Do you want to create a new website, but are afraid of being hacked? Are you mainly concerned with your business, you want a good quality, functional website, but you don’t know how much it should cost to make one?
The answer is that it depends. But let’s take a deeper look at it.
What makes a site worthwhile
?When you pay for web site development, you typically pay for three things:
- expertise
- technical solutions
- adjustments
And since all three of these things are rather difficult to determine, I recommend approaching the problem in reverse.
How much can I afford to spend on web development?
For presentational websites, the number and value of the contacts the website “generates” (called leads) makes the return. At least that’s the way to think about it at the beginning for simplicity.
number of conversions * conversion value = return on investment in the site
It’s different for e shops, of course, but more on that some other time.
I’m a florist and 150 people find my website a month. 5 of them order floral arrangements for their party. I make a net profit of £5,000 on each arrangement. The calculation might look like this:
5 * 7500 (5000 net profit + contact value) = 37 500 CZK / month.
What’s the catch?
You could argue that this is a game of sheer guessing and as such, there’s not much point in dwelling on it.
I partially agree, but I still think it’s worth it.
Even if you estimate all the variables, it is a mental exercise worth doing. If nothing else, it will make you think of your site as an asset.
And even if you estimate the variables, you’ll probably come up with different numbers if you’re a baker, real estate agent, or luxury vacation seller.
An experienced creator can give you an educated opinion on whether your estimate is realistic (you need to take into account that every market is different and some conversions are much harder to get than others).
Three main options for creating your website
We can talk more about what web design should look like next time. Alternatively, you can check out how I work.When you want a website, you basically have three main options:
- Use a boxed solution (Mioweb, Webnode, Wix, partially also Webflow or Elementor)
- Create a custom website on a CMS platform (WordPress, Drupal, Joomla)
- Create a website on your own CMS platform or “completely customized”
Each web development solution has its advantages and disadvantages.
Let’s take a quick look at them below
Boxed Solutions
This is definitely the fastest and easiest way to create web pages. However, it’s always a quid pro quo. And if you want to read why you’ll never get a good custom website out of the box, check out this great article by Mark Cevelicek.But does this mean that a boxed solution is not suitable for you?
Certainly not, you just need the boxed solution to be what you are looking for.
How much does a website cost on a Boxed Solution?
Below you will find a comparison of each solution and the price is always annual per site.
Mioweb – 29,040 CZK (2420 CZK including VAT per month, according to Mioweb)
The price includes the cost of the domain (about 200 CZK per year) and a number of trainings, manuals and tutorials. Mioweb also seems suitable for selling infoproducts.
Extensive reviews of Mioweb can be found at Sharka Novotna or Vladimir Juroshka.
Webnode – 2988 CZK per year (249 CZK per month)
Webnode is probably the cheapest boxed solution. I don’t have any experience with it, however you can read its review again at Sharka Novotna or Vladimir Juroska.
Wix – 2952 CZK per year – or 5000 CZK if you want analytical tools
Once again, I don’t have personal experience with Wix, however, the reviews on Sharka Novotna or Vladimir Juroska should give you a good overview.
Are these all boxed solutions?
They aren’t. There are countless boxed solutions (we left out SolidPixels, SquareSpace, WebFlow and many others…), but I still wouldn’t be able to say much about them, and one is quite similar to the other.
Main advantages
- Ease of use (you can build the site yourself)
- Guaranteed administration (you shouldn’t get an error and the site will be unavailable, for example)
- Speed of site creation (if you bounce from a template, it is possible to create a site in a few days)
Main disadvantages
- Limited customization options
- (In my opinion) usually very poor SEO capabilities
- Less analytics capabilities (especially for tools not supporting Google Analytics)
Summary
If you need a website fast, don’t have a budget, or just want to test if something can work, a boxed solution may be right for you.
P.S. If you’d like to try building a website on WordPress, you can check out my free Elementor course.
WordPress
I can’t be objective here. I like WordPress because it’s reliable, open source, and it runs over 40% of websites.I’ll try to be as objective as possible, though, because of course WordPress also has its pitfalls.
How much does a website on WordPress cost?
