When you start the journey to get your website rebuilt or start some online marketing, the first thing you’ll notice is that the prices you get quoted will be all over the map. It will seem like there will be as many prices as there are companies, and they will be thousands or tens of thousands of dollars different!
To help you navigate your way to a buying decision we’ve put together a guide to use in evaluating what the price ranges should be for various services and who they are typically for. This won’t cover every situation, but it will help you stay on course when trying to figure out if you should be paying $100 or $100,000 for your new website.
Pricing Guide
Do it yourself Website Builders – Free – $500 per month. These types of sites are usually connected to an ongoing subscription and are fine for people just starting out, individuals trying to create a brand for themselves personally or teenagers starting their own businesses. This includes buying templates for $50 or any similar service as essentially you’re stuck building your own website in these cases. This is usually the path to take if you aren’t making any income with your business yet and you are trying to get it off the ground.
Pre-designed website- $2000 – $5500. This is a service where you are heavily leaning on designs that have already been figured out and someone is going to take those successful design principles and use them to build you a site. It’s not fully custom from scratch, but it is customized for your company. This is a great way to get your website redone if you’re not using it much currently but you need to improve the look and feel of your online presence. This is usually the path to take if you are a small-medium sized business trying to look current but not do a whole lot otherwise with your site.
Custom Website – $6000-$35000. This would be a service where someone shows a lot of different examples, gets an idea of exactly what you like, what you don’t like and what you’re trying to accomplish. They then present different mockups of website designs until they get the exact look and feel you’re going for. The site then gets built according to those designs and set up. This is best if you’re already using your site heavily or you are getting it redone to achieve a very specific goal that needs to be achieved. This is usually the path to take if you are an established business trying to take your online presence to the next level.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – $200-$2500 per month. To properly do SEO you need to do certain actions on a monthly basis. These include setting the strategy you are operating off of, reviewing the results you are getting and of course, the actions of SEO themselves. These include reviewing your current web pages and web content and making sure they are optimized as well as generating new content to go onto your website regularly. It can also include a service called link building where someone actually reaches out and helps to get other people in your field to link to your website. Based on how much of this work is being done, you should expect to pay between $200-$2500 per month. If you are getting quoted much lower or higher than this, check to see what you are actually receiving as service. Lower prices usually mean that almost nothing is being done every month. Higher prices are usually an indication that they are overcharging unless the amount of work actually being done is tremendously more than what you see listed above.
Paid Advertising – $500 – 10% of your ad spend. To properly run an ad campaign you need to have a lot of skill in determining what to advertise, when and to who. It involves creating the ads and setting the audience you are targeting. It also should include setting up landing pages specific to your ads to help ensure that you are showing your potential visitors the exact data they need to see in order to get them to respond to the ads and then contact you or buy your product/service.
Support/Hosting – $6-$200 per month. With every website you will need some sort of Hosting or Support. There are many levels of service available. At the most basic level you will be paying for space to put your website. This is typically available very cheaply from a number of providers. However, most websites these days require software updates and maintenance to make sure they stay secure and working properly. Going without doing these updates can set you up for a disaster when something goes wrong, especially if you don’t have any backups of your site (not typically provided by hosting companies). It’s highly advised that you have someone handle your website updates and maintenance for you. Depending on the level of service you expect and the size of the company you go with for this, expect to pay between $50-200 per month for this service.
This should give you some helpful tips to make sure that you are getting fair pricing and whether or not you’re working with a professional company who will be able to get you the results you need.
Any questions? You can write to us at info@studio98.com and we’re happy to help clarify anything regarding websites and online marketing or to help you rapidly get a quote needed for work done.
We’re here to help, so don’t hesitate to ask.