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creating a website

The Costs Involved in Creating a Website for your Business

Take time to learn about spending before you start creating a website for your business, and you’ll have a chance to prepare ahead and make better choices. The truth is: professionals from all walks of life often underestimate the possible costs of their website. In our honest opinion, it’s wise to educate yourself on possible (yet often necessary) spending that might occur, regardless of the industry you’re in.

The costs of creating a website vary from around $50 per month for a basic site to 4-figure, 5-figure, and even 6-figure spending for fully customized solutions.

We’re happy to help you navigate through the basics of website costs, by covering these topics:

  1. Deciding on a website type
  2. What are the general costs of websites
  3. Which services are included in the costs of creating a website

1) Determining the type of your website

The starting point of planning your site-building budget is to try and visualize your future website. While doing so, consider these aspects:

  • Your industry
  • The size of your business and audience

Why would you want to consider the industry? Essentially, the bottom level requirements (size and quantity of images, overall design, etc.) may vary depending on your business’ industry. As an example, if you’re creating a website for your business focused on fashion, chances are you’ll need a larger hosting capacity (which, of course, costs more).

Perhaps you’re a retailer, which means you will need an in-built online store. Surely, keep in mind that each integration brings an additional expense in a long run.

Next, examine the current size of your business and traffic estimates. According to those numbers, you’ll gain clarity on the type of a website you need. Could you start with a basic hosting plan? Remember you’re free to expand later, but if you already know the numbers, then plan your budget to spend a bit more on hosting services.

2) The general costs of websites

We already mentioned that the prices of websites vary. But, what does that mean exactly?

  • The basic website can cost anywhere from $50/month (if you’re creating and maintaining it yourself) to $2000-$5000 (if you’re paying for a full service of a freelancer or an agency).
  • An advanced website requires a deeper pocket – prices start from $10,000 to $50,000. They’re usually equipped with tools you can use to update your site yourself.
  • The fully custom-made website is the option that satisfies all your needs with advanced functionality. The costs start from around 25,000 and might even cross $100,000.

Obviously, these prices do not include only a domain name and a hosting service. Those costs could also easily pile up for larger companies with constantly growing traffic. But the service of creating, customizing, and monitoring the site is what costs the most.

Depending on a business itself, sites vary in:

  • Functionality,
  • Need for additional software and apps,
  • Design, and more.

So, you learned that a cost of a high-quality, secure website is a combination of various services, beyond basic domain and hosting combination. In the next section, you’ll discover what lies behind often impressive figures spent on also often impressing websites.

3) The services included in website costs

Beyond a domain and your chosen host, these are the most common services you’ll need to invest in:

  1. Web design and/or design: the time, expertise and effort of a developer or a group of developers is the main element of this equation. Usually, these professionals negotiate an hourly rate with the site owner. In other scenarios, negotiating the price for an entire project is also possible.

    When it comes to hourly rates, they depend on professional skill set, as well as the desired quality of a project. Hourly costs range anywhere from $25 to $200 and more.
  2. Monitoring and development: in most cases, the same developers who were in charge of its creation are the ones who cover these services.
  3. Features and integrations: the complexity of maintenance depends on the last part of website cost equation – features and integrations. We warmly suggest that should plan the features ahead. Knowing exactly what you’ll need will enable you to create a cost estimate and/or better negotiate the rates.

List of main services

  1. Your website’s domain name
  2. Hosting services
  3. The initial coding, done by a developer or a group of developers (agency) – web design
  4. Development and maintenance of the site
  5. Integration of additional software and features (shopping cart for eCommerce sites, various plugins, etc.)

Conclusion

The situation is rather clear if you wish to create a website yourself. In that case, the costs will be minimal. But, unless you’re a highly skilled developer capable of developing the website alone, the help of above-mentioned services seems necessary.

Now listen – every investment we mentioned might be wasted if your site is not hosted by a reliable web hosting service. When creating a website for your business, choose one of these hosting solutions, and sleep calmly knowing your site is in safe hands.

Set the basics and start building!

CanSpace Team

CanSpace Solutions is Canada's leading domain name registrar and web hosting provider. Keep an eye on our blog for expert information on domain names, websites, and running a business online.