Compared to boxed solutions, this is very hard to determine. If you want to dig deeper into the topic, again, you can check out the article Mark Čevelíček or explore the prices of WordPress creators from the Freelance or WP People catalogs.
Other professions are now entering into the price of the web, while you can often get by with templates on boxed solutions, you may need people like:
- graphics
- encoder
- UX designer
- SEO optimizer
However, even here we can start from templates and for price comparison we will more or less assume that.
If we exclude students and people who are starting out (and have extremely low prices), I think the range might be something like:
Simple website built using a builder (Elementor, Divi, Gutenberg)
5000 Kč – 25 000 Kč
Complete website built using builder (Elementor, Divi, Gutenberg)
15 000 Kč – 70 000 Kč
Simple customized website
15 000 Kč – 100 000 Kč
Complete customized website
150 000 Kč – 1 000 000 Kč
Prices are really approximate and you can get the best idea by contacting the creators directly for a price estimate.
Main Benefits
- Almost absolute customizability
- Perfect optimization options
- User-friendly controls (when the site is done right)
Main disadvantages
- Need to provide post-launch care (most developers offer this service)
- Previously bad reputation of WordPress sites, mainly due to unqualified creators
- Relative complexity if you wanted to build a site yourself
Summary
The WordPress way is, in my opinion, suitable for most clients who don’t want to create a website themselves. They want to focus on their primary business and also don’t want a customized site or need a complex web solution.
However, WordPress is a powerful tool, but unfortunately only in the right hands. That’s why I highly recommend that you take the time and care in choosing a vendor.
It’s worth it.
Custom Web Development (Custom CMS)
This option is especially suitable if you need a complex, functional and highly specific web application.
So if you want a site such as Airbnb, Aukro or a complex custom intranet, this option will be for you. .
How much does a customized website cost?
Honestly, I have no idea. But my educated guess is anything from 200,000 to tens of millions of crowns.
Main Benefits
- Optimized infrastructure for your needs
- When a project succeeds, it can generate huge profits (if it’s set up to do so)
- The ability to use the latest technology
Main disadvantages
- development complexity, cost
- (more or less) being tied to a single vendor
- time-consuming
Summary
If you have complex requirements, or want a site that is also “a bit of an app”, you have no choice but to go into custom development.
Who will create my website? or how to build a website
Web site providers can be divided into three main groups:
Creating Websites on your own
Or you have time and no capital. Creating a solid self-help site is definitely possible.
In this case, the best thing to do is to go the “boxed solutions” route, possibly WordPress with some web builder.
Collaboration with freelancer
A freelancer can fill the role of an agency, as well as just be there for you.
The quality of freelancers varies drastically in my experience and I recommend taking the time to choose, know that it will pay off.
Collaboration with the agency
If there’s one thing that’s even more different than the quality of freelancers, it’s the quality of agencies.
Again, pay close attention to your selection.
How much does it cost to create a website from each provider?
In general, I guess you could say that an agency is more expensive than a freelancer (although there are plenty of exceptions). However, the important thing is to think about price in the context of utility.
What do I mean by that?
I wouldn’t compare absolute prices because you don’t get the same thing.
Comparing website prices is like comparing house prices from solid contractors, it’s always a quid pro quo.
You can have a website from a young upstart who will charge £3500 for it (nothing against them, not long ago I fell into this group myself).
You’re happy with how much “you saved”, and you see that the site even brings in some leads, which you’re excited about!
But there is a dog buried in the word “some”.
Is it better to have a £3500 website that brings in 10 clients a month, or a £100,000 website that brings in 20 clients a month?
The answer is that it always depends on the value of the lead… So always take the time to research the market and make sure there is a good chance that the vendor in question will be able to maximize your site’s potential.
Otherwise, it would be a shame
General advice for choosing a vendor, then, I describe in a mega article on website creation.
Final Summary
It’s impossible to simply say what the price of a good website is. But I hope this article has helped you think about this issue.
And perhaps added some points to rely on when choosing a contractor.
Thank you for reading this far. If you found anything in the article interesting or have any questions, please feel free to leave me a comment.
And I’m curious too!
What is your experience with the average cost of a website?
