You have a viable business idea, the products and services you want to sell, and an efficient team in place.
However, these days you also need to have an interactive, functional, and visual website for your venture to ensure continued growth.
There were approximately 1.72 billion websites in 2019. The number continues to rise, inundating your prospective audiences with tons of data and product information. If you aren’t a part of this movement, your business is going to get left behind. That’s why you need to create an online presence for your business to reach customers.
Your website is more than just an amalgamation of data, links, and pictures. It has to attract visitors, retain their attention, and get them to click on the purchase buttons.
A website design is essential for creating this engaging and impactful website.
Read ahead to find out what it entails and how much it costs to build a website.
Summarizing Differences Between Web Design & Web Development
Web design and web development are two different aspects of creating a website. Web design is the process of creating the look and feel of a website, while web development process is the way of creating the functionality and features of a website. One is form, the other function.
Most web design projects require some web development work, and most web development projects require some web design work. However, it is important to understand the differences between these two disciplines so that you can hire the right professionals for your project.
Web designers are responsible for creating the overall look and feel of a website. They use tools like Photoshop and Illustrator to create graphics and layouts, and they use HTML and CSS to create the structure and style of a business website.
Web designers need to have a good understanding of how to create visually appealing websites that are also responsive to different screen sizes.
Web developers are responsible for creating the functionality of a small business website. They use tools like PHP, Ruby on Rails, and JavaScript to create dynamic websites that can do more than just display text and images. They also need to understand how to make websites that are accessible to all users, regardless of their abilities or disabilities.
How Much Does A Website Cost?
Here’s the average website development cost:
| Web Design & Maintenance Cost (in US$) | |
| Web Design | 10,000 to 100,000/design |
| Website Maintenance | 300 to 80,000/ year |
How Much Does A Website For A Business Cost
Business website designs can range from $2,000 to $90,000, and annual maintenance costs can be from $300 to $70,000. However, these figures depend on the size and features of your websites.
| Type Of Website | Web Design Cost (US$) |
| Small Business | 1,000 to 10,000 |
| Ecommerce | 10,000 to over 50,000 |
| Corporate | 10,000 to over 30,000 |
| Database Driven | 5,000 to 90,000 |
Web Design Costs For 2023
It’s 2023, and you need to keep up with the times. Whether you want to launch a new website or update your current one, you should consider the web development costs that come with it.
| Factors | Web Design Costs (US$) |
| Domain Name | 0.12 to 12 |
| SSL Certificate | 0 to 1200 |
| Design | 2,000 to 15,000 |
| Interactive Multimedia | 250 to 10,000 |
| Pages | 1,000 to 10,000 |
| Website Hosting Cost | 24 to 3,600 |
| Responsive Design | 1,500 to 15,000 |
| Ecommerce Functionality | 2,000 to 25,000 |
| Content Management System (CMS) | 2,000 to 25,000 |
| Database Integration | 1,800 to 25,000 |
Web Site Maintenance Costs For 2023
The following prices reflect the ongoing web development costs so that it doesn’t go offline.
| Factors | Ongoing Costs (US$ / year) |
| Domain Name | 2 to 20 |
| SSL Certificate | 0 to 1,200 |
| Website Hosting | 24 to 3,600 |
| Website Maintenance | 200 to over 1,200 |
| Ecommerce Functionality | 200 to 300 |
| Content Management System (CMS) | 0 to 35,000 |
How Much Does It Cost To Build A Website?
When it comes to designing and developing a website, its scale contributes to its cost. Expect to spend anywhere from $10,000 to more than $100,000, depending on your requirements. Sometimes this can discourage business owners from investing in a new website, even though it could hugely impact its growth.
There are many cost factors behind a website development and design, which are essential to understand to select the features you want according to your website budget and scale.
Let’s delve into these factors:
Domain Name
A domain name is like an online fingerprint that makes it unique. It allows you to be recognizable and create a distinctive brand identity. That is why purchasing and registering your domain is the first step towards developing your website.
