How Much Should Building a Website Cost?

You’ve made the decision - you need a website and/or your current website isn’t quite doing it for you. Look at you putting on your big person underpants! But how much should you set aside in your budget to build, or revamp one - and which is the right decision for you and your business?

Our CEO, Adrien Colombié, sat down with his very favourite content creators, just to answer these questions.

First, we want to tackle the aspect of cost.

How much should a website cost a business?

“Cost is a big button issue for any start-up and we definitely understand that. What we find helpful is when we reframe the discussion around the value your website will bring. How much revenue will it generate for your business? How much is an underperforming website costing you in terms of acquisition rate, cost per acquisition and outbound marketing expenses versus an inbound marketing strategy that only works with a fully functioning and well optimized website? When you start thinking about the answers to these questions, you start understanding just how much money you want to invest in such a versatile and important tool in your toolbox.”

So how do you assess that value?

“Well, if you can’t assess the actual dollar value that a new website, or a website redesign, stands to provide - then maybe just don’t do it! If you’ve got a vague understanding of the value that it would provide, but are having a hard time calculating it down to the dollars and cents, maybe it’s not the right time to push a full website investment. That being said, you might want to consider taking those hard earned dollars and define your best channels a little more thoroughly, what their return on investment is, and find out what that cost of acquisition number is.”

What is the difference between creating a new website and revamping one?

“The research stage. We don’t want to break what’s working - we want to learn from the current results. There’s no point in reinventing the wheel if you’ve already got one that’s rolling pretty smoothly. Workshopping with you to figure out what the gap is between where you are and where you want to be - that’s how we figure out how to get there. Then either we want to work on a full website and migrate overnight, or create a roadmap to update the existing website progressively, weakest link by weakest link.”

“For our most advanced clients with already strong traction or a big e-commerce platform, we like to include an A/B testing of new vs. old page performance before the full migration to confirm that our instincts were right and measure the positive impact of the redesign.”

As you can see, we don’t always recommend a completely new design. Going for a full redesign instead of a revamp can be more costly than starting from scratch if there is already some important traffic and conversions coming through.

We find that our clients have three main needs:

1. Building a new website from scratch
2. Revamping their current website
3. Build an e-commerce aspect to their website, new or existing

What is the cost of building a website from scratch?

“For us we have three main archetypes that we will present you with in order to better understand where you are and allow us to start the conversation. They’re a beginning point will that we use to bring us to the perfect-tailor made solution.”

How do we know which one to provide you? 

• Basic Startup Corporate Website Up to 20k
  Perfect for the startup who is bootstrapped, or has just completed their first round of funding. Basically, a start-up that’s trying to determine market fit.

• Full Corporate Website Up to 50k
  You have several audiences, products, or services and you want to make sure to have a segmented approach in messaging and design as well as a clear path to convert and qualify your lead. Your website is a sales tool, a big one in your arsenal - you need to reduce friction, educate clients, and increase revenue.

• Industry Leader Website 50k +
  You are an industry leader. Your website is a platform for your various audiences and products. It’s the main tool for your marketing and sales team and there’s a lot of content to showcase, case studies to present and resources to share. From investors to partners, everyone keeps a close eye on your website and it needs to be highly performing and well maintained on a regular basis to prevent any inaccuracies or brand inconsistencies.
• Those are some wide ranges - what impacts the overall cost?

“Complexity and the overarching needs you have in terms of function and style, at a gross level. At the microlevel, we need to talk about things like the number of pages you have, whether or not you need a template to be able to add pages later, custom illustrations, content copywriting, CRM integration to manage all of your incoming leads and get metric data, and whether or not you need us to do the development for you.”

“ There’s a lot of aspects to consider when building a website, which is why in our process, the initial client meeting is so important. It’s more than just getting your budget and timeline, it’s about determining the true scope of the work so we can show you how much value we bring to the table in getting you what you want, on time.”

What are some things that do not impact the website cost?

“This is a big one that we get a lot. Whether or not a website is mobile, or quick to load. In today’s day and age, that’s just a requirement. There’s no point in building a website if it’s not going to be both of those things. The same thing goes for on-page SEO optimization. This is something that has to be done correctly from the start. Building a website without it would be like selling a car with no wheels.”

OK - so we decide to get a beautiful website… then what?

“Having a website is like having storefront. You can have one on the downtown market square where foot traffic is almost guaranteed, or It can be lost on small street without many people walking by. In our experience, the website is only part of the battle. If you’re not doing some marketing, use a growth strategy, or even using a content strategy to drive traffic and further improve your SEO, then you’re opening a store and just hoping people will see it. Make sure they see it, you spent the money to make it awesome!”

Informative, down to earth - he really knows his stuff! And no, he didn’t give us a bonus to say that. We’re hoping that this little peak into what drives Flying Saucer has given you enough information to inform your budget for your website, marketing and content strategy. More than that, we hope you’ll give us a call to start the interview process - it’s quick, painless, and it doesn’t cost you a dime to have the conversation. Win-win!


STAY TUNED: We know we didn’t give you the details for the e-commerce section of the scheduled program, so we’ll apologize for that up front. That being said - we didn’t address it because we decided it’s important enough that it deserves its own conversation! Hang tight, we’ll be back to give you all the details about the cost of creating or adding an e-commerce platform to your website.