Website is the fastest medium of gaining new customers, but it comes at a price.

The surge in website costs has been a cause of concern for digital marketers. Besides basic website layout, they need additional bucks for to pay for features like responsive user interface, personalized themes and web integrations.

Setting your digital presence with website builder software would centralize all website operations, improve accessibility and backend support and provide a holistic feature library to enhance user experience. It also helps you save up on website cost and offers agile features like DNS host and search engine optimization (SEO) plugins to support your web development teams.

Let's look at how we can optimize our website costs and still grow our website marketing strategy in 2024.  

Additional expenses can include domain registration, hosting, SSL certificate, maintenance and on-page SEO for brand. These add up to the main website cost that you pay to the provider. 

Website cost is one of the key areas of the attention of design and marketing teams in a business. Website costs for small businesses might not dent the overall budget, but for medium or large enterprises, the cost keeps elevating. Since website creation, performance, and maintenance are pivotal to brand success, getting an estimate on the overall cost would help you ace your marketing strategy and break the old traditional content creation chain. 

How much does a website cost?

When considering all of the elements that go into the cost of building a website, it would be very easy for me to say it depends and end this article.

For starters, you should factor in things like the time and energy it will take to create it, whether you have the necessary design and tech skills, and your budget to cover all necessary costs.

You also need to consider the size of the website you’re looking to build, which website style you’d like to create, and all of the little steps you’ll need to take from start to finish. It seems like a lot, but I break everything down below.

Types of website costs

First things first, decide on the type of website you’ll need. You should consider the size of your business and what you want your website to accomplish.

Small business website cost

If you’re a small business looking to build a website, chances are there won’t be too much information on it. It will consist of a few pages and have very little customization. Let’s assume you have less than 20 pages, a few stock photos, and nothing too crazy regarding functionality.

For a small business, you should expect an estimated upfront cost of $2,000 to $8,000. I If you want to create your own website with a DIY builder, you can get charged anywhere from $0 to $500 per month. 

Medium-sized business website cost

For medium-sized businesses, let’s say your website will have a maximum of 75 pages, a content management system (CMS), a custom-designed layout, and some unique functions.

If this sounds like the website you’re looking to build, estimate an upfront cost in the $10,000 to $25,000 range.

E-commerce website cost

Are you interested in creating a website where customers can browse and purchase products? This would fall under an e-commerce website.

Depending on the number of products you’re looking to feature, you could have an upfront cost ranging from $500 to $50,000+. Custom or enterprise-level e-commerce websites cost falls between $10,000 to $25000 or more. 

Large business website

If you’re not in the market to cut corners, a large-scale website could include hundreds of pages, custom designs and images, a CMS, blog integration, and so much more.

This could cost anywhere from $25,000 to $40,000.

Route to take when building a website

Now that you know the type of website you’re looking to build, let’s examine the three main routes you could take when creating a website.

Custom build a website from start to finish

Admittedly, the hardest and most expensive option is to custom-build a website from start to finish. If you don’t have the skills to do so yourself, consider hiring a website designer or developer from a freelance platform to create a website from scratch without using a website builder.

Use a website-building software

There are tons of options when it comes to website builder software that you can choose from to help you create a website. You’ll have everything from search engine optimization, analytics, eCommerce plugins, and mobile web functionality.

These platforms can also provide tools for marketing and social media, web design, and content management, giving an added layer of functionality to the website. And you won’t need too much knowledge when it comes to coding and design to create an eye-catching and user-friendly website.

Drag and drop website builders

Truly, the most basic and easy route to take is to create a drag-and-drop website. These fully automated website-building services handle all of the technical and design elements, as well as any issues that you may run into along the way.

If you have little tech knowledge and are not overly picky about the features and designs you’ll have to choose, this is the route you'll likely want to take.

Elements of a website cost

Once these factors are decided on and ironed out, more elements regarding website costing will enter the game.

Cost of website builder

There are free trial versions of website builders that anyone can use for their business. Some open-source website builders also offer unlicensed drag-drop features and add-ons, which you can use to improve your website.

Examples would be content management systems like WordPress, Wix Studio, and Drupal, which have their open-source versions available but also come with a tiered pricing structure for plans that offer personalized features and integrations. If you are really looking to build a one-of-a-kind, fresh, and unique website, then setting your teams up for such personalized offers is a good call since they would make your brand stand out among other players by investing smartly. 

Standard licensed plans of website builders range between $200 and $350 and have an even larger repository of themes, landing page builders, media plugins, and other responsive elements that would further enhance your website's user experience. 

Number of pages

If you are looking to enhance the overall user experience of your dollar page (transaction page) or landing page and wouldn't want to distress the overall design, you can opt for a basic plan where you can update a specific number of pages. Opting for a partial website update can prevent you from straining your budget and keep your teams aligned on the changes. 

Aligning your marketing budget based on a prior website costing plan would keep your cash flow in a balanced state. Also, putting a list of what changes are due on each specific page would further determine stretched budgets, team bandwidth, and overall goals.

A specific web page cost can range between $5 to $20 dollars. The one-page modification can be covered under the basic option of a website builder pricing plan, that is $20 to $50 dollars a month. However, if you are spanning your website performance strategy over multiple pages, getting an advanced ($50 to $100) or custom enterprise ($200 to $350) would be an appropriate decision,

SSL Certificate 

A secure sockets layer (SSL) certification is a crucial milestone that certifies the safety protocols for your website. An SSL certification ensures that your domain has been encrypted and doesn't provide leeway to online malware or viruses. SSL certificate also ensures that the data transmitted between users' browsers to public and private servers is encrypted, and network protocols like transfer control protocol (TCP) and internet provider (IP) establish a good source and destination alignment.

