If you’ve searched online and visited sites of website designers or developers, you’ve probably encountered one of these two:
- No prices listed at all.
- Prices all over the place, from ridiculously cheap to crazy expensive.
The good news is we rolled up our sleeves and did the research for you regarding what it costs to build (or redesign) a small business website in 2021.
For competent, experienced web designers that did list their prices, we found that a modern, professional small business website could cost as less as GH₵2,000-GH₵6,000 but could be as much as GH₵25,000 (or more) depending on ….
- the number of pages on the site
- the kind of features needed
- the amount of customization required
- the extra web services
Now that you have a ballpark idea of how much a small business website cost, here’s a closer look at the specific factors affecting the price;
Page Volume
Let’s say a web development firm offers a 10-page website package for GH₵3,500, but your site needs 25 pages — how much extra will that cost?
A good rule of thumb is to add about GH₵100/page for each page over and above what’s included in the standard website package.
In this example, adding 15 pages (to the 10 pages included in the standard website package) would cost GH₵1,500.
Add this amount to the original base price of GH₵3,500 and the revised total is GH₵5,000.
Every situation will vary, obviously, but at least this gives you a reasonable cost estimate based on common pricing in the industry in 2021.
Custom Site Layout
Every website starts with a theme or template.
Nobody codes a website totally from scratch anymore. That’s way too time-consuming and expensive.
A template or theme often gets you 40-50% of the way to the finish line, but there’s still tons of customization and coding needed to get your site looking and functioning how you want it.
The more customization and coding required, the greater the cost.
Templates and themes are a major reason you can often build a professional small business website in the GH₵2,000-GH₵6,000 range instead of GH₵25,000 or more.
Custom Images & Graphics
Fancy images and graphics can give your site a one-of-a-kind look, but it comes at a price.
Sophisticated visual effects often require special editing software, not to mention the talent of a custom graphic design specialist.
Custom Logo
Although not required, a custom logo is a nice addition to any website.
A custom logo kicks up the trust/credibility factor a notch.
To get a decent-looking, professionally designed logo in 2021, expect to pay somewhere in the region of GH₵400-GH₵800.
Custom Programming
Sometimes, you can find a WordPress plugin providing the exact functionality you want right out of the box (i.e. image carousel, membership portal, payment calculator, etc).
Other times, getting your site to do what you want requires significant trial/error and testing.
In a perfect world, everything would be plug-and-play and work perfectly the first time — but that’s rarely the case.
A fair amount of tinkering and testing is usually required to get everything working as intended.
Number of Design Revisions
Most website projects start with an initial concept design (kind of like a rough draft), then it’s common to have 1 or 2 rounds of design revisions to get everything just right.
Some website designers offer as many as 2-4 rounds of design revisions.
Technically, a website designer can offer as many rounds of design revisions as they want. But keep in mind, every design iteration adds to the overall cost of the project.
In my experience, 2 rounds of design revisions are more than sufficient 99% of the time.
Content Development (Copywriting)
Solid, thoughtful, persuasive content is the foundation of any great website. If you’re launching a new site but don’t have any content yet, it needs to be developed.
If you have an existing site but the content is weak, stale or outdated, it’ll need to be refined, enhanced … maybe even overhauled.
Over the years, I’ve discovered the # 1 obstacle to launching a website is content development.
Our clients struggle with this because it’s time-consuming and difficult to do. That’s why we had to add content marketing as part of our services.
Website Updates, Maintenance & Renewals
Once your website launches, your work’s not done.
Just like buying a house, you’ll need to invest time, effort and money to maintain it.
For example, you’ll have annual hosting & maintenance fees and possibly annual licensing fees for premium plugins and services.
Your site also requires ongoing technical maintenance to install updates and security patches to WordPress core files and WordPress plugins to protect your site from being hacked. Yes, even small business sites are targets for hackers.
If you’re comfortable performing these updates yourself, great. But sometimes routine updates break your site, so you need to know what to do if/when this happens.
You also need an offsite backup system so your website can quickly be restored in the event of catastrophic hardware or software failure (or user error!) crashing your site. Sorry to alarm you, but these things really do happen.
If you prefer not to deal with the messy, behind-the-scenes technical upkeep of your site, you can purchase a website maintenance plan for GH200-GH800/month depending on the services you need.
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I will be glad to know your thoughts! Share your thoughts or questions in the comment session below.