Ask five agencies to quote for 'a website' and you can get five very different numbers. That isn't because someone is wrong. A website can mean a five-page brochure or a platform with bookings, payments and a customer area, and the price follows the work.
Before you compare quotes, it helps to know which decisions change the effort, and which ones you can control.
1. The number and type of pages
A home page, an about page, a few service pages and a contact page is a very different job from fifty product pages or a site in three languages. Pages that share a layout are cheaper to add than pages that each need their own design.
2. Custom design or a template
A template is quicker to set up, but every business using it looks a little alike, and you often fight its limits later. A custom design takes longer because it is planned around your brand, your content and your customers, which usually pays off in trust and enquiries.
3. Features and integrations
Each feature beyond plain pages adds design, development and testing time. Common ones include:
- Enquiry forms connected to email, WhatsApp or a CRM
- Online payments and invoices
- Appointment or table booking
- Product catalogues with filters and search
- Member logins, dashboards or downloads
- Multiple languages
Some of these are simple plugins; others, such as a booking flow with your own rules, are closer to custom software.
4. Content: who writes it and who supplies the photos
Content is the most underestimated part of any website project. If text and photos are ready, the build moves quickly. If they need to be written, rewritten or photographed, that is real work, and it is better to plan for it than to delay the launch waiting for it.
5. Whether you want to edit it yourself
A static website is fast, secure and inexpensive to run, but changes go through a developer. A content-managed site, often built on WordPress, costs more to set up and gives your team an editor for news, offers and pages.
6. What happens after launch
Domain, hosting, SSL, email and maintenance are ongoing costs. They are not large, but a cheap build on poor hosting with no updates often ends up costing more in fixes and lost enquiries.
How to plan a budget that works
- Decide what the website must achieve: calls, leads, sales or credibility.
- List the pages and the must-have features; mark the nice-to-haves.
- Be honest about who will provide content.
- Ask for quotes that separate design, development, content and yearly running costs.
- Launch the essentials first and add the rest in a second phase.
If you would like a clear, itemised estimate for your project, tell us what you need and we'll walk you through the options.