What Should A Website Cost In Edmonton In 2024?

Pricing Out A Website In 2024

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If you're looking to create a website for your business in Edmonton, you might be wondering how much it should cost.

The truth is, there is no one-size-fits-all answer to this question. The price of a website can vary depending on many factors, such as the complexity of the design, the number of pages, static vs dynamic content and more.

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For a breakdown of what factors are typically included in determining price, check out this article: What Goes Into Determining The Price Of A Website?

So, what should you expect to pay for a website in Edmonton in 2023? Well, the cost can range anywhere from a few hundred dollars to several thousand dollars depending on whether you're hiring a freelancer through Fiverr or Dribbble, a web design agency like Fairway, or a web design service through providers like GoDaddy, Squarespace or Wix Marketplace. If you're on a tight budget, you might consider a DIY website builder, which can cost as little as $20 per month. However, these platforms have limited customization options and often result in a generic-looking website. Not to mention the default on-site SEO of these builders can hurt your Google rankings severely.

If you want a more professional-looking website, you can of course hire a web design agency, though this can have it's complications also. The usual concern by companies looking to have a website built is, "Am I getting screwed on the price?". Which is a major concern when many web developers have radically different prices.

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How Much Is A Website Worth To YOUR Business?

As mentioned previously, there are several factors that affect the way designers typically price out their work, but what about looking at what you think it's worth?

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A website, like a vehicle, can be an enormous component of a person's life. Some people drive everywhere; using their vehicle for work, to drop the kids off at school, road trips, vacations, and generally to get around. Whereas some people, for example, who work from home, may use their vehicle far less. In either scenario, the price of an identical vehicle is the same, but it's worth is dramatically different. In terms of a website - a properly developed, highly functional site should have a definitive purpose.

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In 2023, many businesses pay and host a website simply to have one. However, forward-thinking companies often center much of their business around their website to act as a central hub for information, a sales-funnel, or a portfolio of their work. Having a website simply as a digital business card should be the baseline expectation of a website, but the options are endless and in your favour depending on the structure of your business.

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Now, simply looking at a website objectively, without the variables of who's using it and for what purpose, a website requires time. If you're building it yourself, that time can be quite valuable, and thus expensive for you to spend the hours required to learn how to design it, let alone building it. If you're hiring a website development team in Edmonton in 2023, you can save that time, but you're using theirs.

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For the sake of this article, let's say your business's website is a traditional style, 5 page website. For this example, we'll say the pages include a Home page -to provide a landing page for visitors giving them a breakdown of your business as a whole. It also includes an About Us page that explains the history of the company and it's value proposition. A Services/Pricing page that lays out your product(s) and what a customer should expect in terms of what's included and how much they should pay. A Contact/Action page that offers details of how to get in touch, and often a web form to reach out to you directly. And lastly, an additional page that varies per business. For example: facility, benefits, blog, locations, additional services, etc. A qualified web developer should have a unique structure and design for each page that allows for the functionality that a visitor should expect when they hop around your site. Each page, (some more than others) can take anywhere from 5 - 20 hours to construct, mobilize and test. Not to mention, once they've designed it, a client may suggest several revisions until they're happy with it which can include several additional hours.

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By the time the site is ready for launch (which is a time-consuming process as well) it may have taken anywhere from 25 - 100 hours to develop your website. At the industry standard of $100 - $150 an hour, this can get expensive. The efficiency and experience of a design team with little client resistance can typically produce a site on the lower end of that timeline, but they may charge more also.

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Summing Up Cost Expectations

All in all, you can typically expect somewhere between $1,000 to upwards of $20,000. The average, based on our experience is somewhere between CA$2,000 - CA$5,000.

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For some, this may seem expensive, and it's true, it certainly can be. Which is why getting the most out of your website is critical. A building is expensive, but definitely worth it if it's occupied and in-use frequently. "But what about the Kijiji designers that offer websites for $400?". To that we'd say, you get what you pay for.

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If your goal is simply affordability, than that may be the way to go (but watch out for hidden fees). From our experience, if someone's willing to do work for far less than the industry standard, it's almost always due to lack of experience (which will ultimately effect your website and business), or they've "developed a formula" to produce your site faster, which inherently means your site will be a static, re-used template (not good for ranking on Google). The competition for Edmonton websites for most industries is quite heavy. A $400 website is like putting a local beer league team against an NHL Team.

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So What Do We Advise For Edmonton Businesses?

We encourage you to talk to your developer about your website. Is it producing how you'd hoped? Does it have a clear, driven purpose that brings clients to your doorstep? Is there more that can be done to get every penny's worth out of your site?

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As a web development company ourselves, it may be inherently in our best interest to highlight the values of a website. That said, at Fairway, we like doing business the "Fair Way" (get it), and would much rather acknowledge the commitment that a website is to your company's growth.

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Instead we suggest that you look into what makes the most sense for you and your website. You can certainly reach out to us and see what we offer for web design pricing for Edmonton businesses and we'll be happy to discuss the best options, even if that means offering some free advice for you to develop it yourself.

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Thanks for reading! If this article was helpful, we'd love to hear from you!