Small Business Website Design Costs

How Much Will It Cost To Design a Website?

For most small businesses, expect to pay between $1200 to $3000 if created by a professional website designer.  There are many elements that affect the cost of a website including the website platform, size of the website and the functionality.  In reality, building a website is similar to building a house.  

What you can expect to pay for a small business website

ServiceCost
Domain Name$45 – $140 per year
Webhosting$10 – $150 per month
SSL Certificate$50 – $300 per year
Website Design and Development$1200 – $3000
Memberships / Plugins$0 – $300 per month
CopywritingFrom $500
Marketing$0 – $10,000+
Tech Support / MaintenanceFrom $100 per month

What determines the price of a website

There are 4 decisions you will need to make which will impact the cost of the website:

1. The website builder / software / platform

This is an important decision as it will have impact not only on the cost, but the functionality.

You have many choices when it comes to website builders. The main players include:

  • Wordpress
  • Shopify
  • Wix
  • Weebly
  • Squarespace

My recommendation is self-hosted Wordpress, as it gives your business the flexibility to grow.  It is the most popular website platform currently being used with over 450 million websites.

Learn more about each website builder including their pros and cons.

2. Hire a professional website designer or do it myself

This will also have a big impact on the cost of the website.  Here are options for you to consider.

Hire a local website designer

Pros

  • Knowledge of local market
  • Understands website design trends and security
  • Able to design more advanced websites including shopping carts
  • Can help with website marketing and search engine optimisation
  • Troubleshoot and fix up problems
  • Fluent English so no language barriers

Cons

  • Costs more than offshore developer

Get it done offshore

Pros

  • Save money

Cons

  • Cultural and work ethic differences
  • Difficult to manage from afar
  • Language barriers
  • Time differences
  • Lack of local market knowledge
  • Limited technical support

Ask your nephew / friend to build it

Pros

  • Save money

Cons

  • Little design experience
  • Need to heavily supervise design and set up
  • Limited technical knowledge
  • Limited security knowledge
  • No marketing experience
  • Limited search engine experience

Do It Yourself

Pros

  • Save money
  • Have creative control
  • Sense of accomplishment

Cons

  • Need to learn how to use the software
  • Figure out what to include on the website
  • Manage all related technology including installation and set up Integrations
  • Ensure the website is secure
  • Create and source all images and graphics
  • Troubleshoot any problems

3. Number of pages it includes

There are many pages that you can potentially include on your website.  However, the most important pages include:

  • Home
  • Products (one page per product)
  • Services (one page per service)
  • FAQs
  • Testimonials
  • Case Studies
  • Blog / News
  • About
  • Contact Us
  • Terms & Conditions

For additional pages you might want to consider including on your website, check out The Most Important 25 Pages You Need to Include On Your Website.  

4. The functionality it has

Many business owners use their website as an online brochure only, but there are so many other things your website can be used for including:

  • Selling products – digital and physical via an online store
  • Selling affiliate products and services
  • Collecting email addresses to build a mailing list
  • Booking appointments in different time zones
  • Running online courses
  • Providing automated quotes
  • Running a competition
  • Accepting registrations for classes / workshops / seminars
  • Collecting details from a survey
  • Displaying information from your social networks
  • Chatting with customers in real time
  • Giving customers opportunity to provide feedback
  • Selling other people’s products and services via affiliate programs
  • Getting paid for displaying ads from other businesses as well as Google ads
  • Running membership programs
  • Storing important reports / whitepapers / marketing assets
  • Accepting payments from customers
  • Acting as landing pages for marketing campaigns

Since Wordpress is the most popular website design platform, we will focus on pricing for a Wordpress website.

Costs you may need to pay

1. Domain Name

Domain name will depend on the type of domain name – some domain names are more expensive than others, but generally speaking you are looking anywhere between $45 – $140 per year.

2. Webhosting

There are great variations on hosting prices.   Just with anything else, you get what you pay for. If you find a company that offers webhosting for less than $150 per year, chances are your website will be on a server with thousands of other websites and will most likely very slow to load.

Also tech support is generally minimal or via email only.

