What Does It Cost To Build A Website?

What Does It Cost To Build A Website?

In business, nothing is more important than having a full-fledged website that conforms to the standards of Search Engine Optimization.

Getting a one-word answer for “what is the cost of building a website” can be a challenging task, because you have to consider a lot of factors. Here are some questions you will have to consider:

1. What does it cost to run the website annually?

This depends on what kind of website you are building, what your need is, the maintenance and ongoing costs.

2. What does it cost to update or redesign the website?

Websites should be updated on a continual basis, as per SEO requirements or it will be in the back burner within no time.

3. What kind of a website are you building? Is it an ecommerce site?

This could depend on the kind of business you are running, and your purpose in having a website.

4. How much does it take to maintain the site?

You can have full control of the website, or you can hire an agency. They will have a full-developer or designer. They can provide a tailor made version or custom make it for you.

5. Are you planning to create a new website from scratch?

There are template options to help you if you are on a budget.

6. What are the domain name and web hosting costs?

The domain will give you a unique identification in the world of web. You can register for this in advance, and the cost will of course, dependent on the domain name that you choose. The most popular ones will be the most expensive of course – .com, .org, .biz, .info, .tv, .mobi, .net, .name and so on.

The answer to all these questions would be either you have an idea or you don’t have a clue. But surely, these would help you reach a better decision.

Of course, as you get deeper into it, you will have more questions. But it is important to remember that you cannot make compromises in the following aspects because they do make a huge impact on your online presence:

• A domain name, a website and a hosting account
• The cost of a website can range from a few hundreds of rupees to thousands depending on how you approach it
• You can choose to go for an all-in-one bundle, where the costs will be calculated on a monthly basis
• You can choose the a la carte approach where you purchase the tools required for making your website live by buying the necessary things from an individual provider
• Ongoing website management and updates must be considered because a lot depends upon it

If you choose to go for the all-in-one bundle, then the domain name, the tools for maintaining the site and a hosting plan will all be included with it. A small to medium size business would benefit from choosing the all-in-one bundle.

If you are really worried about your budget, then you can choose the DIY website building tool and hosting platform. These are cheapest options and you can even choose from the number of templates offered.

The best part is that no technical skills or coding experience is required for this. Once you go down to the professional and business style of building a website, the costs can vary depending on the theme selected and the number of pages. The cost will also be dependent on whether your website will be optimised for search engines and mobile devices.

A simple website can range from INR 8000 upwards. Before spending money on it, spend some time deciding how you want to make your website, and how it should function. You might also want to decide how much time you need to dedicate to developing and managing your site.

Choosing the host

It is the host that will display your website to the visitor. If somebody types your website address at the browser, it is the host that will take them there. The type of hosting that you do will also affect the cost. The costs mentioned here is on a monthly basis.

• Shared hosting costs – $3 – $10
• VPS hosting costs – $200 – $250
• Dedicated hosting – $ 1000+

Different kinds of websites

There are different kinds of websites as well. The costs will depend on the number of pages you need to develop and maintain.

a) Small Business Website

This is just a basic website that will need little customisation. With around 20 pages, you will be able to display simple information to share with your visitors, complete with a couple of stock pictures, no fancy functionalities and no videos. The rate would be 2’000 to 5’000 US Dollar.

b) Medium Sized Website

A commercial website requiring around 30-75 pages can be considered a medium sized website. It can have custom design layouts, a bit of unique functionalities and CMS (Content Management System). The rate would be 5’000 to 15’000 US Dollar

c) Ecommerce website

The cost will depend on how big you want your shop to be. The cost for this will start anywhere from 2’500 to 100’000 US Dollar. It depends on how many products you want featured. You will have a payment gateway, facility where the customers can browse and purchase, CMS, imagery, copywriting and beta testing.

d) Large Business Website

A large business website will have several hundreds of pages, CMS, unique features and functionalities, custom layouts, multimedia functionality, blog integration and more. The rate would be 20’000 US Dollar and more.

Conclusion

These are the basic factors that would determine the cost of building a good website. It would be advisable to avoid the usage of too many templates in the creation of your website because the level of customization offered could be very minimal.

The cost of the website will change if you want to redesign it for mobile websites. Such websites are called Responsive websites and will function seamlessly on desktops, tablets, mobile devices, etc.

The website design and functionality will change in order to give the highest-level UI/UX experience for tablets and mobile devices. However, the good news is that, while responsive websites have increased the costs of building websites, the cost of web development tools have come down. The experience of the developer and their charges per hour will also dictate the costs.

Interesting Articles:
Cost to build an website in 2018
Useful quora answers on this topic

Picture Source: Flickr.com/ medithIT/ Goat Farmer

The author: Reema Oamkumar is engaged as a thought leader at www.Software-Developer-India.com which is a part of the YUHIRO Group. YUHIRO is a German-Indian enterprise which provides programmers to IT companies, agencies and IT departments.