We know investing in a new website or application is a huge decision, and then finding prices for these digital services online is hard work. That’s why we’re sharing our pricing structure to help you get a better understanding of what you’re really paying for and why each element of the process is important.
The age-old question from consumers, customers or clients – ‘how much will it cost me’? Whether you’re looking at a bed, a phone case or a new website build, as a buyer you want to know the price. So lets finally answer the question “How much does a website cost?”
Now outside of e-commerce, many service-based companies or those offering high-ticket items keep their prices to themselves, for fear of revealing too much information, putting customers off or giving the game away to competitors.
However, the reality is as a business you’re more likely to put potential clients off by NOT sharing pricing information.
In order to build a trusting relationship with your prospects, it’s important to be open and transparent about all parts of the purchasing process, including price.
Here at Strafe Creative, we will put our hands up and say we are guilty of being a little mysterious about this too. However, in this week’s blog, we’re putting this secrecy behind us and revealing typical costs for a website design and build.
How much does a website roughly cost?
In short, a website designed and built by an agency (not a freelancer) can cost anywhere between £10 – £100k plus. I bet you’re thinking, wow, that’s a huge range – how can it possibly vary so much?! 😂
Well keep reading and we’ll explain…
As with all complex projects, there’s no set price to reveal at the click of a button or a scroll of the mouse. Each design and build project is bespoke to you and your needs as a client, which makes every price different. We’re going to break it down for you so you can see where and how these price ranges come about.
For example, an accountancy firm requiring a simple, five-page website with a contact form and a blog will be paying much less than a bespoke e-commerce store built in Shopify with over 250 products.
Throughout this blog, we’re sharing our costing template to give you an idea of how much you would pay, depending on the features and functionality of a new website.
We’re going to reference our client Vita Mojo as an example. It is not the exact brief or price that we worked with but hopefully, it will help bring to life what design and functionality you can get for the price range.
Vita Mojo offers technology solutions for the hospitality industry, helping clients to automate tasks such as digital ordering, kitchen operations and back-office management. It’s aimed at hospitality organisations with multiple locations.
Whilst the technology itself is a SaaS solution, the team were looking for a sales-focused website to help increase demo bookings.
To support that we included the following features:
- WordPress CMS
- Appointment Booking System
- CRM Integration
- Marketing API Integration (Google Analytics, Facebook etc)
- SEO Support
- Lead Tracking Software Integration
- Mobile Designs
- Basic Blog Content Transfer
And a few other things. To see the full list and price breakdown of this example, head to the end of the blog.
How much does a website cost: what’s included as standard?
At Strafe Creative we work through a detailed and methodical process to ensure that we offer the best possible experience and results for each of our clients.
Our years of experience in digital design and development have led us to tweak and refine this process. For example, a lot of detailed prep work and research is now standard as we’ve learned the benefits of this process, both to the client and their end-users.
In the design stage, we build out a user flow, wireframes, a homepage, and all internal pages such as about, services, contact etc. All our design work comes with unlimited amends to help you get a look and experience you love.
The build is done in six sprints, from the basic elements to the more complex and responsive functionality. We have an in-depth QA stage with over 200 checks to ensure that only the best version of the site goes live on launch day.
Read more: How long does a website take to design and build?
Let’s look at each of these in a little more detail…
Technical and Inspiration Meetings
During these initial meetings our team will work together with you, our client, to determine the objective and purpose of your website. Do you want to promote jobs? Or do you want to encourage potential customers to book a call with you?
We’ll also ask you to share other sites you love and we will share our own inspiration and ideas.
User Flow and Wire Frames
Some agencies and freelancers don’t do this, but we really see the value in spending time on a clear and intuitive user flow and building wireframes. It not only helps us design a better quality website, but it also helps you see the journey a user will take on your new site and ensure they’re more likely to convert.
Homepage Concepts
The reason why the price of the homepage concepts is so high is that these truly are the backbone of the look, feel and experience of the website. That initial landing experience for a user is vital to engage and excite them.
