It all boils down to how much work is involved. Specifically, the 2 factors determining how much work is involved are the size and complexity of your site.
That means a nice-looking, professional 15-page informational website with standard customization will cost less than a highly customized 50-page site with all the bells and whistles.
In terms of actual dollars, the cost to build a website for a small business could be less than $1,000 or more than $10,000.
That’s a wide price range. Let’s break things down so you can get a realistic estimate for the cost of designing and developing your website.
NOTE: The information below is for small/medium-sized businesses. It’s not meant for large corporations with deep pockets with full-time employees designing, developing, and managing their websites in-house, getting paid $80k-$120k/yr.
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The domain name is the address of your website, like www.yourbusiness.com. Registering a domain usually costs between $10 and $20 per year.
The costs for hosting services can differ depending on the hosting provider, and the specific type of hosting you choose, such as shared hosting, reseller hosting, VPS hosting, or dedicated hosting. Shared hosting typically costs approximately $5 to $15 per month, whereas more advanced alternatives can range from $20 to $100+ per month.
The costs can vary if you use a website builder such as Wix, Squarespace, Weebly, or a Content Management System (CMS) like WordPress. Some website builders provide free plans, but they come with limited features. On the other hand, some website builders charge a monthly fee of $10 to $30 for their more advanced features. WordPress is actually free to use, which is great! However, remember that you might need to spend money on things like themes, plugins, and hosting services.
Also, you can consider purchasing a VPS hosting for more power, control and flexibility, as it provides dedicated resources such as CPU power, RAM and disk space, which are not shared with other users as in shared hosting, creating an optimal environment for your projects. It also offers a balance of resources and costs, making it an ideal choice.
Step Step Guide to Building a Website For A Small Business?
When it comes to designing and developing a website, the costs can vary greatly depending on whether you choose to hire a professional web designer or developer. Typically, simple websites can be priced anywhere from $500 to $5,000. However, if you’re looking for a more intricate website with unique features, the cost can range from $5,000 to $20,000 or even higher.
E-commerce refers to the buying and selling of goods and services online. Having an online store on your small business website may increase the cost. Extra features and security measures are usually necessary to have e-commerce functionality. The costs for an e-commerce site can vary quite a bit, ranging from a few hundred dollars to several thousand. The final price will depend on how complex the site needs to be.
Remember to include ongoing maintenance, updates, and potential support expenses when considering the costs. Depending on your requirements, the cost can range from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars annually.
Additional Features: The costs may increase if you require specific features such as a booking system, membership functionality, or a custom database. To add these extra features, you might need to develop them yourself or buy premium plugins.
An SSL certificate is recommended to ensure secure data transmission. Some hosting providers provide a free SSL certificate, but premium options are available that can range from $50 to $200 per year.
Regarding content creation, it’s important to consider the expenses involved in writing, photography, and graphic design. If you decide to create the content alone, the cost may be minimal. However, hiring professionals can increase your expenses.
For competent, experienced web designers who did list their prices, we found the going rate in 2021 to build a modern, professional small business website was typically $4,000-$10,000. Still, we could be as much as $20,000 (or more) depending on the number of pages on the site and the amount of customization required.
Website Design vs. Website Development. Website design and development are often used synonymously but very different. Website design is like working with an architect to create the blueprint for your house. Website development is like working with a contractor to actually build your house. The 2021 pricing estimates listed above are for website design and development (i.e. the complete, all-inclusive cost).
Factors affecting the price of building a small business website:
- Page volume. Let’s say a web development firm offers a 10-page website package for $3,500, but your site needs 25 pages — how much extra will that cost? A good rule of thumb is to add about $100/page for each page over and above what’s included in the standard website package. In this example, adding 15 pages (to the 10 pages included in the standard website package) would cost $1,500. Add this amount to the original base price of $3,500; the revised total is $5,000. Every situation will vary, obviously, but at least this gives you a reasonable cost estimate based on common pricing in the industry in 2021.
- Custom site layout. Every website starts with a theme or template. Nobody codes a website totally from scratch anymore. That’s way too time-consuming and expensive. A template or theme often gets you 50-60% of the way to the finish line, but there’s still tons of customization and coding to get your site looking and functioning how you want it. The more customization and coding required, the greater the cost. Templates and themes are a major reason you can often build a professional small business website in the $4,000-$10,000 range instead of $15,000-$20,000 or more.
