What is the price of a website?
You have decided to invest in website design? But what about the price of it?
Often, when we ask the question « how much does a website cost » no matter who the professional is, the answer is often the same « it depends » whatever the position held (a web developer, graphic designer). But « it depends » on what exactly?
Here, we will discuss four types of factors that influence the price of a website but there are a multitude of them. There is no universal answer such as « the price is 10 000 euros ».
For example, when you are asked the question « how much does a house cost? », you cannot give a clear answer because the price depends on a lot of factors. Similarly, the price of a website can be very low or very high.
The price varies according to :
- The time spent on the project
- Type of website
- Features and options
- The level of customization
- The volume of content to set up
Time above all
First of all, you will communicate with your provider about your needs and your short and long term goals. Then, thanks to his expertise, your provider will estimate the time he will devote to your project.
Low prices on the market are not necessarily advantageous because it implies that the provider will spend little time on your project to the detriment of quality. If you want to have a quality website, then the cost will logically be higher because the provider will invest time on the project.
It is possible to create your own website using website creation software. The cost of these softwares is relatively low.
But as said above, you will spend time on the design of your website. So, you will have the impression to pay less but you will invest a lot of time. The web agency and the freelance web developer, therefore, sell you time and skills to make designs and functions that you probably wouldn’t be able to do alone.
The different types of websites
- E-commerce websites
- Showcase sites
- Customized projects, more complex and more expensive, which we will not detail here
- These types of websites require a different design time so their price is different.
The e-commerce site is a website on which we find a catalog of products displayed by a merchant that is intended to be sold to third parties. This type of site has the highest cost, because of the functionalities it requires.
Be aware that the size of your product catalog also affects the price of your website. In fact, the more products you have, the more time you spend importing them into your site’s database, the higher the price will be.
A showcase site is a website that aims to present the activity of a company, it may contain several pages including a blog.
Features and options
The costs of the functionalities that you wish to integrate into your website are also calculated according to the time that these functionalities require to set up.
The e-commerce site includes several functionalities such as the management of product catalogs, payment solutions as well as a delivery method and many others. Hence the increase in cost for each added functionality.
On the other hand, a showcase site has fewer functionalities, which is why its cost is lower than an e-commerce site.
a web developer price of a website
Some examples of features that contribute to the increase in the price of web design:
- Subscribing to the newsletter
- The integration of social networks
- A search bar
- Personal accounts
- SEO optimization:
- Correct HTML tags
- Titles h1 and subtitles h2, h3, h4, h5
- A semantic mesh
- Unique meta description tags for each page
The responsive version has become essential today to be referenced in search engines and to be visible to your audience. It is the adaptation of the display of your site on several screens, mobile, tablet and desktop. It has an additional cost, but this work is now inevitable. Indeed, 64% of French people use their smartphone to connect to the web according to the 2017 digital barometer.
Once your site is created, you will have to choose a web host. Your provider will take care of setting it up and optimize the security of your website at the same time.
On your website, whether it is a showcase site or e-commerce, you will have to set up tracking systems to analyze the behavior of visitors on your website. In this way, you will be able to optimize your sales and marketing strategy by having data on the browsing path of visitors.
In addition, website design includes the creation of content, i.e. texts, images, videos, which can be designed by you (which will reduce the price) or by your provider.
If you are targeting an international audience, then you will need to offer several languages to your site visitors. This is also a cost to be included in your invoice.
Customization
The level of personalization of your website depends on your expectations:
Do you want a site with a standard and simple design?
Do you want a website with your personal touch based on your mock-ups?
Do you prefer a worked and totally custom design?
The higher the degree of customization, the more expensive the website will be. When creating your site, it is possible to choose a custom design or to use a template (it is a pre-designed design for websites). The choice of a template will be less expensive than the custom creation but it must be adapted to the content that you will bring on your website.
The customization of a template has additional costs but remains less expensive than the custom website design. On the other hand, the latter allows you to have a more personalized image and to be perhaps more in agreement with your visual identity.
Types of providers
Choose a web agency or make your own website?
It is important that you ask for a quote from different providers in order to compare prices, you will be amazed at the price gap that there can be between each of them for the same project.
On average, the realization time of a showcase site is 5 days counting 7 hours per day, or 35 hours per week, multiplied by the hourly cost of the provider.
As we mentioned previously, the price of a website is calculated according to the time spent on the project. Indeed, the price of your website will depend on the hourly cost of the web agency you would have used. The hourly rate is generally between 50 and 100 euros.
With a creation software like Wix or 1&1, you will probably see the initial price less expensive than with a web agency. But think about the relationship between time and money. You will certainly have a lower cost at the beginning of the creation but you will spend a good number of hours on the design of your website. This can represent a more consequent cost in the long run.
These softwares offer you a range of templates that you can choose to customize. However, if you don’t have any knowledge in design or SEO, you may make mistakes on the different techniques. This could be errors such as not following SEO techniques, technical misuse or even graphic problems. This could be sanctioned by Google and your site may not be visible in search engines.
In spite of its price which may be attractive at the beginning, you will be limited in time in terms of functionalities and visibility on the internet.
Moreover, a website designed on these platforms does not belong to you. Indeed, you will have to pay a royalty every month for the life of your website. It is not possible to carry out data transfer. This means that if you ever decide to use a service provider, you will have to start all over again.
A web agency, with its expertise will know how to satisfy you with a website to your image while respecting the optimization techniques of the latter.
What to remember…
Website design can be low cost but very simple. If you want to customize it and add features, it will naturally be more expensive.
As you will have understood, the final cost of a website depends on several factors, the web design, the development which will be more or less complex as well as the options you will need to add.
The more functionalities, an elaborate ergonomics or an important development, the more time it will require and the more it will cost.
To have an idea of the price of your future website, you can use the price estimators or make an estimate with a service provider who will estimate your project.