Nowadays, a website is the face of an organization and an online embassy of a business company. Often, they function as stores or showcases for companies’ goods and services available for purchase. Additionally, websites are invaluable for marketing and advertising, customer support, and many other purposes.
As a result, many organizations and entrepreneurs are interested in having custom-made websites with tailored sets of features. However, businesses and individuals are usually unaware of the cost of creating and running a website. So, in this article, we will describe the components of the total website development service cost and define the price ranges for every step of creating and maintaining a website, depending on its complexity.
Factors Influencing Website Development Costs
The average cost of building a website is defined by several factors that can be roughly divided into three groups: hosting-related, size-related, and complexity-related. One could compare website development to building a house, where the investments depend on the desired location, design, and materials.
The cost of a website is largely determined by its purpose. A landing page for a promotional campaign and an online store with hundreds of product names require significantly different amounts of effort and resources, so their development prices are wide apart.
Traditionally, the size of a website should match the size of the business. This means that it may be inefficient for a small company to invest in a large, feature-rich website. And vice versa, it may look suspicious if a large enterprise owns a single landing page or a template-based website with a default stock design.
Hosting
As a rule, when a customer asks to build a website from scratch, the developers also handle such aspects as name registration, selection of a hosting service provider and an adequate plan, purchasing an SSL certificate, and so on. A reliable hosting provider that offers scalable services is essential for the uninterrupted operation of a website. A good-looking top-tier domain name that is easy to remember may be expensive, but it is for brand recognition and attracting new customers.
Size
The size of a website determines its structure, the number of pages, and the amount of content. In turn, these factors determine the volume of storage required to host the website and the corresponding cost.
Size and complexity also determine whether you have to hire a dedicated team or whether it is viable to build a website by yourself with or without the help of freelancers.
Complexity
The complexity of a website refers to a much more diverse set of factors determining the overall cost. Among them, the choice of technologies is the most impactful factor. In other words, the more features are needed, the more expensive and lengthy the website development will become.
If a website requires advanced features and integrations, its cost will increase, often dramatically. Implementing features takes more work hours from web developers and demands additional plugins, modules, and other paid features.
Complex functionality also demands developers with high skill levels to handle advanced technologies. Their hourly rates are higher, and they are more difficult to find than junior- and middle-level web developers.
Also, do not forget about the additional costs of website maintenance and promotion. Even though these expenses are technically “post-development,” they should be considered when you estimate a budget for creating a website.
So, How Much Does It Cost to Build a Website?
Different types of websites usually have specific combinations of size and complexity. Here are a few popular types of websites with approximate price ranges provided by Upwork.
A small business website containing up to 16 pages will cost about $2,000-7,000.
A large business website of up to 75 pages will cost about $10,000-35,000.
The cost to develop a website for e-commerce starts from $5,000 for an online store with 100 products and may reach $55,000 for a store with 1,000 products.
The total price can be broken down into several groups of expenditures that correspond to the stages of the development process. They include:
- Design and UX/UI expenses.
- Development and coding costs.
- Testing and quality assurance expenditures.
- Maintenance and ongoing support charges.
- Hosting and domain fees.
Ideally, all these activities should be performed by specific experts, which is the case if you hire a dedicated team. So, based on the list above, the team should contain the appropriate number of such specialists: web designer, copywriter, content manager, web developer, QA and testing specialist, and SEO specialist.
Every phase of website development should have an adequate budget since they all influence the quality of the final product. Here are rough estimations for every stage:
- UI/UX design. On average, this stage takes one or two weeks and costs from $700 to $4,000.
- Front-end development. This stage may require various numbers of programmers depending on many factors, so the approximate time and cost may vary from two weeks and $1,000 to six weeks and $12,500.
- Back-end development. If your website needs a lot of custom coding and third-party service integrations, such as payment processing systems, this stage can easily take up to eight weeks and cost $12,500. Luckily, in most cases, the average numbers are much lower: about three weeks and $4,000.
- CMS and admin panel development. Every website needs a functional means of administration and content management. Even if your site uses a third-party CMS, such as WordPress or Drupal, it has to be customized according to your business needs. Creating a customized CMS may take from three to eight weeks and will add $3,000-9,000 to the total budget.
- QA and testing. It is vital to test the website’s usability and security on different platforms, especially on various mobile devices. This process can be done manually and using specialized tools for automated testing. The average rate of a QA engineer is about $25/hour, so the total cost of quality assurance and security testing will be in the range of $500-5,000, depending on the size of the website and the number of tests.
The total website development cost also includes additional expenses on project management, content creation, SEO and promotion, hosting, and other activities.
Industry Trends Shaping Website Development Costs
In order to attract users and offer improved usability, your website should make effective use of current trends, such as:
- Mobile-first design.