Importance Of A Domain
Every website wants to stand out and have its own identity, and a domain name does that. This might suggest why there were 370.7 million registrations for a domain across all TLDs at the end of 2020’s third quarter.
Additionally, it also provides credibility to the site visitors who could be potential customers enabling your brand to grow.
Cost Of A Domain Name
A new domain name usually costs around $2 to $20 per year, depending on the TLD.
You can also purchase a domain name that’s owned by someone else, but for that, you’ll have to get in touch with the existing owner. The price you pay for it entirely depends on the owner, and they’ll take into account the history, age, and your need for the domain when setting it.
What Percentage of Your Website Budget Should You Spend On Your Domain Name?
When it comes to web design and web development, the domain name is one of the most important aspects of your website. Your domain name is the web address that people type into their web browser to visit your website. It’s also the name that shows up in search engine results when people are looking for your website.
Your domain name is a part of your brand, and it’s important to choose a domain name that represents your business well. You also need to make sure that the domain name is available, and you should register the domain name as soon as possible.
Domain names can be expensive, but they’re worth the investment. The average cost of a domain name is $12 per year, but there are many affordable options available. You should also consider investing in web hosting, which will give you a place to host your website. The average cost of web hosting is $7 per month, so the total cost for setting up a website will be around $100 per year.
When it comes to web design and web development, you get what you pay for. Spending a little more on your domain name and web hosting will ensure that you get a high-quality website that looks great and functions well.
We have spent mid-five figures and up to six figures for the right domain name for our company websites. DEV.co was one such domain name!
While .com is preferred, even the right .co or .net with good branding can be a huge boon for your business long term.
If it were me and I had the chance to get a fantastic domain name and very little left over for my web design and website development budget, I would opt for the domain name every time.
As budget allows in the future, you can always go back and update and enhance the website, but if you start with bad branding, it’s more difficult and costly to fix later.
SSL Certificate
A Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate protects your brand and site visitors by securely transferring sensitive data. This makes it essential for the users to have the certificate displayed in the URL with the domain name.
The difference between a website URL with an SSL certificate is the presence of “HTTPS” instead of “HTTP.” To get more information about the SSL certificate, check out the padlock that appears on the right side of the URL.
Importance Of SSL Certificate
We are all aware of the amount of sensitive data that transfers online daily, including credit card information for online purchases and email IDs for newsletters. Naturally, as part of your business, you want similar information from your customers.
According to a report, there is at least one major security vulnerability in 86% of websites.
This is why you need to build trust and credibility for your customers to feel safe doing business with you. However, with internet browsers alerting users of an absence of a valid certificate, they are reluctant to visit your website affecting its revenue, email subscribers, lead generations, etc.
Cost Of An SSL Certificate
An SSL certificate can range from $0 to $1200 per year.
You can either pay for your SSL certificate or get it for free, depending on the company. However, experts suggest paying for a maximum security certificate because it usually has additional protection with more encryption levels and a higher warranty.
Website Hosting
Obviously, you want internet users to access your website. For that, you’ll have to pay for a server where your pages, pictures, data, etc., are to be hosted. A website hosting service sells space on their server where you can put your website so people can view it globally.
Importance Of Website Hosting
The importance of website hosting is quite evident, but there are other reasons too why it matters so much:
- Impacts website expansions
- Affects page loading time
- Impacts customer support throughout site crashes or issues
Hosting providers significantly impact your website’s functionality. While you can get free hosting, it is better to pay for good tech support.
Cost Of Website Hosting
Website hosting can set you back $24 to $3,600 a year, which is why they are divided into categories:
- Shared Host: The service costs from $24 to $120 a year. As the name suggests, your provider hosts several clients on a shared server along with your website. Due to its sharing feature, you can experience slow performance.
- Website Builders: These servers usually charge around $60 to $500 a year. While a simple website builder may be good for small businesses and startups, more robust content management and hosting services are typically preferred.
- Virtual Private Server: A VPS ranges from $240 to $950 per year. Your business shares a server, but it has complete access to the resources of numerous virtual servers.
- Dedicated Server: This service costs around $950 to $3600 a year. Your business gets its server and its resources with this service. If your website gets more than 100,000 visitors a month, you need this server.