For the majority of small businesses, you can get decent shared hosting from $25 per month.

3. SSL Certificate

An SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificate is a digital certificate that authenticates the identity of a website and encrypts information sent to the server using SSL technology. Encryption is the process of scrambling data into an undecipherable format that can only be returned to a readable format with the proper decryption key.

The cost of SSL Certificates varies between $50 – $300 per year

4. Website Design & Development

How much your website design will cost will greatly depend on the size and functionality.

A 5-10 page informational website will generally cost between $1000 – $2500.

An ecommerce website (one that sells products) generally costs between $2,500 – $10,000, depending on how many products you have and the complexity of the set up.

If you require additional functionality such as:

  • integrating an online course,
  • setting up a membership portal,
  • email automation and nurturing,
  • livechat set up etc

can add several hundred to several thousand dollars to the cost.

You may save a few hundred if you get the website done offshore, but more often than not saving a few hundred dollars initially will cost you a lot more in lost time and revenue.

5. Memberships / Plugins

Even if you get a professional website designer to create your website, you may also need to pay membership or plugin costs, which can be one off or recurring charges.

Although many companies offer free versions, these are generally very limited.  So depending on the membership level and service provided – you can be paying between $10 – $300 per month.

Here are some examples of plugins / memberships you may wish to consider:

Online Course

    • LearnDash – From $199
    • LearnPress – Offers free version

Membership Platforms

    • MemberPress – From $129 per year
    • MemberMouse – From $29 per month

E-Commerce

    • WooCommerce – Offers free version
    • BigCommerce – From $29 per month

Email Automation

    • GetResponse – From $15 per month
    • Mailchimp – Offers free version

Appointment Booking

    • vCita – From $19 per month
    • Calendly – Offers free version

Online Chat

    • LiveChat – From $16 per month
    • ChatBot – From $42 per month

Event Booking

    • Event Manager – Offers free version
    • WP Event Manager – Offers free version

6. Copywriting

If you don’t feel confident in writing the copy for your website, you may want to consider hiring a professional copywriter.   Cost will depend on how many pages you will need.  A good copywriter will cost from $1000+.

7. Marketing

Once your website is built you will need to set a budget for promoting it and that can run from several dollars per day if you are running Facebook or Google ads – to several hundred per month for search engine optimisation and content building.

However, there are many free ways to promote your website.  Check out 22 Proven Ways You Can Easily Promote Your Business for Free.

8. Tech Support / Maintenance

Many designers and developers offer tech support / maintenance packages, which means you are paying for x hours each month of their time to help you update your website, upgrade it or to recover it if your website stops working or gets hacked.

Cost is generally from $100 per month.

How do I create a website for free?

This is something that gets searched by thousands of people every month and if you are looking to build a personal blog or family website, then check out:

However if you are looking to build a business website, I highly recommend you use Wordpress and get a professional website designer to do it for you.

We are at over 1.8 billion websites and thousands of new sites are being created every month.

What that means for your business is that you have a lot of competition and people’s standards in what they expect to see are a lot higher than what they once were.

If you don’t have website design skills and decide to build the website yourself or get your 16 year old nephew to do it for you, it will end up costing you in the long term.

People will judge your business by your web design skills and if your site doesn’t look professional, your visitors will assume your products and services are inferior.

If you would like to discuss your business, book a free website strategy session.

Small Business Website Design Packages

To make it easier for you, we have put together a number of website design packages.

Starter Package

Cost: $1440

  • Choice of 2 custom designs
  • Wordpress installation and set up
  • Slideshow/video on homepage
  • Addition of 5 pages (extra pages can be added)
  • Content management via Enfold theme
  • Contact form
  • Security plugin
  • Website backup upon completion
  • Submission to 20 Search Engines

  • Webhosting for 12 months
  • 5 Email addresses
  • Ultimate Website Design Secrets Blackbook
  • Access to private Facebook Group for support

Starter Website Examples

https://www.syneradesign.com/
https://www.2freshcarpetcleaning.com.au/
https://shopanddrive.com.au/
https://www.superiordoors.com.au/

