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Most of our clients admit that a perfectly built website can boost your business. It can help you improve customer retention and bring more deals through a simple and user-friendly interface. The website is one of the most powerful marketing channels for all businesses out there. There is no doubt that you need a website, but what is the cost of developing a resource that meets your business needs?
The average cost to build a website is what everyone wants to know. But there is no average answer since websites differ greatly. Nevertheless, this request still remains the most frequent one, so we decided to explain how we estimate the cost of our services.
So in this article we are going to answer the most crucial questions – how to build a reliable website, why you should get a detailed estimation and how to avoid wasting your time and money. Let’s proceed to this topic right away
How much does it Cost to Create a Website?
The first thing you need to know that nobody can tell you the precise cost of the project without understanding the idea and making a plan. If you send a request that is not very detailed to a development company and they give you the final price at once, you can be sure that it will never be the same in the end. Unfortunately, a lot of clients are vulnerable to a promise like that. And in the end thy get a great website that costs way more than they were promised in the beginning.
You might see advertising that promises you a website that will cost you $300-500. Yes, such prices exist but such websites don’t provide the expected results because they are made by an amateur who read several articles about website development on builders and never heard about UI/UX design, SEO optimization, customization, etc. Also if you choose such website created on builder, you’ll lack many features in the future. Let’s take productivity of your business – as it will grow, you will need to start using CRM, ERP or other business management tools. To do it effectively, it will be needed to perform your website integration with those systems. And websites created on builders will not let you do so (or offer you some limited options).
So when choosing your website developers you should pay attention whether they really dive into your project before presenting you with a commercial offer and whether they understand your business niche. The offer should include a detailed plan of website development and rates for each operation. Let’s start with the basics. The rough budget of the project can only be determined if you have the answers to the following questions:
- What are the features of the website?
- What are the deadlines?
- How many team members will be involved?
Besides, it’s not a secret that the web development cost is also based on such factors as the geographical position of the development company. Hourly rates for web developers, designers, testers, and other team members vary in different countries. For instance, the highest rates are in the U.S. and UK, which is almost $100-200 per hour. The medium prices can be found in Europe – $50-100 on average. And the lowest prices are in countries like India, Pakistan and can reach $5-50 per hour. Since the U.S. based developers might be too expensive for some companies, they start to search for alternatives. But they shouldn’t be tempted by the low prices as they often involve poor quality.
Ukraine alongside other Eastern European countries is known to be the golden mine due to the price-quality ratio. We even have a dedicated blog post explaining the main advantages of Ukrainian developers. Briefly, the main benefits are suitable time-zone, strong skill set, affordable prices, and mentality.
And now let’s proceed to the real numbers of website development. We will show you the yearly cost of some website expenses that are mandatory. The prices we provide are relatable for the basic website that is not overloaded with some advanced features or integrations.
Cost of a Basic Website
| Website expenses | Price per year |
| Domain name | $2 to $15 |
| Hosting | $5 to $250 |
| Maintenance | $200 to $1,000 |
| SSL certificates | free to $50 |
As you can see from the table, the numbers are not so shocking and huge as many people think. However, we should mention that websites for different business niches will have different cost. And this depends on the desired feature set, website complexity and other factors. So before counting how much money you would approximately need, we’d recommend you to perform a discovery phase and discuss everything with your Business Analyst. At the end of the discovery phase you’ll have a clear understanding of you future solution, you’ll get Project Vision document, and a list of functional requirements and technology stack needed.
How we perform estimation
Our mission is to deliver projects with the goal of building long-term, trusting relationships with our clients. For that reason, we do all our best to provide our clients with the work done on time and within a set budget. In order to know for sure, how much would it cost to make a website each our clients gets an individual estimation.
To estimate the future project it is necessary to make marketing research that will cover promising avenues, target audience and competitors. In the light of the information the specifications stage of development will be started which is obligatory for all our clients. But what is the specification you may ask?
Software specifications or simply specs is a document that describes the functions that a software must perform. It describes the interaction between the user and the software system and has to be transparent so the client can understand who is going to be involved in the process and how much would it cost. The specification process includes 4 key stages:
- Business Analyst figures out how the website should be developed according to agreed purposes and all business processes that could be made on the website.
- User Interface and User Experience (UI/UX) creation that includes a custom design that will be user-friendly and comfortable for your customers. Template web design won’t respond exactly to your target audience and specific character of your business.
- System Architect confirms the technology stack.
- System Architect also prepares the Roadmap.
The core purpose of the specification document is not only to describe how the system is going to work. It also allows the team to estimate how much time and human resources is required to develop the product. Depending on the project’s requirements and complexity the development of website can take from 2 till 12 months. After you get the final estimate of the project, the website development itself can be started.
We strongly recommend to never skip the pre-development stage for the following reasons:
- Some important features can be missed without being pointed out by the expert.
- It’s impossible to estimate the exact cost of the project without knowing the scope of work.
- If you decide to add some features on the go, be prepared for the cost growth.
- It’s impossible to fit into the set deadlines without having a plan.
Without the discovery phase and all technical documentation describing tech stack, development hours, scope of work, you will not have a clear vision of your project and no team will be able to give you any guarantees about time and cost. So it is better to come prepared and knowing exactly what amount of money is needed to complete your website.
Our expertise in website development
For the 9+ years in business we have developed and redesigned numerous website for different companies. We have worked with various business owners and gained vast expertise in website development. So now we offer you to take a look at the brightest examples of our works that we are very proud of.
Soljets
Soljets is a powerful web platform for aircraft brokerage and the only thing you probably know about this niche is that it is a luxury one. So this project demanded special approach from our specialists. The client came to us with the desire to redesign his website, make it ore selling and modern. And that task we’ve successfully accomplished.
Our designers selected chick and luxury color palette for Soljets website, they added animation on the main page and did a great job on the UX. Every section on the website is understandable, you can intuitively navigate to Encyclopedia, jets catalogue or comparison tool. All those functionalities were added by our specialists as well. If you are interested in Soljets case, you can check it out in our Portfolio. So in general we paid special attention to the sitemap creation, navigation, logic and intuitivity of every function you can see on the website. Our client was so impressed, that he even considered entrusting us the development of an ERP system for his company.
HDR Print
HDR Print is a successful company that offers a range of custom printing services. The print not only documents but also posters, banners and many more. So a reliable and selling website is a must for them. While working upon HDR Print website we gained expertise not only in designing it and making it highly user friendly and intuitive.
We also created an advanced tool called calculator widget. The main purpose of that tool was to help clients make custom orders by choosing the type of the future printing, its custom size and see the price. At the moment the website functions great and it keeps bringing the company new clients thanks to its convenience and presence of options to make an order fast and easy.
FAQ
To Conclude
As you can see the costs of creating a website depends on many factors. Generally, the more information you provide at the very beginning, the less time it would take to complete the final estimation of the project. The website cost is the combination of the size, complexity, design, and flexibility. Having decided to get your website done by the professional team you should rely on their expertise and work as a team to get the result that exceeds expectations.
Your website is the first that see your customer so creating a awesome website should be your top priority. If you seriously want to build an engaging website and boost your business, you need an experienced web development partner.
