How Much Does It Take to Create a Website
How Much Does It Cost to Make a Website in 2021? [The Fullest Estimate]
It can be tricky to estimate website development costs. There are too many factors influencing the final price. Pages, features, tech stack, design. Without knowing those details it's impossible to define an exact cost to build a website.
For example, our business analysts ask dozens of questions just to find out how much time an authorization can take. And the scope may range from 10 to 100 hours depending on those answers.
Still, it's possible to figure out the average cost to build a website. This estimate can't be very accurate but at least will inform you about approximate prices.
So, how much does a website creation cost? Let's find it out.
Average Cost to Build a Website
I've prepared a breakdown showing phases that make up a website development price. In a nutshell, custom website development costs can start at $8,750 and go up to $38,000 and over.
Note: The prices below are based on a $50/h rate. It's an average software development rate for our region (Ukraine).
UI/UX Design
Tools that can be used: Sketch, InVision, Zepplin, Adobe Creative Cloud
You'll barely find a poorly designed yet successful product. Most users are visuals. Good design is what captures their attention and calls to action. Bad design is what makes them leave and never come back.
In other words, UI/UX design services are as essential as engineering. That means expenses on design are one of the key points answering how much it costs to build a website.
There are three main stages defining custom website design cost:
- Research. Defining the target audience, their preferences, and analyzing competitors.
- Wireframe. Creating wireframes to show a schematic placement of elements and agree it with a client.
- Prototype. Crafting the final user interface to show how the app will look like on devices.
The breakdown above allows to reach the best efficiency and settle down every project detail.
So, what is the average cost to build a website's design? It can vary from $750 to $4,000 and over.
Again, the time and cost to create UI/UX design depend on your requirements. They are number of pages, animation complexity, and so on.
UI design concept by Cleveroad (Source: Dribbble)
Front-End Development
Some technologies that can be used: HTML, CSS, Bootstrap, JavaScript, TypeScript, SASS, LESS, Angular, React
Imagine a registration page with three standard fields: name, login, password. You can see shades they throw, shapes of the input fields, and a red Register button below. You click that red button and see it's animation. That's the front end.
The front end is everything your visitors can see and interact with on the website. It typically starts once the UI/UX design is ready. So what you saw on prototypes before, developers would turn into a working product running on any browser.
QA engineers are starting to participate in the project from this stage and continue working on it till release.
The main factors that influence website creation cost on this stage are:
- Website responsiveness or adaptiveness
- Complexity of animations (yes, again)
Front-end development costs can vary from $1,000 to $12,500 and over.
Back-End Development
Some technologies that can be used: Node.js, Express.js, Nest.js, .NET
Let's get back to that registration example. Without the back end, nothing would ever happen after you click the red Register button. The back end is what makes input data travel to the server and register you as a new user.
If something is wrong, it returns an error saying you've already been registered or another message. In other words, the page alone is just a bunch of code visualized by browsers. It can't fulfill it's end purpose — register users.
Back end is at the heart of every website powering all it's features. That means the back-end development makes up a considerable part of the website creation cost.
The main factors influencing total development time and the average website cost are:
- Integration with third-party services
- Non-standard data processing (for example audio)
- Complex queries
- etc.
Back-end development costs can vary from $4,000 to $12,500 and over.
Back-end explained on a picture
Admin Panel Development
Content management system (aka admin panel) is a solution that allows to create, manage, and edit website content. So if you want to change a word in a paragraph somewhere on the website, you won't need to ask developers to do that.
Custom admin panel concept for hospitality business by Cleveroad (Source: Dribbble)
There are a plethora of ready-made CMS engines like Shopify, WordPress, Drupal, and others. They are designed to cut on development hours and reduce the cost to build a website.
But as any out-of-the-box solutions, they can be limited in functionality and security. The latter is because malicious software is generally written to target popular systems rather than custom-built ones.
Expenses on custom CMS development can vary from $3,000 to $9,000 and over.
Final Development Cost of All Stages
Summing up the development time and cost of every stage described, you'll get an approximate website development price.
| Stage | Time | Min price | Max price |
|---|---|---|---|
| UI/UX design | 15-80h | $750 | $4,000 |
| Front end | 20-250h | $1,000 | $12,500 |
| Back end | 80-250h | $4,000 | $12,500 |
| Admin panel | 60-180h | $3,000 | $9,000 |
| Total | 175-760h | $8,750 | $38,000 |
The final website development cost also depends a lot on the region where you outsource web development or form an in-house team.