Business Package

Cost: $1990

  • Choice of 3 custom designs
  • Wordpress installation and set up
  • Slideshow/video on homepage
  • Addition of 10 pages (extra pages can be added)
  • Blog set up including 3 blog posts
  • Content management via Enfold themeContact form
  • Photo or portfolio gallery
  • Security plugin
  • Website backup upon completion
  • Submission to search engines

  • Webhosting for 12 months
  • 10 Email addresses
  • Ultimate Website Design Secrets Blackbook
  • Access to private Facebook Group for support

Business Website Examples

https://www.inhouseconveyancing.com.au/
https://www.numberoneplumbing.com.au/
https://www.ourgardenpath.com.au/
https://www.stepupconstructions.com.au/
https://www.pangalloestate.com.au/
https://www.inspirationcafe.com.au/

Premium Package

Cost: $2520

  • Choice of 4 custom designs
  • Wordpress installation and set up
  • Slideshow/video on homepage
  • Enfold theme for content management
  • Addition of 15 pages (extra pages can be added)
  • Blog set up including 5 blog posts
  • Content management via Enfold theme
  • Photo or portfolio gallery
  • Contact form
  • Google Map
  • Social media sharing plugin
  • One click call plugin

  • Security plugin
  • Website backup upon completion
  • Submission to search engines
  • Webhosting for 12 months
  • Ultimate Website Design Secrets Blackbook
  • Access to private Facebook Group for support

Premium Websites

https://chiefmechanicalservices.com.au/
https://www.elitefi.com.au/
https://www.artesianpools.com.au/
https://mobiletrainingtechnologies.com.au/

Additional Services

Website Audits

If your current website is not working, we can provide you with a website review report, which addresses issues such as:

  1. How visitor friendly your website is
  2. How professional does it look
  3. What calls to actiondoes it have
  4. Is there design consistency
  5. Credibilityand trust icons
  6. Is there sufficient content
  7. How search engine friendlyit is
  8. Are there any security issues

Find out more about website audits.

Website Design Coaching

If you want to create your own website, we offer web coaching.  These can potentially save you weeks even months of trial and error.

Some of the things we cover include

  • Registering the right domain name
  • Choosing a reliable webhosting company
  • Selecting colours and fonts for your band
  • Getting a logo created
  • Gathering information for your website
  • Installing Wordpress
  • Choosing a theme and installing it
  • Adding text, images, slideshows, videos, photo galleries and maps
  • Installing and configuring plugins for additional functionality
  • Adding Google analytics

And more

Pricing for web design coaching are as follows:

1 hour session – $110
3 x 1 hour sessions – $297
5 x 1 hour sessions – $495
10 x 1 hour sessions – $890

Find out more about website design coaching including what you can expect to achieve in 1 hour session, 3 hour sessions, 5 hour sessions and 10 hour sessions

Other things we can help with

  • Domain name registration
  • Webhosting
  • Logo Design
  • PDF Report Design
  • Landing Page Design
  • Ecommerce Set Up
  • Locate Stockists / Store Locator
  • Online Course Set Up
  • Membership with Online Payments Set Up
  • Email Integrations
  • Clickfunnels Integration
  • Wordpress, Plugin and Theme Upgrades
  • Website Backups
  • Wordpress and website update training
  • Addition of plugins such as Media Sharing and One Click Call
  • Appointment set up
  • Improving website load speed
  • Integrating Instagram feed

Learn more about pricing for other digital services.

Today’s online visitor is savvy and will judge your business by what he or she sees in the first 3-5 seconds, so it’s important you make the first impression count! Hire a professional website designer to ensure your business has the best possible start.

Don’t look at what you spend on getting a professional website designed as an expense, but rather an investment in your business. If done and marketed correctly, your website can generate thousands of dollars in sales every day.

*****

by Ivana Katz
Websites 4 Small Business – www.web4business.com.au; Learn to Design – www.learntodesign.com.au/
Ivana makes it easy for you to get your business online very quickly. If you’re looking for a professional and affordable website designer, CLICK HERE and download your FREE copy of “Ultimate Website Design Secrets Blackbook – 10 Bulletproof Strategies for Designing an Outrageously Successful Website

Ivana Katz

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