How to Plan a Website Design Budget – What You Need to Know
Stuck Wondering How to Plan a Website Design Budget? Here’s What You Need to Know!
Every business needs a website to increase reach and claim its place on the internet. However, small to midsize companies often hesitate to get one built because they fear it will cost them a lot of money that they cannot afford.
Figuring out how to plan a website design budget can be pretty difficult. Even upon doing thorough research on the matter, they may find conflicting information that confuses them even further. While on the one hand, good websites require a standard budget of about $5000-$10000, on the other, a basic DIY website can get built with a few bucks and a little effort on your part!
This broad range in pricing and trying to sort through what’s included and what isn’t; is exactly what drives first time web-prenuers over the edge when planning a website design budget.
In fact, it can be hard to determine exactly how much a site will cost simply by looking at its design. Having a predetermined budget helps to draw the line between what you can afford and what will be too much.
However, before setting up a fixed budget for this, here are some essential guides that will help you determine how to plan a website design budget.
- Is the designer asking for a fair price for the particular design and development work?
- Do you have any specific preferences, or will you leave it entirely up to the professional?
- How do you want the website to serve your ultimate business goals?
For a company website, the value of the designer or developer goes far beyond just the superficial layer of the design. Their technical skills, experience, and knowledge about specific niches can help you to choose the right approach based on your budget, and it will also help you avoid any surprise technical pitfalls, reduce time and cost, and let you enjoy the best possible outcome.
Cost involved in web development
Primarily, the cost involved in designing a website depends on four factors such as:
- Time
- Technical know-how (aka – programming ability)
- Design expertise
- Money
Take a couple of minutes to think which of the above resources you are strong at and where you are lacking. You need not have all these four at a desirable level to start with the website design as these resources can compensate each other at varying levels.
Out of all the four factors, money is a critical one. In fact, everyone has a certain amount of money for everything, and it is all about how you choose to spend it best and where. So, the key question to ask in terms of choosing web design service is whether it is worth your money.
When it comes to making a website, there are five major phases that will help you plan a website design budget:
- Determine whether you will use a DIY website builder or hire a professional
- Establish the ‘scope of the project’ ie: pages, functionality, etc.
- Design Layout for User Experience
- Content Creation
- Hosting and release
Cost of designing a website
When determining how to plan a website design budget, there are two core options to consider:
Option #1: Paying a professional web developer
Option #2: Using a CMS platform such as WordPress and designing a basic website based on the themes and features provided by the platform.
With option #1, the hourly cost to hire a freelance web designer may be from $30 – $60.
However, if you are approaching a premium design firm, the cost can range between $85 – $210 depending on the services.
You can use option #2 to save on website design pricing, but the outcome will not be desirable unless you fulfill the following conditions:
- You have experience in setting up hosting, designing a website and managing a website.
- You have minimal design and development needs that can be accomplished without the assistance of a programmer.
- You have enough time to spare learn and build on a platform such as WordPress.
Even for basic website building on WordPress, there are some costs that you have to bear. For example, you will need to buy the domain and hosting, and the pre-made basic templates cost around $30 to $50, and premium or paid templates cost around $80– $200. You can also think of hiring a designer at a lower cost to customize the pre-made templates into something you specifically need. You can expect a cost of about $300 and $800 to hire an expert designer for customization of templates.
The prices mentioned above may vary based on the amount of work that is required, the number of pages, design specifics, need for images and graphics, layout design and so on.
Custom website development
If you approach an experienced and reputable web development company, planning for a website design budget in the neighborhood of $5,000 – $10,000 should be expected for something unique and custom to your brand. When it comes to custom web development planning for a budget can be difficult to determine without speaking to a few agencies about the scope of your project. When planning for a website design budget on a site that has significant features and functionality may cost well over $30,000.
Factors to consider while setting your website design budget
Deciding on the budget for your website may be the hardest part.
When you can’t compromise on the quality of the site, and you can’t afford to overspend on it either – you need to consider a few things before coming up with the exact number.
- How important is this website for your business?
You may have a single site or many. You need to identify the relevance of this site for marketing your business online as well as the goals of your business. For example, if you are building an e-commerce site where you will showcase your products and buyers will make a purchase — you’re budget should be based on providing a flawless experience for your users. Sites that appear unreliable or unappealing make a bad impression on your customers and simply won’t perform well for your business.
Bacancy Technology provided this general budget guide for eCommerce website development:
- eCommerce Store Development Having Prebuilt Theme: $500 USD- $1000 USD
- eCommerce Store Development Without Prebuilt Theme: $1,000 USD–$2,000 USD
- Ecommerce Store along with mCommerce Mobile App: $3,000–$5,000 USD
- Porting and Migration: $1,000-$2,000 USD
- CMS Development services: $1,000-$5,000 USD
- QA/testing/Automation Testing: $500-$1500 USD
- Blog and Widgets/Plugins for eCommerce: $500–$1,000 USD
- Front End Development for eCommerceWebsite using AngularJS/NodeJS/BackboneJS: $8,000 – $10,000 USD
- Admin Panel Development: $1,000 – $10,00USD
- Monthly Support and maintenance: $500- $1,000 USD
- What is your ultimate goal behind creating the website?
Each site serves a specific purpose. For example, your goal may be purely promotional. Here, you want to reach out to your target audience and let them know about your product or service. On the other hand, you may simply want to create a blog where people find useful and accurate information.
In any case, you should ensure that your website leads to more business. It is ideal to make use of the CMS platforms to develop blog content in order to drive traffic to your website and keep visitors coming back.
In summary, in order to determine how to plan a website design budget, you will need to do a little research to identify what your exact requirements and expectations are for your project. This is often called a project scoping document and once you have this blueprint in hand, it is ideal to go ahead and contact a few good designers and firms to get personalized quotes. These quotes should allow you to explore the best possible custom web design platforms as well as the costs involved. With this data, you can easily compare various options to find out which one may work the best for you within your budget.
One particular thing to remember here is that designing a website is never a one-time task. You will want to update your website, change the layout, and innevitably add more features to help convert your website visitors. So, when approaching a web design/development service provider, it is also important to inquire about these future costs to take a better decision.
Good Luck!
