No matter how tiny your business is, having a website is really important nowadays. But how much money should you plan to spend on making your business website?
You can create a website for free or pay around £3/month for a plan. Hiring a web designer could cost hundreds to thousands upfront, or you could use WordPress for about £30 - £1,000/year. It’s smart to spend less during the current cost of living crisis. We’ll discuss prices of website builders like Wix, professional web design costs, and expenses for a WordPress website.
Depending on your website’s complexity, it can range from being free to around £3,500 per year. This covers subscriptions, agency rates, hosting, security, maintenance, and support.
Hiring a web designer gives you a tailored site, but it takes time and money. Selling online increases costs, with ecommerce plans and design being pricier.
The type of website you want will affect the cost. Web design involves various services, usually offered by agencies:
1. Project management: Planning, meetings, advice
2. Research: Setting goals, defining audience, content, strategy
3. Design: Creating outlines, designs, revisions
4. Build: Developing and customizing
5. Content: Arranging content, writing, images, videos
6. Handover: Training and documents
7. Testing and Launch: Checking compatibility, setting up hosting, going live
Web designers usually price their services based on the time they spend planning, designing, and building the website. They charge hourly or daily rates, which vary depending on the type of company:
- Offshore web company: £10 - £25 per hour (cheap labor, low living costs)
- Freelance web designer: £25 - £50 per hour (few overheads, no office)
- Small web agency: £50 - £75 per hour (office expenses, staff wages)
- Large web agency: £75 - £150 per hour (expensive office, highly skilled staff)
Your choice of company depends on your project needs and the type of ongoing support and skills you require. Larger agencies offer a range of skills in-house, like branding, marketing, and programming.
If you’re looking for a quick and cost-effective way to get a basic website online, you can consider options like using WordPress with a pre-made theme or using hosted platforms like Squarespace or Wix.
However, using these tools means you’ll have to figure out the technical details and put everything together yourself. Many businesses prefer guidance and support through the process, as well as a professional-looking website that can expand as the business grows.
If you’re starting out and have the time and motivation, this could be a suitable choice.
Content is crucial on a website because visitors come for information and answers. Fancy design aside, content determines if a visitor becomes a customer and helps search engines rank your site.
You’ve got two choices:
Write the content yourself.
Hire a professional copywriter. Copywriters charge per word or page and usually write specific pages like homepage, about, contact, and service pages. It can extend to case studies, team bios, articles, and more.
Expect to budget £50 - £100 per page, depending on whether you choose a freelancer or agency.
Content and layout are important, but images are also crucial to enhance your website. It’s best if you can take photos yourself to make them unique to your business and services.
Having badly taken photos can make your business look outdated. Hiring a professional photographer for a photoshoot, costing £150 to £500 per day, can give you high-quality images.
If not, you can use stock photos in moderation. There are resources like Shutterstock, iStock, Unsplash and Stocksy for images and videos.
Your website needs a domain name, which you essentially rent for a period, usually a year. You can get discounts by renting for 2, 3, or 5 years. You’ll choose between extensions like .com or .co.uk for the UK, each having different costs. People often get multiple extensions to secure their online presence.
As of now, here are typical yearly costs:
- .co.uk: £12
- .com, .net, .org: £17
- .info: £18
- .store: £50
You can check compare different prices and domains at https://tld-list.com/. Do be aware that although some registrars may be cheap monthly, but they will catch you into a yearly contract, so always read the fine print. We recommend Cloudflare.
Website hosting is like the place where your website lives on the internet. It’s an annual cost, and paying for multiple years upfront often gives discounts. Remember, with hosting, you usually get what you pay for. Don’t go for very cheap options, as they might lead to website downtime, lack of backups, and limited support.
Sure, let’s look at a real example to put things in perspective:
Imagine you’ve decided to hire a small, dependable local agency to create a unique website that represents your business professionally. The agency charges £500 per day:
- Project management: 1/2 day, £250
- Research: 1/2 day, £250
- Design: 3 days, £1,500
- Build: 3 days, £1,500
- Content: £750
- Handover: 2 hrs, £125
- Testing and Launch: 2 hrs, £125
- Domain Name: £50
- Hosting: £240
Total for this example: £4,500 + £290 ongoing yearly fees (plus VAT).
If you were to opt for a larger agency with a rate of £750 per day, the cost would be closer to £6,500 + £290 ongoing fees. In return, you might get a bigger team, specialists for each service, and even a full marketing campaign to support your website.
In the end, you’re getting a website, but the journey can differ greatly. The main factors are the company you select and whether you want a DIY approach or a professional process involving planning, design, building, and ongoing support with marketing.
