Get three quotes for the same website and they will land thousands apart. That is not because two of them are dodgy. It is because "a website" describes about six different products, and nobody says which one they are quoting on.
Four things the money buys
Strip any quote back and you are paying for four things. The gap between quotes is almost always one of them being missing.
1. Decisions
Someone has to work out what the site needs to say, who it is talking to and what a visitor should do next. This is the part that gets skipped, and it is the part that decides whether the thing earns money or just sits there looking tidy. If nobody asks you what your customers actually ring up and ask, nobody is doing this bit.
2. The build
The visible bit. Design, pages, forms, the phone number that works on a mobile. Genuinely the most predictable line in the quote, and the one everyone fixates on.
3. Content
Words and photos. This is where projects stall for months, because "you send us your content" sounds free and it never is. Either you write it, which costs you the evenings, or someone writes it for you, which costs money. There is no third option where good content just turns up.
4. Aftercare
Updates, backups, SSL, the hosting bill, someone to ring when the contact form quietly stops sending. A quote with nothing here is not cheaper. It has just moved that cost onto you, later, at a worse time. What a care plan should actually cover →
Why the cheap quote is cheap
Usually one or more of these, and none of them are secrets:
- It is a template with your logo dropped in, which is fine if that is what you want and a shock if it is not.
- You are writing all the content. See above.
- There is no aftercare, so the first time something breaks you are on your own or on the clock.
- Nobody is doing the thinking, so you get exactly what you asked for rather than what you needed.
- It is offshore and cheap per hour, which can work fine and can also mean nobody answers at 4pm on a Friday when your site is down.
None of that makes a cheap quote wrong. A sole trader who needs one page, a phone number and a map does not need a five-figure build, and anyone trying to sell them one should be shown the door. It only goes bad when you buy the cheap thing while picturing the expensive thing.
What actually moves the number
Page count barely does, which surprises people. Ten pages built off the same three templates is not much more work than five. What does move it:
- Who writes the words. The single biggest swing in most quotes.
- Anything that talks to another system. Bookings, payments, inventory, a CRM. Every integration is a thing that can break and therefore a thing that has to be tested.
- Migration. Moving an existing site with years of pages and a search history you do not want to lose is a different job to starting clean. Doing it without breaking anything →
- Photography. Real photos of your work will do more for the site than another two grand of design. They also cost real money.
- How many people have to approve it. Not a joke. A committee adds weeks.
Questions to ask before you sign
Five questions. Any decent operator will answer all of them without shuffling.
- Who owns the domain and the hosting account? The answer must be you. If the person who built it holds the keys, you are renting your own business name. Why this one matters most →
- Can I get my site and my content out? Ask what happens on the day you leave. A shrug is an answer.
- What is the ongoing cost, in dollars, per month? Domain, hosting, SSL, updates, support. Get the number up front rather than finding it in a year.
- What happens when it breaks at 5pm on a Friday? Not if. When.
- What is not included? The most useful question on the list, and the one that separates a real quote from a number on an email.
The cost nobody quotes on
Doing it twice. A cheap site that has to be rebuilt in eighteen months costs more than the right one did, and you have lost a year and a half of Google trusting the thing in between. That is the actual risk with the bottom of the market, and it is why "how much" is the wrong first question.
Better first question: what does this need to do for the business, and what happens if it does not do it. Once that is clear the budget mostly sorts itself, because you can see what you are buying.
If you want the plain version of how we approach a build, it is on the web design page, and the pre-launch checklist covers what should be done before anything goes live.
Want a quote that says what is actually in it?
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