Website Project Estimator

What actually drives website cost

Page count matters less than people expect. Ten pages of text are not much more work than five. These are the things that move a project from one tier to the next:

• Content. Who writes the words and supplies the photos? A site with finished copy and good photography is far quicker to build than one where both must be created.
• Selling. A checkout brings products, stock, tax, shipping, payments and order emails with it.
• Integrations. Each system the site talks to has to be connected, tested and maintained.
• Custom logic. Anything a visitor can log in to, calculate or configure is software, and software is estimated differently from pages.
• How custom the design is. A design made for your business takes longer than adapting a template, and usually works harder.

Why there is no price here

Two projects that look identical on a form like this can differ a lot once you look closely, and a number without a conversation is a guess. For typical market ranges and what you get at each level, read how much a small business website costs.

Questions to ask anyone quoting your site

• What exactly is included, and what would count as extra?
• Who writes the content?
• What does it cost each month after launch, and what does that cover?
• Who owns the site, the domain and the content if we part ways?
• Can I see sites you have built that are live now?