- Custom images & graphics. Fancy images and graphics can give your site a one-of-a-kind look, but it comes at a price. Sophisticated visual effects often require special editing software, not to mention the talent of a custom graphic design specialist.
- Custom logo. Although not required, a custom logo is a nice addition to any website and a notch in the trust/credibility factor. In 2024, expect to pay somewhere in the $500-$1,000 range for a decent-looking, professionally designed logo.
- Custom programming. Sometimes you can find a WordPress plugin providing the exact functionality you want right out of the box (i.e. image carousel, membership portal, payment calculator, etc). Other times, getting your site to do what you want requires significant trial/error and testing. In a perfect world, everything would be plug-and-play and work perfectly the first time — but that’s rarely the case. A fair amount of tinkering and testing is usually required to get everything working as intended.
- A number of design revisions. Most website projects start with an initial concept design (like a rough draft), then it’s common to have 1 or 2 rounds of design revisions to get everything just right. Some website designers offer as many as 3-5 rounds of design revisions. A website designer can technically offer as many rounds of design revisions as they want. But remember that every design iteration adds to the project’s overall cost. In my experience, 2 rounds of design revisions are more than sufficient 99% of the time.
- Website content development (i.e. copywriting). Solid, thoughtful, persuasive content is the foundation of any great website. It must be developed if you’re launching a new site without any content. If you have an existing site but the content is weak, stale or outdated, it’ll need to be refined, enhanced … maybe even overhauled. Over the years, content development is the # 1 obstacle to launching a website. Our clients struggle with this because it’s time-consuming and difficult to do. That’s why a few years ago we began offering professional copywriting services to our website design and development offerings. Yes, you want your website to look modern and stylish, but your website’s content moves the needle.
Re: website pricing …
PRO TIP # 1: If you want to hire a professional to help you with your website but don’t feel you can afford one lump sum payment upfront, see if they offer financing. That way, you get a really nice website *right now* to help grow your business but not deplete your bank account.
PRO TIP # 2: Be careful with budget pricing. Meager prices often translate to shoddy workmanship, an unpleasant experience, or nickel-and-diming you for every little thing. As they say, you get what you pay for.
OPTION 2: Attempt To Do It Yourself (DIY)
You can build your own website if you have a basic understanding of web technology and are comfortable doing the work yourself.
You’re realistically looking at about $300-$600 in expenses to get up and running.
Obviously, the main cost with the DIY option is your time.
Even for a “simple” site, don’t be surprised if it takes you 20-40 hours to produce something of decent quality you can be proud of. And that’s assuming you’re already somewhat familiar with how to build a website. If you’re totally new to this, multiply that time estimate by 2x or 3x. I’m not exaggerating.
Building a modern, well-engineered website is much more time-consuming than most people realize. But if you have more time than money and aren’t overwhelmed by web technology, the DIY approach is a perfectly viable option.
The Cost Of Website Updates, Upgrades, Maintenance & Licenses
Once your website launches, your work is not done. Like buying a house, you’ll need to invest time, effort, and money to maintain it. For example, you’ll have annual hosting and maintenance fees and possibly annual licensing fees for premium plugins and services.
You’ll likely purchase new images as you upgrade and expand your site.
To boost your marketing efforts, you might add staff or hire freelancers to assist you in creating new custom web content or videos.
Your site also requires ongoing technical maintenance to install updates and security patches to WordPress core files and WordPress plugins to protect your site from being hacked. Yes, even small business sites are targets for hackers.
If you’re comfortable performing these updates yourself, great. But sometimes routine updates break your site, so you need to know what to do if/when this happens. Are you prepared to deal with …
(Actual screenshots below.)
You also need an offsite backup system to quickly restore your website in case of catastrophic hardware or software failure (or user error!) crashing your site. Sorry to alarm you, but these things really do happen.
If you prefer not to deal with your site’s messy, behind-the-scenes technical upkeep, you can purchase a website maintenance plan for $40-$300/month, depending on your needed services.
PRO TIP: You can avoid annual licensing fees by working with a web developer who maintains a developer’s license for the premium WordPress plugins used on your site. In other words, their developer’s license covers your annual licensing fees. For example, a premium form plugin like Gravity Forms has an annual $59/yr license fee. A premium image gallery plugin like Envira Gallery will run you $69/yr. But our clients avoid these annual fees because they’re covered under our developer license.
