How much does a website cost?

Why quotes vary so much

Ask five agencies to quote the same website and you can get five very different numbers. That isn't always overcharging or undercharging. Usually each agency has imagined a different project.

A template site with your logo and text dropped in is a very different job from a custom design with written content, SEO set-up, integrations and training. Both are called "a website".

What typically drives the price

• Design: a ready-made theme versus a custom design for your brand.
• Number of unique page layouts, not just the number of pages.
• Content: whether you supply text and images or the agency writes and sources them.
• Features: booking, portals, payments, multi-language, calculators or integrations.
• Languages: a proper second language, especially a right-to-left one, is real extra work, not a plugin.
• Support: what happens after launch and for how long.

Cheap, mid-range and custom

Prices vary by country and agency, but the pattern is the same everywhere. A template site is the cheapest option, a well-built business site with written content and SEO costs several times more, and custom online stores, portals and integrations cost more again.

Very cheap offers in the low hundreds are usually pre-built templates with little or no strategy, SEO or support. They can be fine for testing an idea, but they rarely bring in enquiries on their own.

At ScaleCart, every project gets a fixed written quote after a free call, so you know the full cost before work begins.

Running costs people forget

• Domain renewal and hosting each year.
• Platform subscriptions such as Shopify plans and paid apps or plugins.
• Payment gateway fees on each transaction.
• Maintenance: updates, backups, security and small changes.
• Marketing: a website without SEO or ads usually gets very little traffic.

How to compare quotes fairly

Ask every agency for a written scope: which pages, which features, who writes content, how many rounds of changes, what's included after launch, and who owns the accounts. Then compare like for like.

Check that the domain, hosting, code and analytics will be in your name. If an agency keeps them, leaving later becomes expensive.