How much should I pay for a website?

Last year, I was shopping with my wife when I somehow struck up a conversation with a lady who owned a quilting business. After talking a while about her business, she found out I was a web developer and got really excited; she let me know very quickly that she wanted a website. However, her part of the conversation was solely focused on one thing…how much will it cost?

There are so many things wrong with this mentality, yet this is the way the conversation goes so many times. We’ll break down how a conversation should go in another post.

If you, the client, are only worried about the cost of your future website (and cost is important), your web presence is probably doomed to fail from the beginning, and the developer’s response to your cost concerns will greatly depend on how many pages you want (horrible) and one of the following circumstances:

• the developer is a high school or college student ($100 – $1000)
• the developer is owns a small design firm ($1000 – $10,000)
• the developer is a member of a large corporation ($10,000 and up)
• the developer is desperate for cash ($50 from craigslist)

The web is flooded with millions of websites, most of which do nothing but take up real estate. Their purpose is unclear and they are not providing any valuable benefit. Why? It’s simple. The client and developer did not communicate and plan an outcome. The developer simply designed a website and left the client with no direction on how to make the website a success.

If your goal is to simply throw a website into the web world with the millions of other websites, then fine, pick the high school kid or the guy from Craigslist. They can probably make your site look really pretty. The truth is, however, your website should work for you. It should achieve certain goals. It should do its job.

Would you pay an employee to “just sit there”? No. You would hire the best candidate you could find, and then expect that employee to do his job and make money for your company! Your website is no different. If it is wasting your time and money, get rid of it or make some serious changes.

If you are a business owner and you need those kind of changes, and your goal is to NOT disappear in a sea of do-nothing websites, then you need to plan and you need a developer that can offer more than just another pretty website. Design will only take you so far.

A website should provide a return on your investment and not just be a sunk cost. If you invest $2,500 in your website with no return is that okay? In our opinion, it’s not. What if you invest $7,500 and you see a 25% increase in sales in one year? Now we’re getting warmer! In just a few months or years, your website investment should pay for itself several times over.

Do you want to know what the key question is…that key question you should ask every developer before you ask about cost? It’s simple. How are you going to ensure that my website helps my business grow?

So, let’s recap. What should I pay for a website? In the long run you should pay nothing, because it should pay for itself. Sure, there may be an initial investment of $2,500 or more and some ongoing costs but your website should provide either a direct or indirect financial benefit to your business. In other words, it should pay for itself plus much more. If you have a website and it’s not providing any financial benefit then you need to start over with a plan and determine how your website can become an asset and not an expense.