- Responsive web development.
- Progressive web apps (PWAs).
- Voice search optimization.
- AI and chatbot integration.
Though implementation of these features will increase the cost of website development, their benefits are well worth it. They improve customer satisfaction, reduce operational costs, and increase efficiency, among other advantages.
Cost of Website Development by a Vendor Type
In most cases, when a company or an individual needs a custom website, there are three common options. The first one is contacting a software development company or a web design agency and hiring a dedicated team. The second one is hiring individual specialists on Upwork or similar freelance platforms. And the last option is to build a website using your own skills. Let's look at the pros, cons, and approximate costs of these approaches.
Hire a Development Team
This is the most expensive but safe route to getting a custom website. Web development agencies have all the required skills and workforce to deliver projects of various complexity. They are an ideal solution for a busy entrepreneur who needs the result by a specified time. In addition to design and development, such agencies also provide other services, such as maintenance, SEO, marketing, content updates, business analysis, and so on. Often, web development agencies offer their services as all-in-one packages that may include discounts.
However, most agencies do not reveal their rates to a broad audience. Instead, they estimate the costs individually for every project. It is common practice in this industry, so you will have to contact several companies, tell them what kind of website you need, and ask for an estimate. The location of a web design agency also has an influence on the price tag. Nearshore development companies tend to charge more, while offshore companies offer better prices but involve additional drawbacks.
It should be noted that some agencies tend to decline small projects or give them low priority. Overall, the cost of hiring an agency to build a business website starts from about $15,000 and can reach $150,000 or even more. For most startups and small companies, this price is far beyond their budgets, making them look for cheaper options.
Hire an In-House Team
Hiring an in-house team or a department for your business company is not always viable. On one hand, you will have the same specialists as the hired agency as your employees. On the other hand, you will have to ensure effective management and working conditions. Moreover, the search process, interviewing, and other aspects of hiring are time-consuming. Sometimes, there are just no suitable candidates that match your criteria.
An in-house team is viable if a website is the staple of your business and you do not want to rely on third parties to ensure its operation. For example, it is justified for an online store or a corporate website but may be excessive for a landing page or portfolio. Considering the additional costs of hiring, management, and work environment, an in-house team involves more investments and hustle than hiring a team from an agency.
Hire Freelancers
Even if you need just a small website, it is unlikely that you will find a “jack of all trades” capable of delivering it without extra help. Usually, you need at least three specialists to build a website and fill it with content: a web developer, a UI/UX designer, and a copywriter/content manager. This option usually means that you have settled for using a popular web builder that offers customizable CMS. The most common examples are Squarespace, Wix, Shopify, WordPress.org, and GoDaddy.
According to Upwork, the average hourly rates of a web designer and web developer are $15-30, while the copywriter’s rate is $20-45 per hour. This means that a small business website built by freelancers will cost you from $1,500 to $5,000, while the price for a complex website that requires 1000 hours of work will be about $20,000-30,000. This sum largely depends on the implemented functionality, the amount of custom programming, the use of paid modules, and so on.
Do It Yourself
If you have free time, you can try to turn your idea into a working website using your skills and tenacity. This is a huge responsibility, so you need to evaluate your skills and available resources carefully. Most probably, you will have to learn a lot while working on your website, so this is a great chance to improve your skills. On the other hand, you will be able to handle only a small and simple project and will face many challenges during this process. That’s why you should think carefully and decide whether you are up for this task.
Currently, many website builders offer intuitive, no-code tools for virtually anyone. The basic functionality is generally free or very cheap, but any advanced features will require one-time payments or subscriptions. This way, you will save money on specialists and can spend it on premium features and paid functionality of a chosen website builder. Generally, this is the slowest way to build a website, even if you have certain experience.
If you resort to a bare minimum, then you will have to pay about $3/month for a combination of website builder and web hosting services at Hostinger, for example. A domain name ending in .com or .net will cost you at least $8 yearly, but you can also choose cheaper domains like .xyz or .shop for $1-2 per year. Many features and services will come free with the hosting plan. They will be basic but acceptable for simple websites.
Strategies for Cost Optimization
If your budget is limited, you will have to find ways to save money with as little decline in quality and functionality as possible. Here are some illustrative steps:
Make a priority list of features and functionalities. Setting up goals and priorities is vital for the development process in terms of product quality and budget efficiency.
Use open-source solutions and frameworks. There are plenty of web development tools for limited budgets. Websites created with web builders, theme templates, and CMS plugins are the common practice for small businesses.
Employ Agile project management. Agile methodology enables great flexibility and predictability while also focusing on quality and customer engagement.
Consider outsourcing instead of in-house development. Hiring a dedicated team is more cost-effective in many situations than running an in-house department.