Average web development rates by regions
Accordingly, you can calculate the average website development cost in those regions simply multiplying time range from the table above by rates from the picture.
Note that those numbers may differ from project to project. It's better to contact a Business Analyst and get a custom estimate.
The Cost to Create a Website (By Types)
Websites are created for different reasons: from hosting personal blogs and portfolios to maintaining complex enterprise solutions. Accordingly, development time depends on their complexity that influences web development costs.
Since Cleveroad offers web development services to clients, I've singled out several frequently requested types of websites.
Also, I've estimated how much money it's required to build a website of each type (approximately).
The Cost to Create a Website for a Business
As a rule, this type of website is informational. It may focus on brand promotion, increasing the loyalty of customers, and so on. Again, the cost of making a website like this depends on it's complexity.
In our experience, customers who want to learn business website development cost usually request the following pages:
- About company
- Services
- Contacts
- Blog / Press page
- Testimonials
Every web project is unique and may have a structure different from that. Those pages are kind of a basis for such websites.
So the cost of creating a website for a small business is typically formed based on the number of pages. But it also depends on features you'd like to fill them with.
Among other frequently requested features for business websites are:
- SSL certificate
- Contact back form
- Integration with live chats (Intercom, Freshchat, Chat.io)
- On-site search
- Mobile-ready design
- Admin panel
Things get more complicated with business website costs for mid-sized businesses and enterprises. It's hard to estimate even average cost to build a website for them. They often have specific requirements for security, features, and pages which is hard to single out.
So, how much does a website cost to build? Business website development prices can vary from $9,500 and $13,000+ depending of the region of software outsourcing (Europe, the USA, etc.).
E-сommerce Website Cost
E-commerce is a rough industry. It can be pretty hard to define the average cost to develop a website for this field. There can be hundreds of thousands of pages (Amazon has millions) and complicated functionality.
E-commerce website design concept by Cleveroad (Source: Dribbble)
Let's first take a look at some of the frequently requested pages:
- Main page
- Shopping cart
- Favorites
- Check out
- Blog
- Category pages
- Product pages
And the features:
- Integration with payment systems like Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal, etc.
- Personalized push notifications
- Recently viewed products
- Leave reviews and rate products
- Search
- Admin panel
Note: Features and pages may both vary depending on a project. So does the final price.
Large e-commerce websites have to be well-architected to sustain high loads and rank well on search engines. These and many other peculiarities make e-commerce a field demanding considerable investments. Accordingly, this affects the average cost of a custom website.
As for technology stack, it can also differ significantly from project to project depending on it's complexity and objectives. The best way to define it is to consult with a specialist.
So, how much does it cost to develop a website for e-commerce? Check the file below.
E-commerce website development price can vary between $17,500 and $37,500.
Landing Page Cost
There are two definitions for a landing page in terms of web development:
- It's a single-page website intended to promote or sell something.
- It's a separate page on existing multi-page website created to promote or sell something.
Landing page design concept by Cleveroad (Source: Dribbble)
Usually, these pages aren't overloaded with content. It's needed to keep users focused and call to certain actions: from purchasing something to downloading a file. Landing pages are often created to promote apps.
Despite this page can be really long, the average cost to build a website of this type is lower compared to multi-page ones.
The time can vary depending on the animation complexity the same as the website creation cost.
Landing page development price can vary between $1,000 and $2,500.
Final Cost by Types
Below, I'm attaching a table showing how much time and money website development of every kind can take.
| Website | Time | Cost (min) | Cost (max) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Business website | 190-260h | $9,500 | $13,000 |
| E-commerce | 350-750h | $17,500 | $37,500 |
| Landing page | 20-50h | $1,000 | $2,500 |
Additional Website Creation Costs
There are several additional website expenses you'll definitely face.
Domain Name
The website's domain name is a unique address. You can see in the address bar of your browser. To access a specific website, each of them has it's own address called domain name. You can register it on dedicated services.
The domain name should definitely be included in the cost of a website.
Price: $5 to $15 yearly.
