What Goes Into Determining The Price Of A Website?

If you're in the market for a new website, navigating the dramatically varying prices of web design in the modern day can be difficult and time-consuming. You may be asking yourself, why does one firm charge $500, and another charges $10,000?

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Though the discrepancy is ridiculous, speaking from our own experience, pricing out a website as an agency can be difficult. There are many factors that determine the price, and all of them are largely estimates, as the nature and requirements of a website can change as it's developed. Below are the typical variables used to determine the price of a website.

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Web Design Time

The amount of hours it takes to design, build, mobilize, test and launch a website plays a big role in narrowing down a website's cost. For most design agencies, it's the primary factor. Development hours can be difficult to estimate based on the nature of a website. Some sites are largely static, while others are considered dynamic, which I'll touch on later.

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In order to determine the hours required for a new website, we look at how much content already exists from the client (text, images, etc.). We also look at similar concepts we've done before and use them as a comparable reference to narrow down the amount of hours needed. We have to of course consider revision time also, as almost any website will need to be looked over, approved and even changed based on a customer's request throughout the design process.

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Hours are also effected by the complexity, which again, I'll break down below. For instance, building a repeatable navigation is a much more equatable task than designing complex animations and visuals.

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Website Complexity & Functionality

Websites on the internet can vary significantly on what they do and how functional they are to their visitors. Your typical small business website needs to be easy to navigate, responsive on all device sizes and brand-focused. However, some websites are designed for more diverse purposes including showcasing graphics, photos and animations, or even to offer additional functionality like member-only content, databases and blog posts.

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E-commerce sites have specific requirements that designers will typically charge more for also. Working within the confines of an e-commerce platform involves jumping through many hurdles to accomplish what may seem like a simple design. Integrating the design layout with your products, collections and checkout can require a lot of tinkering, resulting in more time and effort.

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In many cases , the "kind" of development a website requires can often alter the price as it may require different members of a design team's expertise in order to bring the desired site to life.

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Dynamic Vs Static Content

One of the more unique elements of web design that can definitely effect the price is how much of the website relies on dynamic content vs static.

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To add some context, static content is simply text and images that are designed specifically to stay in one place, for a specific role. For example, the title of the page. It can be changed at any time, but the title will remain the same style and placement. You won't add more or less titles, you'll simply change it in the event it needs to be changed.

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Dynamic content however, can be built upon and will require more additions to what exists already. For example, a blog or photo gallery will likely grow in size as more articles or images are added to the site. You may choose to remove an article, change an article and add new ones as they become available. Unlike static content, dynamic content is often built specifically for growth and requires a back-end for the website owner to access in order to add additional content regularly.

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If a website uses a lot of dynamic content, it can be pricey to build the necessary databases that hold this dynamic content . Multiply that by as many of these kind of sections or pages are needed for your website design.

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So, What Will My Website Cost?

In order to truly determine the price of your website will be, you'll need to chat with some web developers that can quote you on what's to be expected. Every design/development team will use their own factors to determine cost, granted those mentioned in this article are often staples within the design community.

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If you're looking to get a website built, check out What Should A Website Cost In Edmonton In 2024? to get a better idea of what your business should expect and how you can properly navigate web design pricing. Whether you're located in Edmonton or not, you can of course reach out to us also at Fairway Inc. and we'd be happy to break down any questions regarding cost, free of charge.