Top 10 Factors Affecting Web Design Costs for Your Website
When it comes to the cost of websites, you’ll find such a wide range of prices that are involved, that figuring out how it works can be overwhelming.
In this article, I’ll walk you through the top 10 factors affecting the cost of your project.
With this information in-hand, you’ll have a good understanding of how it works, so you can make the best decision for you.
Project Scope and Complexity
Your web design project scope and complexity will impact how much your agency will charge.
The more pages and functions, the more time it takes.
Design Customization
The complexity of the design of your website will affect the cost.
There are two approaches to take:
- Template
- Custom
A template is a pre-made design, making it cheaper because the planing and layout are already done. You just add your wording, images and videos and tweak the color and font settings. Usually some design customization is available.
While not the best for getting more customers, often times themes are used in DIY projects to keep costs low at the beginning.
Business Website Design Cost
Custom design costs more because a designer designs the theme of your website and designs each page. They make it unique to match your needs and style. It takes more time and effort and usually results in more sales, so they cost more because it gets better results.
In short, templates are cost-friendly, but less unique, while custom designs cost more, but are one-of-a-kind and get more sales.
Cost of Graphics
Graphic design goes deeper than the overall website.
It involves designing and creating elements.
Things like:
- Icons
- Buttons
- Backgrounds
Creating these elements from scratch requires more time, planning and building, making these additional factors that impact your project.
Insider Tip:
In most cases, graphic design is not needed. Off-the-shelf icons and buttons are actually better for visitor conversions because visitors are looking for the familiar visuals that are seen across the internet. Trying to ‘re-invent’ navigation visuals is not recommended and can result in an unnecessary cost for you.
Building Your Site
Web development is how your website is coded or “built”. There are a few different options:
- Custom web development
- Content management system
- Content management system with some custom
Cost of Development Team
Custom web development is when web developers hand write all the code for the website. If you are creating a completely new service and the functionality you need doesn’t exist on the market, then looking at the cost of hiring website developers may be the right approach and an important factor in your costs. Think of websites like AirBnB, Facebook, Ebay, etc.
Content Management System (CMS)
Content management systems are software platforms or services that have most of the standard website development coding already done. Some examples are WordPress, Wix, Shopify, Squarespace and Webflow. Except for WordPress, these platforms/service require a monthly or annual fee. If you are not creating a completely new service, then a CMS is probably the appropriate approach for your project.
CMS with Some Coding
Some content management systems allow for some custom web development within their software, but this is typically limited outside of WordPress. This allows for some middle ground between full custom website development and using a CMS. This may be the best approach if a page or section of your website involves a unique function that may not be available within the CMS you’re using. In the end, website development cost is largely impacted by the kind of functions your website needs.
Pages
How many pages your website has creates a trickle down effect into most of the other factors. Since that’s the case, creating website pages without a strategic purpose is not only a waste of budget, but typically hurts a website’s chances of getting more customers. Make sure each page serves a specific purpose that contributes to the overall goal of increasing customers.
Wording
Often overlooked, the wording on your website is one of the most important factors to getting more customers as well as ranking on search engines. If you’re looking to turn visitors into customers, then hiring a professional website copywriter to write your content will be key. If you hire an agency, they may already have a writer on staff or relationships with writers. If not, consider hiring a writer directly to handle content development for your project.
Website Wording That Converts
There are only three purposes for the wording on your website:
- Ranking on search engines to get visitors
- Educating visitors
- Selling to visitors
Since a higher skilled writer will help you get more sales, who you hire will affect the cost.
Images of Your Business
Images complement the design and when paired with the wording, contribute to getting more customers for you.
There are four approaches:
- Unique Images
- Free to Use Images
- Purchase Stock Images
- Unique and Free to Use Images
Unique Website Images
If you want the absolute best images, then hiring a photographer is the way to go. While it’s the priciest option and will cost a premium, you’ll get the exact images you want.
Free to Use Website Images
If you want to avoid hiring a photographer, there are tons of places online to acquire free-to-use images. While there are not the best option for turning visitors into customers, they can be used temporarily until there’s more budget to hire a photographer.
Purchase Stock Digital Images
If the free to use images are not exactly what you’re looking for and the cost of hiring a photographer is not an option, you can purchase stock images as compromise. The cost for stock images is considerably lower than hiring a photographer.
Unique and Free to Use Images
The middle ground and most common approach a local business will use is to hire a photographer for team and or some offices photos, but also supplement the rest of the site using free-to-use images. While this isn’t as visually optimized as a 100% custom photography, it is usually sufficient to turn your visitors into customers.
Video
Using video on your website can be a game changer to increase customers.
There are lots of different ways to approach video, but often times it can be
- An “explainer” video that walks visitors through how your business or service works
- An introduction video that talks about what you do at a high level
- A meet the owner/CEO video where leadership talks directly to your customers
Videos should almost always be custom as cookie-cutter videos are some of the lowest converting videos online.
SEO
Search engine optimization is the method that gets your website to show on search engines so your business can get visitors and customers. It falls under the category of digital marketing services and web design at the same time.
While SEO can be complex, there are two main appraoches:
- Sales
- Education
Sales
If you plan to do your own marketing outside of using search engines, then you only need SEO for your sales page (e.g. Home, Services, About, Contact pages).
Education
If you plan to get customers from search engine marketing, then you’ll need new educational content and SEO created every month.
Domain Name
The domain is the name of your website. For example: google.com, apple.com and ebay.com are all domain names. This is a minimum requirements for your websites as you’ll need a domain, so customers can find your website on the internet. Typically the domain and website hosting should be in the same service but it’s not required.
Website Hosting
While the domain is the name of your website, the website hosting is the service that puts your website on the internet. This is also a minimum requirement. Hosting can be purchased separately or together with the domain name or the domain and website hosting can be purchased within a CMS like Shopify or Wix.
Ongoing Maintenance
Just like every other part of your business, your website isn’t 100% completed.
New information and functions may need to be added to get more leads and customers.
Ask the web design agencies about their ongoing maintenance plans and how they support you after your website launches.
Freelancer vs Web Design Agency
The two approaches you can take are:
- Hire a freelance web designer
- Hire web design company
Generally, hiring a freelancer means lower website project costs but more hands on. Depending on their expertise and industry relationships, you may need to also hire a developer, writer, SEO, photographer and videographer. This may work for you if you want to be hands on and save as much as possible.
Hiring a website company typically means costs are higher and no hands on. A quality web design company will have all the skills needed to complete the website with much less or zero effort from you.
Factors Affecting the Web Design Cost for a Website
The cost of website design can vary wildly, each factor you consider will be a trade-off and will have some influence on purpose, budget and the end-goal of getting more customers.
For further reading on websites and planning check out:
Do a deep dive on website costs: How much does a website cost?
Work out a website project plan and learn: How to choose a web design company.