Your website might need more sophisticated functionality as your business grows and evolves. If you can implement these technical upgrades yourself, that would be great. Otherwise, the going rate in 2021 to hire a competent, experienced web developer is $100-$125/hour.
Expensive Website Design & Development Mistakes To Avoid
Since building my first website back in 1999, I’ve wasted a TON of time and money on:
- Faulty technology. The theme and plugins you use to build your site matter. Shoddy, untested coding can result in security risks, software incompatibilities, and site instability. Stick with proven, name brands that continually test and support their products. Use premium digital components. Otherwise, you may constantly be fixing your site or rebuilding your entire site from scratch.
- Incompetent idiots. Beware of knuckleheads knowing just enough to make them dangerous. A few years ago I hired a subcontractor to assist with custom programming on a large project. A few weeks into the project, it became clear that he didn’t know what he was doing. He talked a good game but couldn’t deliver. So I fired him and cut our losses — but only after wasting precious time and money on a project with a deadline. Do your best to carefully vet people before hiring them.
- Bad advice and information. This has cost me more time and money than anything. I will never get back tens of thousands of dollars and years of my life. It wasn’t always directly related to website design and development. Sometimes, they were ancillary things like SEO, Google advertising, Facebook marketing, content marketing, business development, etc. Most of it was hype and fluff that didn’t deliver results as advertised. The bottom line is if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. There are no magic bullets. Success takes time, effort, and persistence. Period.
No need for you to repeat these mistakes.
Pro & Cons: Hiring A Professional vs. Do-It-Yourself Approach To Building Your Website
Hiring A Professional
PROS:
- There is no need to spend hours, days, or weeks learning the technology required to build and operate a website.
- You’ll get a modern, professional website you’re proud of … one that accurately represents your company and your brand.
- Visitors will have a good experience on all devices — desktop, tablet & mobile.
- They can help you manage your site once it’s launched.
- They can develop your site’s content and overcome the curse of knowledge. The curse of knowledge is when you can’t remember what it’s like not to know everything you know. Thus, you omit critical information from your site because you assume everyone already knows what you know—when they really don’t.
- They can recommend ideas and help you avoid pitfalls you probably wouldn’t have considered yourself.
CONS:
- Creating a new site from scratch or redesigning an existing site will require an investment of several thousand dollars (most likely in the $3k-$10k range).
- If you don’t understand web technology, you will depend on your website designer/developer to manage your site after it launches.
Doing It Yourself
PROS:
- If you currently have more time than money, building your website will be less expensive than hiring a professional website designer/developer.
- You can use a website builder like Wix or Squarespace to launch a simple, decent-looking site within a day or two. Wix plans range from $13 to $39/month, and Squarespace plans range from $12 to $40/month.
- There is no lag time. After it launches, you can instantly make any changes or updates to your site.
CONS:
- If you’re not up on current website design trends, your website might look amateurish and negatively impact your company’s image.
- Building a website can feel like a monumental task, so it’s common to procrastinate for weeks or months. If the aversion to building your site is large enough, your site might never get built.
- It’s incredibly time-consuming. You might have to spend 2-4 hours researching how to get something working on your website when an experienced website designer/developer can finish that particular task in 5-10 minutes.
The Shortcut To Building A Great Website
Hire someone.
Yes, I’m biased, but I’m also being honest. Creating a modern, professional website that generates leads and sales for your business is way more difficult and time-consuming than most people realize.
However, it is also necessary to make the website accessible to everyone. This feature lets everyone perceive, understand, and interact with your website. Here, an expert agency like Accessibility Spark can be the best choice. They help implement the ADA Compliance tool on the website to make your niche 100% ADA WCAG compliance ready.
If funds are tight right now, and the DIY approach to creating your company website is your only option, then just do your best.
However, if you can afford it, hiring an experienced web designer/developer to build (or redesign) your website will save you tons of time, money, and headaches — and the finished product will be better than you could’ve done on your own.
It’s the same reason I gladly pay dentists, accountants, auto mechanics, and roofing contractors for their expertise. They can usually get the job done quicker, better, and cheaper than I could do myself.