Prepare for long-term expenses in advance. Don’t forget that your website will need maintenance, new content, and other updates and upgrades. Web hosting and other subscription-based services are cheaper in long-term plans.
How to Choose a Trustworthy Web Development Partner?
This mission is not the easiest, yet not impossible. Here, we’ll point out a few things to look at if you want to find not a random development team but trustworthy experts.
Experience and expertise. Check for how many years your selected software development company or freelance specialist has been active in their area of expertise. A veteran company is significantly more reliable than its competitors, who appeared six months ago.
Case Studies/Portfolio. The first thing you will probably pay attention to when searching for a software development vendor is their portfolio. Trustworthy professionals give enough information about their projects so that their future clients can get a full picture of their expertise. Most importantly, pay attention to whether they mention real clients, at least in some case studies. If not, consider moving to the next candidate for the job.
Testimonials. Customers’ feedback shows the trustworthiness of the development partner. If clients of a web development company or freelancer leave no or mostly negative comments, this is a red flag for you. The best thing in clients’ testimonials is that they commonly specify the client’s name, occupation, and the company they own or work for. Thus, you can contact this person and additionally ask them to what extent their collaboration with the web development partner was efficient and smooth.
Presence in reliable catalogs like Clutch, GoodFirms, Business of Apps, etc. This works only for the companies. These catalogs are highly informative and useful because they also have testimonials taken directly from the clients.
Location. Web development partners that have offices in different countries are way more reliable than the ones with one specified location or not specified at all. Companies with several offices within one country or around the world won’t jeopardize all this hard work and their reputation with bad work and/or poor communication.
Transparency. Pay attention to how much information your future web development partner shows on their website or profile and in private communication. Also, it wouldn't hurt to pay attention to how they’re dealing with all the paperwork, like legal documents and agreements. This may tell you a lot about their reliability.
The cost of developing a website or other software. Too low or too high a price on services is always a red flag, showing that something is shady. Of course, if a company has years of experience and has become a globally renowned brand, it can have the website development cost way higher than the average on the market. However, if a company is new and doesn’t offer unique expertise in something, it may only show that this team very likely intends to leave the market soon.
As you see, the company’s website development cost shouldn’t be your only criterion when choosing your software development vendor. Those who choose the wrong one often pay twice, so choose yours wisely.
As a company that has been providing web development and other services for more than 15 years, we’ve worked hard on our reputation and our clients’ business well-being since day one. Today, we have offices in San Francisco, New York, London, and Oslo and an engineering workforce in 21 countries across the Atlantic. We are pleased to tell everyone that we have many Fortune 500 companies among our clients – Harley-Davidson, Melco, Hoosbaa, Clinique, Eurostar, and many more. However, we don’t limit ourselves to working with enterprises only. If you’re a startup, our cost of website development is reasonable for your business as well.
Conclusion
The average cost of website development comprises many factors – size, hosting, and complexity are among the ones that lie on the surface. However, there’s a lot more to mention – the size of the development team and the expertise level of each specialist plays a huge role in the total cost. If you need a website with complex functionality and infrastructure, you’ll need more than one or two specialists to build it. Thus, the website development cost increases.
The location of development specialists has a significant impact on the average cost of website development. The hourly rate of software engineers from the US or Europe can be twice or three times higher than their colleagues from other regions. Another website development cost factor is expertise. Specialists with solid experience are valuable in the labor market, especially when they’re familiar with the peculiarities of different industries.
If you’re looking for a reliable vendor to build your website from scratch or upgrade the one you have, Intellectsoft is the best one for the job. For over 15 years, we have created and delivered more than 600 digital solutions for businesses of all sizes – from early-stage startups to SMBs and Fortune 500 enterprises. To learn more about our work, please check our most prominent cases for clients in such industries as fintech, healthcare, construction, eCommerce, transportation, and a lot more.
So, how much does it cost to build a website with the help of Intellectsoft’s team? Get in touch with us and tell us your project requirements. Our business development manager will reach out to you with the initial project estimation and recommendations. The cost of developing a website can be calculated only based on the specific information on your project. So, don’t hesitate to contact us to get a custom solution for your business at a reasonable price.
FAQ
How much does it cost to develop a website?
The sum depends on many factors and may vary according to them. An average-sized business website built from scratch by an outsourcing company will cost $15,000-30,000, depending on the agency, complexity, and other variables.
Can I build a website by myself?
Technically, yes. There are a lot of no-code or low-code website-building services with intuitive drag-and-drop editors and many options to customize and add functionality to a website. However, if you need a website for business, we recommend hiring a professional web designer at least.
Why should I hire a team of professionals to build my website?
Hiring a team may be costly, but it is essential for ensuring your website’s quality, usability, and security. These are vital qualities that define the potential success of your business.