Design
It is easy to think that a website design is only concerned with great visuals. However, it doesn’t just make your website look good but also enhances its functionality. A well-designed website is easier for visitors to navigate through and find what they are looking for.
It’s no surprise, then, that website designers contribute significantly towards your expenses. What they do can directly affect your site’s performance.
Importance Of Web Designs
Web designs are essential for users and search engines. These are the first aspects of your website that visitors notice and use to form an opinion. Users are prone to leave your site if they find it challenging to navigate or outdated. It could also negatively impact their opinion about your brand.
Search engines take a site’s design, performance, and functionality into account when deciding its position in the search results. A slow website that doesn’t have a straightforward menu or is inundated with irrelevant content will never rank on top of the search results.
And as a result, that site will lose a significant amount of traffic because it appears on some back page of results.
Cost Of Web Design
A website’s design ranges from $2,000 to $15,000.
Generally, more straightforward designs cost less than complicated ones, but that shouldn’t make businesses choose a simple design. You need to prioritize your customer’s experience and create a website keeping your target audience in mind.
Responsive Design
Adaptation to a device is what makes a website’s design responsive. Your website design should be such that a user’s experience is smooth regardless of the device they use to access it.
Importance Of A Responsive Design
Users are changing their browsing habits. Everyone seems to be in a rush these days as mobile devices (excluding tablets) account for around half of the world’s Internet traffic.
This makes it essential to invest in responsive web designs for optimal website performance for your entire target audience.
Mobile responsiveness should be table stakes in all website creation cost quotes.
Cost Of A Responsive Design
Responsive web designs range from $1,500 to $15,000.
There are two ways in which you can use responsive web designs:
- Responsive Design: Such a design lets your website adapt to the user’s device regardless of the type.
- Mobile Site: Mobile-specific sites help your company create your website’s mobile version and support mobile and tablet users.
A responsive design offers a cost-effective option to most businesses.
Website pages
Quality content is an essential part of a website, so designers charge by the number of pages on your website. The pages depend on factors like services, products, and business, but expect to spend between $1,000 and $10,000 or more.
An online retail store with a vast product line will require more pages than a restaurant’s online page.
Interactive media
Customers need to be engaged and impressed by your company’s website. You can achieve that with the help of interactive media. Video games, story scenario choices, and compelling visuals are just some forms of media that capture users’ attention.
Importance Of Interactive Media
An interactive media tool is handy if you want to engage users, describe products, and raise brand awareness. It interacts with the users, providing them with results based on their decisions and actions.
Cost Of Interactive Media
Adding interactive media to your site can cost you anywhere between $250 and $10,000.
A good plan for your interactive media can propel your company in the right direction and achieve its goals. You need to invest time and resources for meaningful interactive media for both your team and agency.
Usually, it becomes costlier to involve more website development work in interactive media creation.
Content Management System
A Content Management System (CMS) helps you make slight website updates on your own. You and your team can easily make adjustments without modifying site codes or files.
Importance Of A CMS
A CMS offers benefits for your team as it makes updating your website straightforward and convenient. It is also easy to update contact information like store hours or contact numbers.
Cost Of A CMS
The average price range of using a custom or standard CMS is from $2,000 to $25,000.
In case you opt for a free CMS like WordPress, your web designer will charge a CMS addition fee.
Ecommerce Functionality
Ecommerce functionality provides enormous support to your ecommerce business by ensuring product purchase by shoppers and processing them by your team. It includes many tasks:
- Payment gateways installation
- Payment processing system addition
- Payment options, shopping carts, and shipping systems testing
- Product pages’ launch
Importance Of Ecommerce Functionality
For any ecommerce business, ecommerce functionality is crucial for its success. If there is a lack of order processing systems and facilities, you can wave your customers goodbye!
To provide a seamless experience to your shoppers, you need to invest in an ecommerce system. Your team should include the ecommerce functionality’s cost in the web design budget.
Cost Of Ecommerce Functionality
Ecommerce functionality cost ranges from $2,000 to $25,000.
