How Much Does a Website Cost?

How much does a website cost? If you were asked what a house or a car cost, how would you respond? The answer is similar when it comes to web sites. There are broad ranges for web design and development, but there is no standard price.

Even in the state of Illinois, where our web design firm is located, the price of a 5-page website can easily range from $500 to $5000 and up. To quote Allbusiness.com:

"Depending on the complexity of the site — the need for business transactions, detailed graphics, etc. — the development cost will vary greatly. A good site design (including implementation of advanced features) shouldn't cost you a fortune, but don't go looking for a $500 bargain special, either. If you hire your teenage nephew to handle the project, it will probably show."

Ultimately, the cost of your website should depend on what you want and need. The three primary categories of pricing factors involved in a website project include design, functionality and content:

Design: What is your website going to look like? The design includes the overall graphical look and feel of your website. This includes the home page layout and graphics, the interior page layout and graphics, and the navigation structure.
Functionality: The functionality should be geared towards helping you accomplish your goals with your target audience. Functionality can be split into many categories, including content management, ecommerce shopping carts, directories, navigation management, marketing tools, third party software integration tools, etc. For business critical websites, this will probably represent the majority of your price.
Content: Content includes marketing copy (textual or graphic information displayed on your pages), product data and photos and other relevant images, as well as other documents and files.

Stay tuned for our next article, which will detail specific items to evaluate when comparing pricing across web design firms.