You have your budget, you have a basic concept of what you want, but you don’t know who to hire or how much the website design cost will be.

If this sounds familiar to you, then it’s because you’re in the same boat.

Website creation and design is a long and sometimes confusing process due to all of the services, various package deals, and competition for your project.

However, we can tell you what to expect when creating a website.

Estimation

Looking into how much the website design cost will require direct communication with the company or individual that you are interested in working with.

Most companies and freelancers will charge you by the hour. Once they determine a rough estimation of how long it will take them to complete the project, they will be able to tell you how much it will cost.

The company or freelancer’s fee per hour plus the number of hours they quoted your project for will determine the website design cost.

For example, a freelancer may charge $25 per hour, and the project will take 200 hours to complete. The rough estimate for your website design will be $5,000.

However, notice that this is only a rough estimation. Other factors like the range of prices and project revisions can change this cost.

Pricing Varies

One factor that can change the website design cost is the varying rates at which companies and individual freelancers charge.

There are three different groups that you can research and find out prices from.

Companies explicitly selling website creation and design may offer a variety of packages for clients to choose from depending on what they want the end product to look like and function.

Freelancers will advertise how much their going rate will be instead of packages. They will also likely have personal portfolios to showcase their skills and be very upfront about what they can and cannot do.

Then you have drag and drop websites, such as Wix.com or Squarespace.com, that will instead offer a range of subscription plans. Drag and drop websites put the website design into your own hands with pre-made website templates, which can range in price depending on your subscription plan.

You’ll want to research all three before making any decision. Comparing prices, quality of work, and the reviews of other customers will be time well invested.

Hiring a Freelancer?

When compared to larger companies with whole teams dedicated to website design, freelancers can sometimes be cheaper.

A company will have several clients that they’ll need to dedicate resources to. Whereas, freelancers may take up clients one at a time, allowing them to assign all of their resources and time to that one client.

A difference in time management will mean a difference in the project’s timeline.

However, be aware that a freelance web designer will not be able to offer you all of the same services that a company can.

There’s also the problem of hiring a freelancer that lives in a different region and time zone than you.

It may not seem like much but hiring a freelance web designer who lives in some time zone 5 to 10 hours ahead of you will significantly affect communication.

Ineffective communication has the potential to slow down project timelines, which in turns hikes up the website design cost.

However, once you’ve done all your research on companies and freelancers, it’s time to look at the project itself.

What Do You Need?

The most significant question you need to ask yourself is what kind of website do you need?

This question is essential because your answer will also affect the website design cost.

If you just want to start up a blog with only one or two pages, the design cost will be relatively inexpensive.

Of course, larger websites with advanced functions integrated into them will be more expensive.

What makes larger websites more expensive is the number of pages they have, customized structures, shopping carts, forums, memberships, and integrated social media support.

Also, if you are going to hire a company then keep in mind that they may offer additional services or have add-on costs.

Additional Services

Building a website from scratch may have other costs if you plan to leave the creation, hosting, design, and management to another company.

Individual companies may charge a fee for the creation of a domain name for your website. This may matter to you if you haven’t already bought a domain name.

Along with domain name creation, you can buy hosting services. This means that the company you’ve hired to build your website will also host your site, which means they will store all of the data for your website on an internal server or computer that can be accessed over the Internet.

As mentioned earlier, you may decide to add shopping cart integration to your website. All of those add-ons will require additional time and programming, which raises the website design cost.

The company building your website might even offer content creation, management, and training for your site.

If you don’t have the time or resources to create articles and images for your website or you need to outsource the back-end management of your site, then these services will be helpful to you.

Now that you know of what can raise the cost of your website let’s talk about some ways you can reduce the cost of your site.

Eliminate Website Design Cost

Know precisely what you need your website to do and what you can do without.

You don’t need to have all the bells and whistles when it comes to a website and understanding what you want straight away can reduce the time required to rework the design.

When it comes to what you want for your website, it’s best to sit down and decide what you need to have now, what you can push off for a later time, and features that would be nice to have but aren’t necessary at all to the function of your website.

Another method is to create content and manage the website yourself.

As mentioned earlier, companies will offer content creation and website management services.

However, if you have the resources, knowledge, and time, then you should handle those services yourself. This will help the most if you’re already on a limited budget that you can’t exceed.

Remember how we mentioned ineffective communication could slow progress and raise the cost of the project?

Communicating efficiently and quickly with your web designer will reduce cost.

Again, the cost of your project is mainly dependent on how long it takes your project to complete.

If you’re always on the ball when it comes to responding to your web designer and your project doesn’t need many revisions, then your project may get completed faster than what the timeline projected.

Build Your Website

Start researching what kind of website you want and who can best make that for you at a reasonable cost.

If you have any questions about the services we offer, then feel free to contact us!