How much does a website really cost? A straight answer
"How much for a website?" is the most common question we get, and the least useful one to answer blindly. A number without scope is a guess dressed up as a quote.
What we can do honestly is show you exactly what drives the cost, so that when you do get quotes you can compare them and budget with your eyes open.
Why the range is so wide
A website is not one product. A five-page brochure site and a customer portal are both "a website" the way a bicycle and a bus are both "transport". The price reflects what the thing has to do, for how many people, for how long.
So treat any quote that arrives without questions about your scope as a placeholder, not a commitment.
The five things that actually drive cost
1. Scope and number of unique screens
The count of distinct pages and templates matters more than total wordcount. A hundred blog posts that use one template cost far less than twenty unique interactive screens.
2. Design depth
Using a well-built template is cheaper than a bespoke design system. Bespoke design costs more because it involves discovery, iteration and a designer's time — and because it tends to uncover requirements nobody had named yet.
3. Integrations
Payment gateways, CRMs, email systems, accounting tools. Each integration is a place where two systems have to agree, and where something can break. Their number and complexity move the price more than most clients expect.
4. Content and copy
If you supply finished text and images, you save money. If the agency has to write, source and edit, that is real work and it shows up in the quote. Decide early who owns content; it is the most common cause of launch delays.
5. Ongoing support
A site that is never updated is a liability. Budget for hosting, security patches, monitoring and small changes. A partner who quotes zero for this is either hiding it in the build price or planning to disappear.
How to budget realistically
Start from the outcome, not the number of pages. Ask what the site must achieve in the first year — leads, sales, support deflection — and build the smallest thing that can achieve it well. You can always add later; a solid foundation makes additions cheap, while a cheap foundation makes them impossible.
Set aside a contingency, usually ten to twenty percent, for the requirements you have not thought of yet. Every honest project discovers some.
Comparing quotes fairly
When quotes differ wildly, they are usually answering different questions. Line two quotes up against the five drivers above. One may be cheaper because it excludes content, support or an integration you assumed was included.
Ask each agency to state explicitly what is in scope, what is not, and what triggers a change request. The cheapest quote is rarely the cheapest project.
The bottom line
We will not give you a fake number over the phone, because it would waste your time and ours. What we will do is ask the right questions, scope honestly, and quote a price that reflects the work — then deliver against it.
If you want a real number, tell us what the site has to do. That is a conversation worth having.