How much it costs to create a website depends on a number of factors, so there isn’t really a straightforward answer to the question. The one thing that is universal when it comes to website cost, however, is that no one wants to pay more than they need to.
As the cost of living skyrockets and the bills go up for businesses, there has never been more of a requirement to make sure your marketing is on point. Web design doesn’t need to break the bank and there are some ways that it can be done on a smaller budget to stop your website costs from spiralling out of control.
How much does creating and maintaining a website cost?
If you use a website builder, the cost can be as little as £15 a month. However, this will be a very basic option that won’t help your business get very far in its marketing efforts if the web design and user experience (UX) look and feel cheap and clunky. If this is the case, it will shape the image customers have of your brand and your business.
If you want a website that truly works for your business, you’ll want to choose professional website design and development. While this does come with a higher price tag, there are things you can do to keep the overall cost of your website down.
How to keep web design costs down
We should say that saving money doesn’t mean cutting corners, at least if you want to ensure you still have a top-quality website at the end of it. However, there are a few things you could consider if you’re on a tight budget.
1. Keep costs down by paying hourly (if possible)
Some web designers may be able to offer you an hourly rate to work on their site rather than going by a fixed quote. This results in fairness on both sides, as the client only pays for the hours the designer puts in, and the designer is paid for exactly what they do.
This approach works particularly well if you only have a small site or you don’t think that the changes you want necessitate a full design package.
2. Opt for a modular site
Another way you can reduce the cost of setting up a website is to choose a modular site instead of a completely bespoke one.
Modular sites are a perfect halfway point between a bespoke website and an off-the-shelf theme (for the record, we prefer to avoid the off-the-shelf option because they have a lot of creative restrictions and often contain bloated, messy third-party code).
With a modular design, we can make use of a huge library of pre-designed sections and features (modules), which have a good range of customisation options and design flexibility.
Although you don’t get the 100% bespoke, ground-up design and functionality that you do with a custom bespoke website; we can get pretty damn close. We also employ a flexible and intuitive page builder – such as Elementor on WordPress – making editing your content a breeze. With this method, costs are cut by significantly reducing and sometimes removing the need for development time.
3. Choose a packaged service for hosting
As well as having your website developed, it will also need to be hosted. Usually, this is a standalone cost, but some web designers (such as us here at Illicit) can offer hosting and may even offer other services as part of their hosting packages.
For example, we now fold free SSL certificates into our hosting packages, while also including monthly website backups and updates as part of the price. This simplifies our pricing and makes it a lot more transparent for the client.
Third-party hosts don’t always include backups and updates, meaning that you could be paying a cost for hosting and then a separate cost for your designer to do all the updates, backups and security checks on your site.
4. Populate your own content
Populating content can take up quite a lot of time during the lifetime of a website project, so one way that you can reduce the cost of your website design is to find a designer who will give you the option to add a lot of the content yourself.
If you have the capacity within your workload, you may want to consider this option as it can save the time (and therefore money) spent on your site.
The cost of setting up a website depends on several factors, such as whether you are choosing an off-the-shelf design or are having a bespoke site created, the type of hosting you need, the size of the site and more.
The bottom line is that no one wants to spend more than they have to, so it’s important to work with a web designer who is willing to work with you to understand your requirements and adapt accordingly.
If you want to find out more about how we can help you keep website costs down, feel free to drop us a message.