an infographic on it from a study Forbes did about how much good website design costs. They came up with some numbers like this:
$2,000 to $9000 for a small business website (up to 16 pages)
$10,000 to $35,000 for a corporate website (up to 75 pages)
$5,000 to $55,000 for an e-commerce site (with up to 1,000 products on it)
The problem I have with throwing out these kinds of numbers is that we have seen such wide variations. An e-commerce website design can cost millions of dollars depending on inventory management systems and custom coding for dynamic shipping.
We have built websites with seventy five pages that cost $6,000 and web designed websites with that many pages that cost $50,000. Again, it just depends on what has to be on the website.
Summary – How Much Does Good Website Design Cost
So in summary, how much does good website design cost? It depends. It depends on the designer and on the amount of design and development and functionality that go into the website. It depends on what you need the website to accomplish for your business.
If you are truly looking for the cheapest way to get a website designed and launched – hire a freelancer on Upwork, BUT – MAKE SURE:
#1: They build it on Wix
#2: That you OWN the website in Wix (not them).
Do you “get what you pay for” when it comes to the cost of a good website design? Not always. Not in my experience. I have seen people pay six figures for websites that weren’t that good, and could have been designed for $20,000 or less. In fact, the higher a website design company wants to charge, often the more suspicious and specific about what you are going to get I would be.
Lots of web designers just increase their price because a higher price makes customers think they must be good. I have rarely seen that play out in the customers favor.
Lastly – be specific. If you want to control your website design costs, then get super-specific up front about exactly what you want, how many pages, how much design, and the functionality you truly need to accomplish your website design goals.
About the Authors
Tim Vanderkamp is co-owner of Stay Wild Digital Marketing – a full-service website design company with offices in Salt Lake City Utah and Tampa Florida.