Several time-tested domain name registrars:
- GoDaddy
- Bluehost
- Interserver
- Hostinger
Hosting
In simple terms, hosting is a service that keeps your website accessible on the internet 24/7/365. Hosting providers impact the loading time of your website.
So don't forget to include hosting expenses to website monthly cost.
Price: $75 to $200 yearly.
Several trusted hosting providers:
- Inmotion
- Hostgator
- Ionos
- GoDaddy
Maintenance
Just like any mechanism the code has to be maintained. The website maintenance includes making sure everything functions just fine and users don't face any problems and bugs.
Price: The average cost to maintain a website can range from $500 to $12,000 yearly.
Website Marketing Expenses
If nobody knows about your product — it doesn't exist.
That's why I thought it would be a good idea to include marketing expenses here in addition to professional website development costs.
Pay-Per-Click Advertising (PPC)
Pay-Per-Click advertising is one of the ways to tell the audience about your product and convert visitors into buyers. Google Network is the most popular and powerful advertising network.
The company has developed a feature-rich and unbelievably flexible tool to manage your campaigns — Google AdWords. It's a good fit for both PPC professionals and those who want to set and manage a campaign on their own.
A significant disadvantage of pay-per-click advertising is that prices depend on your industry. As a result, many companies spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to achieve visible results paying up to $50 per one click.
Price: Depends on how demanded keywords are.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
SEO is intended to optimize your website for search engines like Google. With the help of SEO, your customers will be able to find your website using related keywords like: 'buy a car', 'rent a flat', 'best restaurants'.
The higher your website is ranking in Search Engine Result Pages (SERP), the better your optimization is.
The cost of SEO depends on the amount of work you want to be done.
Price: From $300 to $1,500 monthly on average.
Copywriting
The more pages your website has, the more content it should have. I suppose all of you saw blog posts and engaging texts on websites of companies.
Professional writers should create great articles or copies and optimize them with keywords that are relevant to your business. Quality content contributes to getting more quality traffic and generating leads.
Price: From $50 to $500 per article on average.
Social Media Marketing is focused on promotion on social networks. It's a great method for both small companies and enterprises.
Price: From $400 to $20,000 on average.
How Much Does It Cost to Build a Website?
So how much does it cost to create a website? The price can range between $2,500 and $38,000+. The exact budget can be estimated only when all the requirements are clear. In other words, you should have several meetings with a website development company to find out the exact price.
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Frequently Asked Questions
The cost of a custom website in 2021 may vary between $2,500 and $38,000 and over. Everything depends on your requirements (neat landing page or large e-commerce project) and hourly rates of web developers. The latter varies drastically depending on the region where you hire them.
It may take from 50 to 260+ hours to design and develop a basic website.
It heavily depends on features you'd like to implement and your requirements. The approximate cost to build a website for a small business is $9,500-$13,000 and up.
Depending on complexity, the development of an e-commerce website may cost you somewhere between $17,500-$95,000 and up.
Neat and animation-rich landing pages may cost $2,500 to $5,000 and up.
It depends on the region you're considering. In Eastern Europe (Ukraine) you'll pay $35-$50 per hour of development, $65-$90 is Western Europe, $75-$150 in North America, $85-$130 in Australia.
The cost may vary between $2,500 and $95,000. Everything depends on your requirements (neat landing page or large e-commerce project) and hourly rates of web developers. The latter varies drastically depending on the region where you hire them.
The cost to build a professional website may vary between $2,500 and $95,000. Everything depends on two factors: your requirements (e.g. neat landing page or complex e-commerce project) and hourly rates of developers. The latter varies drastically depending on the region where you hire them.
Custom website development can take from 15 to 750 hours and over. Everything depends on it's complexity and number of pages.
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Hussain
23.11.2020 at 07:54
Lovely!! very helpful. Thanks Vitaly K and Evgeniy A.
Vitaly Kuprenko
03.12.2020 at 03:17
Hi Hussain! We're glad to help. :)
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soundos
03.01.2021 at 07:36
WD
Website Design
25.03.2021 at 11:29
I was looking for this information relating to such cost to build a website. You have really eased my work by posting this article, loved your writing skill as well. Please keep sharing more, would love to read more from you! I have also found this resource flightdigital.co.nz useful and its related to what you are mentioning.
How Much Does It Take to Create a Website
Source: https://www.cleveroad.com/blog/cost-to-build-a-website