It can be extremely confusing to gauge the exact cost of developing a website. The cost is contingent on several factors that play their respective parts to influence and arrive at the final price. These factors take in the number of web pages, features, functionalities, technology stack, and design. In absence of complete information on these factors, it is impossible to determine the cost of building a website.
How much does it Cost to Build a Website?
Entry-level websites cost less for their development. The overall cost that incurs to you primarily depends on your requirements. As the number of visitors keeps increasing your website continues showing steady growth. To include enhanced functionalities to your website you can resort to premium WordPress plug-ins and themes (in case the website is built using WordPress).
Before you start randomly adding needs to your website, it is imperative that you mull over some questions to gain a proper understanding of your goals. This comes to your aid to avoid overspending when you build your website.
Here are some key factors that needs your attention while you are planning to create a website:
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Realistic Budget
To try building a website that is beyond your means will invariably lead to disastrous consequences. Check your budget over and over again. Once you are absolutely sure you can go ahead buying premium plug-ins and themes. Initially, when you are just starting out, it is always recommended to keep the expenses as low as possible.
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Genuine Requirement of a Custom-made Website
The simplest way to put a website into action is through the installation of free pre-developed WordPress themes. Not only do they save you on costs, but taking the help of a professional web developer also becomes optional.
But, if you are eager to have a website with a distinctive look and feel, it will be necessary to conceive a customized WordPress theme, especially by seeking help from a professional developer. The hourly fee charged by WordPress developers ranges anything between $20 and $100.
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Requisite Features
When you begin at the entry level, you will not need accessories and props that you come across in other fully operational websites. It is compulsory to write down all the essential features you want for your website. While choosing the features, think about the purpose that your website needs to serve in the long run.. This helps systematize the whole website development process.
At the outset, you may only focus on the high-priority features. This also helps cut down costs as you expand.
The cost of building a website can be ascertained in two different ways namely:
- Take into consideration the phases involved in developing a website.
- Take into consideration the type of your website.
Website Development Cost (in terms of phases)
A website is generally brought into being through different phases. Each of these phases has its own associated costs. The time aspect of every phase depends on your business needs and the complexity of the website which in turn have an impact on the development cost.
Adding them up, the cost of website development begins at roughly $8,750 and goes up to $38,000 and even more.
1. UI/UX Design Creation
The following tools can be used for UI/UX design:
- Adobe Creative Cloud
- InVision
- Sketch
- Zeplin
The majority of visitors have a great visual sense. A good website design helps seize their attention. On the other hand, a poor website design can make the visitors leave your website and never return.
Thus, UI/UX design is integral to determining the cost to build a website. The cost of a custom website design is dependent on the following three principal stages:
- Research – Meant to identify the target audience, its preferences, and analyze competitor strategies.
- Wireframe – Meant to devise wireframes to exhibit a schematic positioning of website elements and take consent from the client.
- Prototype – Meant to fashion the final UI to display the exact look of the app on devices.
The breakdown shown above enables us to achieve the best efficiency and put all project details in place. The cost of a website design with UI/UX integration can vary anything between $750 and $4000 or more.
Also, keep in mind, the cost and time to bring the desired UI/UX design is based on your individual needs such as the number of web pages, complexities borne by the animation, and many more.
2. Front-end Development
Commonly used technologies that are employed to develop the front-end of websites include:
- Angular
- Bootstrap
- CSS
- HTML
- JavaScript
- LESS
- React
- SASS
- TypeScript
The front end allows visitors to catch sight of your website and interact with the elements. Usually, front-end development begins after the completion of the UI/UX design phase.
The cost of website creation in this stage is impacted by the following main factors:
- The extent of the responsiveness of the website.
- The animations integrate into the website.
The cost to develop the front-end can range anything between $1,000 and $12,500 and more.
3. Back-end Development
The various technologies that are frequently used to develop the back-end of a website include:
- Node.js
- Express.js
- Nest.js
- .NET
The back end helps transfer the data between the web server and the website accessed by a browser.
The back end forms the kernel of every website and it helps equip the website with all its functionalities. This indicates the fact that as far as the website building cost is concerned back-end development constitutes the biggest slice of the cake.
There are certain important factors that decide the average cost of the website and its overall development time. These factors include:
- Services offered by the website and the integrations with third-party apps.
- Availability of non-standard content like embedded videos.