Websites with SSL use a padlock in the description and "https" in their URL. Having an SSL also authorizes you to run your business and establish good DNS practices for more trust and credibility.

The SSL functionality can add up to your overall website cost as it ranges between $10 to $100 per month.

Web Hosting Costs

Setting up a website involves choosing a domain name and a website hosting provider, as well as obtaining an SSL (secure socket layer) certificate to encrypt all necessary sensitive data.

Website hosting stores the data from the sender's server and allows your systems to connect with wireless connections over a secure hosting provider. It makes the website deliverable to the end user and also ensures seamless transmission of data. The cost of a web hosting provider depends on which network infrastructure you prefer for your business.

Virtual private network (VPN) servers can cost anywhere from $20 to $50 dollars, dedicated server hosting can cost around $50 to $800 per month, and managed Wordpress hosting for Wordpress websites can cost around $10 to $50 per month. 

Domain registration costs

Website domain registration is an absolute must if you are building an e-commerce website. Consumer queries need to be routed to the right IP address when they enter critical data (like contact data), which you cannot afford to lose. 

Domain registration services have become more affordable and stay valid for more than one year. This can be private, static, shared or dynamic, based on the network provider you own. 

The cost ranges between $10 and $20 for private internal domains and up to $50 for unique or public domains for your website. If you want to opt for a shared domain service provider, you need to shell out around $10 to $50 per month, depending upon your provider's total DNS bandwidth. 

Design

Once the setup is complete, it’s time to consider the design of your website. This can include creating a logo, deciding where the menu bar will be located, which font you’ll use, what the color scheme will be if you’ll have a slideshow or video at the top, how the information will be presented throughout each page, and more.

The design should create a positive user experience while getting your point across. Whether you’re using a pre-made template, employing a freelancer to create a design for you, or using your preferred web design software, each comes with its own cost. 

For instance, choosing a ready-made design on a web-building platform gives you a variety of options, but you will be limited in your customization. If you choose to hire a freelance designer to create the look and feel of your site, you’ll have a total say in customization options but will likely spend more money.

Purchasing a responsive design template online or via a subscription can cost around $20 to $200 on a basic shared hosting of $3 to $10 per month. Hiring a freelancer would be a bit more expensive, and you would shell out around $500 to $5000. Buying a web design software subscription would be the most affordable choice here, as the cost range is $10 to $50, which most businesses can afford. 

Content

Have you ever heard the saying content is king? If you haven’t, you may not understand just how important creating unique and engaging content truly can be for your website.

If you think of your website's design as the bread, its content is the meat and cheese.

Similar to the design aspect of building a website, you can hire a freelance writer to create the content for you. Or, perhaps you have a content writer on your team whose job will be to write new copy for the entire site and fresh copy every so often. Both options come with differentiating price tags.

During the content creation process, you should also consider choosing a content management system to assist with displaying text, pictures, videos, articles, etc., on your website.

Professional content creation, including high-quality blogging, copywriting and scriptwriting can range from $50 to $500 per page. If you need 10 or 20 pages of well-researched content, it might add $500 to $5000 to the overall website cost.

Additional features 

Sometimes, web builders might not encompass essential application programming interfaces (APIs), which are needed in your brand and customer journey.  E-commerce platforms are incomplete without providing a liaison with payment gateway providers for smooth transaction and store visualization tools. Similarly, companies building a lead-to-conversion journey may need additional form, CRM, or widget support that needs to be responsive in case the user looks to register with the website. 

These additional features also depend on how fast the website builder can accommodate new module implementations, the complexity of the request, and the buyer's customized requirements.

Integrating payment processing may cause a surcharge of 1.5% to 3.5% for businesses, and other features like widgets, forms, CTAs, or search engine optimization plugins might cost around $10 to $50 or even more. Website costs could pile up quickly, so conduct in-depth research on reliable providers and proposal documentation of your company. 

Maintenance

Unless you live in a world where nothing ever goes wrong, you’ll eventually need to maintain your website. Any technology will break at some point, and fixing it requires some technical knowledge that you may or may not possess.

Because of this, ask yourself who will fix the inevitable problem when it does arise, especially if you choose to self-host your site.  When it comes to maintenance, some off-the-hook steps, like security and compliance, software updates, SEO updates, and content audits, ensure that your website stays fresh and relevant. The cost for all these maintenance updates may vary.  Basic updates like SEO checks or website maintenance might cost somewhere around $10 to $50, but advanced updates like managed security services may range from $50 to $200 dollar a month. Being on time with website maintenance and regulating content assets is important to becoming a successful brand.  If you choose to opt for a website builder software, your maintenance charges would be as little as $9.99 to $200 dollars per month. This is the cheapest option and many prominent software providers like Wix, Squarespace and web.com provide this option to their buyers. 

If you’re not too tech savvy, hiring a good web developer who could do maintenance on your site usually runs between $80 to $180 an hour. You can also choose to have a website maintenance retainer with the firm that helped to build your website.

The amount of issues you could run into with your website depends on its complexity, the number of plug-ins you’re using, and how much custom code you have installed.

You get what you pay for

The website representing your company or business isn’t where you want to cut corners. It should be easy to navigate, pleasing to the eye, and have engaging content. Of course, building a website is easier said than done, as it takes a lot of work, a certain skill set, and, of course, money.

If you’ve read this far, you know there is no hard and fast answer to how much a website costs to create. Hopefully, the breakdown of all of these factors has given you a better idea of what lies ahead for you and the website you want for your company.

Be on top of your design game and step ahead of website marketing ninjas by checking out the 65+ web design statistics for 2024.