It’s the question I get asked most often on discovery calls, and it makes sense: you’ll find websites quoted at $500 USD and others at $20,000 USD or more, so it’s hard to know what you’re really buying. The good news is that there’s nothing mysterious about the price of a website. It comes down to a few decisions you can understand before you ask anyone for a quote.
The three main ways to get a website built
Before talking numbers, you need to know what kind of website you’re looking at. Prices vary a lot from one provider to the next, and from one country to another, but the orders of magnitude almost always follow the same logic.
Doing it yourself
Wix, Squarespace or Framer let you build a website on your own, with a monthly subscription. The apparent cost is low, but the real price is your time: choosing a template, writing the copy, finding images, getting the layout right on mobile. To test an idea, it’s a reasonable option. For a business that wants to inspire trust, the result often shows.
A freelancer or a small studio
This is the widest category, from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars. At the low end, you’ll often find a barely modified template. Higher up, real work on structure, copywriting and design. The price gap mostly reflects the time spent understanding your business.
An agency
An agency brings in several people: strategy, design, development, project management. Budgets climb fast: agency quotes for a custom website often start around $10,000 USD and can go well beyond. For a large site with many stakeholders, that’s justified. For a service business that needs five to ten well-made pages, it’s often more than necessary.
What really drives the price
Five factors weigh more on the bill than all the others.
The number of pages and templates. A homepage, three service pages and a contact page don’t take the same work as a site with a blog, a portfolio and a store.
The copywriting. Copy written to convert takes time. If you come with your content ready, the price goes down. If the provider writes it, you need to budget for it.
Custom design. Adapting a template and creating a visual identity unique to your business are not the same effort.
Features. Online booking, an advanced form, a members’ area, a store, a bilingual site: each feature adds work and sometimes a subscription.
SEO from day one. Titles, descriptions, page structure and loading speed are set while the site is being built, not afterward.
The costs people forget
The design and build price isn’t the only one. A website also means a domain name to renew every year, hosting or a platform subscription, and sometimes third-party tools like an online calendar or a newsletter. Always ask for the total cost over a year, not just the starting price.
Finally, there’s maintenance. A WordPress site needs regular updates to stay secure. A Framer site needs far fewer, but you’ll probably want to add pages, change copy or track your results. Some people do it themselves, others prefer a monthly plan.
Why a price that’s too low often ends up costing you
A very cheap website isn’t necessarily bad, but you need to know what was cut to reach that price. The most common trade-offs:
a generic template your competitors use too;
no work on the copy, so a pretty site that doesn’t clearly explain what you do;
a site you can’t edit without going back to the provider;
a site you don’t really own, hosted on someone else’s account.
The real cost of a website isn’t its invoice. It’s what it brings in, or what it costs you in clients who leave without getting in touch.
How to read a quote
Before you sign, check that the quote clearly answers these questions:
How many pages are included, and which ones?
Who writes the copy?
Is the design custom or based on a template?
How many rounds of revisions are included?
Who will own the website and the domain name?
What happens after launch: training, fixes, maintenance?
How does payment work, and when?
If an answer is unclear, ask for it in writing. A good provider has no reason to stay vague.
And at Novaa?
I’d rather show my prices than make you guess. A landing page starts at $1,000 USD, and a complete website of five pages or more at $1,500 USD, with custom copy and design included. The exact price is set after a thirty-minute call, once we know how many pages there are and what content needs to be produced. You can see the details in the Services and pricing section, and concrete examples in my case studies. Are you a coach? The details for your profession are on the websites for coaches page.
Already have a quote and want a second opinion? Book a discovery call and I’ll tell you honestly whether the price is fair, even if I’m not the one who builds the project.
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