- Ability to handle complex user queries.
The cost of back-end development ranges from $4,000 to $12,500 and more.
4. Admin Panel Development
The admin panel is also known as a content management system (CMS). It permits you to create, manage, and edit the website content. Therefore, a minor change in the text of content does not usually need the intervention of developers.
There is a broad array of ready-to-use CMS engines that include:
- Drupal
- Shopify
- Joomla
- Silverstripe
- WordPress
They are conceived to reduce both web development costs and time.
However, since they are off-the-shelf solutions, odds are they have limitations in their functionalities and security. The latter is crucial as most of the malicious pieces of software are written to attack popular systems instead of the custom-tailored ones.
The average expenditure to fabricate a custom CMS can range anything between $3,000 and $9,000 and more.
| Phase | Time (weeks) | Cost
($) |
Influencing factors | Development tools/frameworks |
| UI/UX | 1 – 2 | 750 – 4,000 | – | – |
| Front-End development | 2 – 6 | 1,000 – 12,500 | Website responsiveness, the complexity of animations | CSS3, HTML5, TypeScript, JavaScript, Angular, Vue, React |
| Back-End development | 3 – 8 | 4,000 – 12,500 | Third-party integrations, complex queries, and more | Web frameworks: Ruby on Rails, Phoenix
Database servers: MySQL, PostgreSQL Web servers: Nginx, Apache Programming languages: Elixir, PHP, Python, Ruby, Java Cloud server platforms: EC2, S3, AWS |
| CMS development | 3 – 8 | 3,000 – 9,000 | – | WordPress, Joomla, Silverstripe |
Website Development Cost (in terms of website types)
There are always different reasons to create websites. A website can be a personal blog or a dedicated portfolio website. A more comprehensive website helps manage sophisticated enterprise solutions. As a result, the time needed for the development depends on its complexity which in turn exerts influence on its development costs.
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How Much Does a Business Website Cost?
Business websites are highly informative. It puts extra focus on promoting the brand thereby increasing customer loyalty. Any typical business website consists of the following web pages:
- Home
- About company
- Services
- Blog / Press page
- Contact
- Testimonials
Since all web projects are unique, the corresponding websites may have different structures. So, the cost of a business website relies on the number of web pages and the features it is going to have.
The following features are frequently requested as far as a business website is concerned:
- Admin panel
- Contact form
- Integration with live chats (for example, Intercom, Chat.io, Freshchat, etc)
- Mobile-responsive design
- Search bar
As the size of the business grows things start getting more complicated with the extra requirements of more pages, features, and extra security.
The cost of developing a business website can range between $9,500 and $13,000 and more.
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How much does an e-commerce Website Cost?
The e-commerce industry is quite large and competitive. So, it can be problematic to gauge the exact development cost associated with an e-commerce website. An e-commerce website can carry innumerable web pages, each having complex functionalities.
Some of the most common pages that make up a typical e-commerce website include:
- Main page
- Category pages
- Product pages
- Shopping cart
- Favorites
- Check out
- Blog
Some of the features of an e-commerce website that are worth mentioning include:
- Admin panel
- Seamless integration with various payment gateways like Google Pay, Apple Pay, PayPal, and more
- Customer reviews
- Personalized push notifications
- Product ratings
- Products search bar
Massive e-commerce websites should have well-defined structures and substructures to sustain enormous traffic loads. Besides, they should rank favorably on major SERPs.
Such idiosyncrasies call for substantial capital investment when it comes to building an e-commerce website and bringing it to fruition. For this reason, the average cost of a custom-built e-commerce website varies.
In general, the cost of development of an e-commerce website can vary anywhere from $17,500 to $37,500 and can cost even more.
How Much Does a Landing Page Cost?
With regard to website development, a landing page can be defined in two distinct ways:
- A website having a single page and intended for promoting or selling products and/or services.
- A separate page on an already existing website having multiple web pages and intended for promoting or selling products and/or services
By and large, a landing page is not overstuffed with content. It is solely required to sustain user attention and prompt them to take actions like buying something or downloading content. Every so often, a landing page is created for promoting apps.
A landing page can be pretty long. In spite of this, the average cost to build a landing page is less in comparison with a website supporting multiple web pages. The time to create a landing page increases proportionally with the complexity, which in turn increases the overall development cost.