Whether that’s to delve into further information on your blog, sign up for a trial or purchase straight away, they’ll always start on the homepage. We’ve spent over a decade refining the elements and features that help to ensure a high-converting design and experience.
Given it’s such a key part of the user journey, and the project in general, we present 3 – 4 different concepts and designs to our clients and work through unlimited rounds of amends and iterations until it’s finalised.
This page then informs the rest of the internal page designs making that process much quicker and easier. It’s well worth the up-front investment in both money and time to nail this part of the design process!
How much does a website cost: what comes next?
Based on your site’s objectives, we’ll look to design and develop either page templates or a set of modules that can be mixed and matched across your site in different combinations. For example, image blocks, text blocks, client testimonials, case studies, awards etc.
In our example with Vita Mojo, we included a mixture of Standard and Advanced Templates. The latter includes more bespoke and detailed design work, for example, sliders and animations.
Every client we work with will sign off the desktop designs and have a choice to review and sign off the mobile version too. This however increases costs as additional amends means more development time. Tablet designs are also available but typically our clients stick with desktop and mobile.
How much does a website cost: in-depth research
At Strafe Creative we pride ourselves on an in-depth research process. We spend time working with you to identify the main pain points you’re experiencing with your current site.
On top of this, it’s imperative we understand your target audience; their needs, wants, expectations and objections. If you need a target audience persona we’ll work with you to identify your ideal customer and use this to inform our design and development work.
Whilst working with Vita Mojo we identified six key audiences (see below) to target on the new website. We made sure that we addressed each one in the user journeys built into the new design.
Whilst we have great relationships with 3rd Party SEO and PPC companies, if our clients already have their own contacts we’ll work with them to identify any additional technical requirements they have ahead of the project.
How much does a website cost: what are the optional extras?
The next part of our conversation about your new site would go into depth about all the features you’re looking for. During the design process, we would add these features into the wireframes and user flow, and then build out the technical functionality during the development stage.
Each additional requirement and functionality request affect the cost – a great example is CRM integration.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Integration
CRM integrations can range from a simple email/data capture sign-up for a newsletter to a complex sync between your CRM and the application or website. A complex sync with Hubspot* could lead to customer data being automatically updated within Hubspot, based on the data they input on the site.
In the Vita Mojo screenshot below you can see an online form asking for an email address, industry sector and the number of locations. Depending on the answers to the second two questions, customer data is imported into the CRM and prospects are given a tailored journey and next steps in the sales process.
Whilst it sounds simple on the surface, there’s a complex set of logic and multiple variations built into the back end to ensure each prospective customer gets exactly what they’re looking for. Further integration (not shown here) enables the CRM to link with the actions taken on the website and vice-versa to ensure a truly tailored experience for the prospect or customer.
Integrating this kind of complex functionality naturally takes a lot longer than the email sign-up and of course, therefore, increases the price of your site! We would have a full discussion about the capabilities of your current CRM integration and how to implement it on the new site.
Choosing a Content Management System (CMS)
Another consideration when thinking about how much a website costs, is which CMS you’d prefer to use. We always work with Open Source CMS and have used WordPress for many years. Thanks to the online community and our experience, we have processes and automation set up making the WordPress integration very smooth.
Craft CMS works very similarly, however as it’s newer, integrating this CMS takes a little longer.
Hubspot is the most complex of the three, adding up to 10 days of build time to the project. This CMS has a lot of analytics built-in, which links with its CRM technology, however, because of that the structure is quite rigid and you don’t get the same flexibility as you get with WordPress or Craft.
Inbound Sales Functionality
Depending on the complex nature of your sales or marketing process you might want to take prospects down a range of different customer journeys via the call to action (CTA).
For example on the Strafe website, we have a clear CTA, asking users to get in touch via the Project Planner.
Whilst we offer the same experience for all users, some clients have a bespoke page or journey set up depending on the page they land on or the choices the user makes.
