Building a website from scratch can cost you anywhere between $20 dollars to $20,000. Depending on your needs and preference, you can opt for free website maker tools or go for web design agencies that will create a sophisticated and bespoke website for you.
The cost of maintaining a website depends on the type of site you have. While a small blog website can cost you $5 a month, an enterprise website can cost you around $1000 monthly.
At the end of the day, the cost of building a website depends entirely on your business’s budget, goals, and needs. However, we’ll show you how to start an e-commerce business website and how much it really costs to put up one.
Let’s discuss the factors you’ll be spending on your online space one by one.
There are two types of costs that are involved in website building: one-time costs and recurring costs.
| One-Time Expenditures | Recurring Expenditures |
| Building a customer engagement strategy | Registering a domain |
| Website design | Hosting the website |
| Producing copies and content (maybe recurring if you’re producing regular content) | Website security |
| Producing media content |
One-Time Expenses
Marketing and SEO
While a sophisticated web design makes a great first impression, it means very little if your website isn’t able to generate revenue.
Before building your site, you’ll need to devise an effective online marketing plan to boost customer engagement, drive leads, and eventually snag conversions. You can do this on your own, but you can also hire marketing pros to help you take on the task.
Marketing plays a key role in creating an effective website. This is why it pays to hire a web design agency that takes your online marketing plan into consideration.
Some freelance web designers only focus on designing the website they fail to integrate a good user experience. A web design agency, which typically has multiple teams each specialising in different aspects of website building, takes your customer strategy into consideration. They create your website with your business goals in mind.
| Search Engine Optimisation | $1,500 – $5,000/month |
| Content Marketing | $2000 – $10,000 / month |
| Social Media Marketing | $4,000 – $7,000 / month |
| Email Marketing | $9 – $1,000 / month |
Website design
The design of a website is the first thing that anyone notices about a website. Website design is more than just the aesthetic; it’s the overall user experience. It should be able to capture the essence of your business, and at the same time, encourage the visitor to fulfil a certain purpose.
The average price of designing a website ranges from $2,000 to $15,000. If you are hard on the budget, there are free website creation platforms you can try. The downside is it usually makes your website a subdomain of their main domain. And to be honest, it doesn’t really look professional to your audience.
But if you’re serious about your business and want your website to make an impression, it’s best to get in touch with a reputable web design agency.
Website content
Great written content adds panache to your website. It’s also the backbone of SEO. So, make sure your content speaks to your target audience and contains relevant keywords they’re searching for.
You can hire freelance content writers separately or leave it to a content writing agency. Content writers charge differently depending on their experience and the task at hand, but you can always negotiate and work around a budget. Rates depend on the type of content but expect to spend $1/word or over a $100/hour.
READ: 10 Clever Content Marketing Tips to Improve Your Small Business Website
Interactive media
Nowadays, businesses go for videos on their home page to better demonstrate the kind of work they do. Professionally shot photographs and videos instil confidence in visitors to interact with your brand or business.
But it doesn’t come cheap, especially if you plan on hiring a professional photographer to do the work for you. It can range from $250 to $10,000. But with the benefits it will bring, and considering the output is going to be plastered on your website for quite some time, it should be a one-time expense worth investing in.
READ: 6 Image Optimisation Tips to Speed Up Your Website
Ecommerce functionality
Ecommerce functionalities offer all the things you need to run a retail website, making online store management easier.
The price of ecommerce functionality ranges from $20 to $25,000. The amount you pay depends on a few factors: the size of the product line, the average number of orders, and the size of your business.
A small business will pay less than a large retailer for the functionality. In most cases, a bigger business sells more products, and processes more orders than a small retailer, which needs a more robust ecommerce system.
Recurring Expenses
Recurring expenses are anticipated costs that occur regularly. For example, a brick-and-mortar business deals with recurring costs such as electricity and rent. For maintaining a website, here are some of the recurring expenses to expect:
Domain
A domain name is a must for any website. It’s like your website’s address. Without it, your visitors won’t be able to access your online space.
Registering a domain name is a one-time thing, but you’ll need to know the domain name cost and pay annually, or every couple of years depending on your subscription plan, to continue to own it. Otherwise, you could lose your domain to someone else.
Costs vary, but in most cases, the average price of a domain is around $10-20/year.
Web hosting
For your website to work, you need to store your website and all its files on a hosting server. If your domain is your website’s address, the hosting is your website’s lot. You need it to keep your website afloat.
There are different types of web hosting, which includes shared, virtual private server (VPS), and dedicated server hosting. It has a wide range of pricing options, from as little as $24/year to more than $10,000/year. Each has its pros and cons, but you should select one based on your business requirements.
|
Type of Hosting |
Pros & Cons |
|
Shared Hosting |
Shared hosting is the cheapest type of hosting service. In this case, your website is hosted along with other websites or other web applications in a common space on the server. It’s like staying together with few other people on a room-sharing basis.
Though cheap, shared hosting often compromises website speed and performance since other websites are also using the same server space at the same time. Also, there is the risk of viruses infecting your website, catching on from any of the others. |
|
VPS Hosting |
In the case of VPS hosting, though your website is hosted on the same physical server, it is allotted a separate space. It’s like staying in an apartment that is a part of a building with several other apartments.
Unlike shared hosting, in VPS hosting – your website performance isn’t at the mercy of other websites that are hosted on the same physical server. |
|
Dedicated Hosting |
Dedicated hosting is the costliest among all the options as it offers an exclusive server to host your website. It’s like staying in your own house. However, you need to possess sufficient knowledge to handle a dedicated server. |
SSL certificate
You should have an SSL certificate installed for your website to ensure basic website security. Having a secure website helps improve your search engine ranking.
There are additional security measures you can incorporate into your website, like anti-spam, anti-malware, etc. While this is another recurring expense on your end, the benefits outweigh the cost. A lot of small businesses suffer from the damages inflicted by cyberattacks each year. You know what they say, it’s better to be safe than sorry.
A paid SSL certificate can range from as little as $10/year or to a whopping $1,000/year, depending on your site’s security needs.
Pro-tip: Even if you’re not tech-savvy, you can still build a cost-effective website, thanks to different tools available on the internet. That said, there’s no reason creating one should cost you an arm and a leg. Own your dream website by knowing the right platform to build it with.
READ: 7 Cyberthreats to Look Out For (+Tips to Secure Your Website)
You get what you pay for
Building and maintaining a website does not come cheap, but you’re only getting what you pay for. You may settle on doing all of these yourself or doing the work in-house, but there’s a price to pay either way. You may initially be paying for less, but you’ll never know the trouble you may get into—and the costs that will incur your business—due to a mediocre site.
To save on unnecessary costs in the long run, invest in a good web design and development agency that will create your website with your own vision in mind. Plus, get expert tips on how to manage, secure, and maintain your website in the long run.