The price of developing a landing page usually varies from $1,000 to $2,500.
| Website | Time | Cost (minimum) | Cost (maximum) |
| Business website | 190-260h | $9,500 | $13,000 |
| E-commerce | 350-750h | $17,500 | $37,500 |
| Landing page | 20-50h | $1,000 | $2,500 |
Additional Costs Associated with Website Development
When you start developing a website, there are many supplementary costs that you will likely come across:
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Domain Name
The domain name of a website is a unique address that is visible in your web browser’s address bar. Every website can be accessed with a particular domain name. The allocation of a domain name to a website is a dedicated payable service and is done by renowned domain name registrars namely:
- Bluehost
- GoDaddy
- Hostinger
- Interserver
The annual cost for a domain varies between $5 and $15.
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Hosting
Hosting is responsible to keep your website up and running 24X7. The efficiency of the hosting service provider impacts the loading time of your website. So, including hosting expenses to your website’s overall outlay is imperative.
Hosting services can cost anything between $75 and $200 on an annual basis.
Several trustworthy hosting service providers include:
- GoDaddy
- Hostgator
- Inmotion
- Ionos
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Maintenance
Once your website is developed and fully functional, then comes the maintenance aspect. Website maintenance is critical and ensures proper round-the-clock functioning with minimal downtime, bugs, and problems. The yearly maintenance cost of a website can range anything between $500 and $12,000.
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SSL Certificate Cost
Website security is of paramount importance. SSL and HTTPS certificates are well-known connection security protocols aimed at offering absolute protection to your website. Their yearly license costs between $10 and $300.
Marketing Expenses to Promote a Website
Marketing your website is all-important. If no one is aware of your website, the whole effort put in during its development goes futile. Therefore, it is appropriate to also take marketing expenses into account while estimating the total development cost of a website.
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Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
The main intent of SEO is to gear up your website for ranking better on Google’s Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs). SEO helps visitors on your web to find your website easily on the web. The SEO cost relies heavily on the magnitude of efforts that one puts to improve the presence of a website on the internet.
The average monthly price of SEO varies anything between $300 and $1500.
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Pay-Per-Click advertising (PPC)
It happens to be one of the most effective means to target prospects and help them become aware of your products and/or service. Also, it helps convert your website visitors or potential customers into paying customers.
In this context, Google AdWords is an incredibly flexible and feature-rich tool to create and manage online marketing campaigns. It is the perfect fit for PPC professionals. Even you can use it on your own to launch and manage your campaigns.
The average PPC cost goes beyond $50. The price of PPC advertising depends on the industry type and chosen keywords. Consequently, several companies shell out significant capital resources to accomplish visible results.
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Copywriting
Copywriting empowers professional writers to generate engaging content in the form of blogs, articles, and copies. They insert in-demand keywords in the content appropriate to your business. Quality content helps attract more organic traffic, generate leads, and increase conversions.
The average price of an article varies between $50 and $500.
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Social Media Marketing (SMM)
It put emphasis on promoting your website on social media networks. The average cost of SMM can range from $400 to $20,000.
Frequently Asked Questions
Question: What is the monthly maintenance cost of a website?
Answer: When it comes to website maintenance services, the minimum cost is nearly $6 per month. Furthermore, you need to include marketing costs and additional subscription costs for plug-ins and/or apps.
Question: Is it difficult to build a website?
Answer: Through the use of common SaaS-based website builder tools like WordPress, Wix, Squarespace, or Constant Contact, you can effortlessly build a website. On the other hand, developing a custom website with a particular technology stack is quite complex and time-consuming.
Question: Should I consider building a website on my own or hire a professional developer?
Answer: Here, your priorities come into the scene. What do you want to prioritize more? Time or money? In case you are short on cash, you can try to build the website on your own using a popular website builder like WordPress or Wix. Conversely, you can hire a professional website developer if you want to save yourself from all the hassle that comes with building a well-functioning website, especially a custom website.
Conclusion
Hopefully, by now, you have grasped all the basic factors that affect the overall cost of building a website. To have a more precise estimate, an in-depth assessment of your business, as well as technical requirements, is a necessity to knock a website and its integral elements together. The process of website development may continue for several days to several weeks depending on the involved complexities. And, it involves the active participation of web designers, web developers, and business analysts to evaluate the mantle of work that needs to be done for creating a professional business website.