Updating these CTA and journeys is an additional cost.
In the Vita Mojo example, you can see a contact form at the end of every page, the internal team know exactly which page they will have come from so they can tailor the enquiry for the prospect.
A range of features and functionality to choose from
On top of these choices, there are so many additional features to think about when considering how much a website costs. A few examples from the list below are:
- Google Speed Score – ensuring the site is really fast to load!
- Integrating APIs such as Eventbrite, Calendly and Social Media Platforms.
- A members area for users to log in and access their accounts.
- A bespoke interactive section – this will be determined during the briefing stage and usually involves website features not listed here.
How much does a website cost: what if I want to migrate my old website or content to the new site?
Whilst this doesn’t come as standard in our pricing, migrating data across from an older site is no problem. From all web content to blog transfer, we can do this for you, once the site is built.
The costs listed vary here depending on the amount of content. Transferring content and blogs over are surprisingly time-consuming, so that is taken into consideration in the price.
The basic option is a no-frills, export from the old site, and import into the new site. Typically the overall layout might not look perfect but in general, it’ll match the format just fine. Around 99% of our clients choose this option and then in their own time amend anything they need to. This is exactly what Vita Mojo opted for.
The full option includes our team spending time reformatting and ensuring that every single blog has been imported successfully and looks perfect in the new website design.
How much does a website cost: does it cost more to enable an e-commerce functionality?
Shopify and WooCommerce offer a range of different functionalities and options for e-commerce clients. During the initial technical meetings, we will review the site’s purpose and recommend which platform is best suited for the new site.
Read more: How much do Shopify experts cost?
As part of the process, we will migrate all the products and stock to the new platform.
How much does a website cost: what about SEO and other marketing?
As we are specialists in conversion-led design and development, we choose to work closely with 3rd Party Marketing Partners who are experts in their field. From SEO, Photography and Copywriting we have contacts who can support the improvement of your website outside of the design and build we will work on.
As with any additional agency or freelancer, we will brief the project and receive a quote, however here is a rough overview of what to expect.
How much does a website cost: is meeting time included?
Meeting times and general communication schedules are taken into account when we price up a project. There are essential client meetings and prep required throughout the project which are included in the price as standard.
On top of this, we’ll arrange with you how much we communicate. For some clients who work in an agile methodology already, twice-weekly standups are preferred to keep the project moving forward in line with the business priorities.
In comparison, many busy MDs and business owners often prefer monthly updates as they just don’t have the time to speak as regularly.
The table below shows a range of options. Of course, the more meetings we have, the higher the price but we offer this range to be flexible with our clients’ needs and wants. We’ll discuss this in detail at the start of the project and plan this agreed communication strategy into our schedule.
Whilst working with Vita Mojo, the team opted for bi-weekly meetings with regular call and email updates in between.
How much does a website cost: what are the costs of my website once it’s built?
The key consideration is where the new site/app is hosted. We’ve developed many automated processes, systems and workflows on our servers which helps to ensure the launch and ongoing maintenance is easier for our developers. We keep them up to date and can easily update and launch new features on the site without the support of a 3rd party provider.
Read more: How much does a website cost to run in 2023?
That said, hosting on another server is possible, but with the communication time and admin required to work with a 3rd party, the price does increase to reflect that.
Below you can see a range of aftercare options we offer.
That’s a wrap… (With some example prices!)
So there you have it, our totally transparent, upfront breakdown of what it costs to build a new website, on average between £20 and 50k.
The example we shared throughout, which as a reminder was a sales lead website to increase demo bookings would be priced in the range of £23,450 to £35,400.
The exact brief for this client project was different, but for reference here’s a breakdown of what that price range includes.
Whilst a high-converting new website might seem like a huge investment, many of our clients see such great results that the cost is returned in just three months.
If you don’t believe us, Adventure Base are the perfect example of online conversion success. The new site basically paid for itself in just a week – read more here.
If a high-converting website is on your agenda this year, then get in touch by filling out the Project Planner below.
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