There are a few factors that contribute to this cost:
- Product line’s size
- The average number of orders
- Business size
These are some of the reasons why smaller companies pay less than the larger ones for ecommerce functionality. They process fewer orders and can make do with a less robust ecommerce system.
Database Integration
As a business, you must have a database that contains important customer and company information. This can also feature client log-in data, their email and home addresses, and any other information provided by them and required to service their needs.
To make this data accessible to the clients or team, you need database integration in your website. For that, you’ll have to work with a database development specialist who knows how to add this functionality to your site without compromising on its existing capabilities.
However, you require developer expertise to add any database to your website.
Importance Of Database Integration
Database integration is essential for the company and its users because it allows access to valuable information about your team and the shoppers on your website. It saves your support team from spending time on appointment dates, product orders, etc.
Additionally, database integration acts as a unique selling point (USP) to shoppers who favor online convenience.
Cost Of Database Integration
When you’re building a new website, one of the most important decisions you’ll need to make is which database to use. There are many different databases available, and each one has its own set of features and benefits.
The most popular databases are MySQL, MongoDB, and Cassandra. MongoDB is a document-oriented database that uses JSON-style documents to store data. It’s easy to use and can be scaled up to handle large amounts of data. Cassandra is a column-oriented database that can handle large amounts of data quickly and efficiently. It’s ideal for web applications that require high throughput and low latency.
MySQL is a Relational Database Management System (RDBMS) that is used by millions of websites. It’s easy to use and supports a wide range of features, making it a good choice for small to medium-sized websites.
When you’re choosing a database for your website, it’s important to consider the size and complexity of your data. If you have a lot of data that needs to be stored, then you should choose a database that is designed for handling large amounts of data. If your website requires high throughput and low latency, then you should choose a database like Cassandra or MongoDB, or even a searchable database like ElasticSearch.
If you’re not sure which database to use, then you should consult with our software development company. They will be able to help you choose the right database for your website and can also help with the integration process. The cost of database integration varies depending on the size and complexity of your website, but it typically ranges from $1,000 to $25,000.
The most significant factors that affect its cost are its complexity and customization.
If you want a unique database, prepare to pay more for it than a pre-existing third-party database.
However, a custom database has its own perks as it can resolve user inconveniences in the shopping process to improve customer satisfaction, productivity, etc.
A Note on the On-going Cost of Keeping Your Site Current
While the initial investment cost of implementing a new website or website redesign can be large, you should also consider the on-going cost and maintenance of your site, including things like:
- On-going content writing, SEO and other tweaks/fixes
- Website marketing costs
- Web design and web development updates
- Regular maintenance for page load speed
- Web security patches, updates and fixes
As a living organism, your website will demand your attention on an on-going basis. Consider the cost and budget accordingly.
Choosing a Web Development Firm Based on Price? Think Again!
One of the biggest mistakes people make when choosing a web developer is basing their decision solely on price. It’s important to remember that you get what you pay for, and cheap web developers are rarely the best option.
Here are a few reasons why you should not choose a web developer based on price:
- You may end up with a low-quality website
- The developer may not be experienced or qualified
- The developer may not be reliable or responsive
- The developer may not be up-to-date on the latest web trends
- You may not receive proper support or service after the project is completed
When it comes to web development, it’s important to choose a team you can trust. DEV.co offers web development services that include website development, web design, digital marketing, and search engine optimization (SEO). Our team of experienced developers can help you create a website that meets your needs and exceeds your expectations.
Other Key Takeaways
Website design and development is a crucial part of success for a business. Anyone who wants to search for something goes on Google first, making it essential to have an online presence to grow your brand.
You need to invest in a highly functional and visual website to engage your users. It is necessary to know how much web development costs when it comes to designing and developing a website, because many factors contribute to it.
If, as a small business owner, you plan on designing your own website, you can shave some additional web development costs by simply implementing a DIY (do-it-yourself) strategy.
If that’s not for you, then follow this website development cost guide to get an insight into what your new website design should cost you!
Connect with Ryan on Linkedin.
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