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Digitalization is spreading at a rocket speed. Businesses that follow this transition carry the day. The same holds true for websites. Today, it isn’t easy to sustain your business without a website. Do you agree?
There is an important question when it comes to developing a website–How much does it cost to build a website.
However, there is no straightforward answer because it depends on many things, including your requirements. But there can be some estimations to tell what it is likely to cost you when creating a website. Key factors affecting the cost of website development include:
- Complexity
- Number of features and functionalities
- Complexity of database
- Number of pages and customization
- Third-party integrations
- Level and size of the web development team
A basic website with limited functionalities can cost $10,000 to $30,000, an advanced one can cost $50,000 to $100,000, and a more complex one with complicated features can cost $150,000 or more.
This blog post will shed light on various questions related to the cost of building a website. Keep reading for a thorough analysis.
Why Do You Need a Website After All?
It is good if your business is going well without a website, but will it go on the same for a long time? You can guess it Will not if you want a successful business.
Can you afford to lose your customers to your competitors? Yes, you read correct! As every business is opting for website development, it is very likely that your competitors will have websites. If so, chances are that you will lose customers to them because 46% of consumers don’t trust a business without a website.
So, if someone comes to know about your business, it is likely that they will search for you online. And this is what can push them to competitors if they don’t find you online.
Do you aspire to grow bigger and reach new market dimensions? A website provides you more business opportunities with reach to new markets and customers.
So, not having a website is detrimental not only to your business revenue but also to your existence.
How Can You Determine Your Cost to Build a Website?
As mentioned above, determining the actual cost of developing a website can be difficult because multiple factors affect it. Further, as the nature of every business is different, so do their website needs. Can you think that a small business website’s requirements differ from that of a large-scale business?
So, before calculating the cost of developing your website, you need to look at the various factors that will influence the prices. The following are the key considerations for this:
- Website type
- Type of team
- Location of developer
Let’s start examining each of these factors one at a time.
How Does the Type Influence Website Development Cost?
One of the most important factors in determining the cost is the type of website you want to build. This is also what is your starting point in creating a website. So, in order to get an idea of the website development cost, it is crucial to know about your business niche.
The cost of developing an eCommerce website is much higher than a corporate website. This is because the features added on a corporate website aren’t sufficient for an eCommerce website. Further, more features and customization on your website will attract additional charges on the overall development cost.
Similarly, if you want to build a static website, it will cost you less than developing a dynamic website.
Here are the popular website types and corresponding estimated costs.
| Website Type | Estimated Cost |
| Corporate Website | $6,500 or more |
| Web Portal | $45,000 or more |
| eCommerce Website | $40,000 or more |
| Marketplace Website | $50,000 or more |
| Landing Page | $3,000 or more |
Note: The above costs can increase based on requirements, customization, features, complexity, and other reasons.
The Impact of Development Team on Website Development Cost
Certainly, the cost of developing a website comes down to how you want to tackle your website development project. Do you want to outsource the whole project or hire a few developers to integrate into your team for the development work? There are different approaches to building a website that determines the cost.
Build an in-house team
You can hire some developers for your company and build an in-house team to work on your project. But this is not the best way to create a website because you have to bear high costs for maintaining a team you may not always need.
Building an in-house team could be more costly for developing a website as you have to spend on staff salaries, rent, equipment, and other resources. These expenses can be as high as $500,000 or more in a year.
Hire developers or a web development company
Do you already have an in-house team that isn’t enough for your website development project? You can extend the team by hiring dedicated web developers.
You can hire offshore web developers starting at $20/hour.
The developer can work as per your command and provide the requisite services. Unlike an in-house team, you don’t have to pay for insurance, salaries, rent, or bear other expenses.
Web development companies provide different hiring models, and popular ones are mentioned below:
- Dedicated Team Hiring
With this engagement model, you are allowed to hire a dedicated team on an hourly/monthly/yearly basis.
- Fixed Cost Hiring
Request a free quote, and the development partner will provide details on the cost and time based on your requirements.
Location Of the Developer Affects the Cost of Website Development
It doesn’t matter what type of business you own; what really matters is a strong online presence for a competitive edge in this digital age.
Therefore, selecting the right web development partner is crucial to building the perfect website for your business.
However, what’s more important is the service provider’s location when it comes to hiring a website development partner. The location also determines the cost of developing a website as the development rates differ in local and offshore hiring.
Local vs. Offshore: Which One Costs You More?
Let’s see how the different locations impact your website development cost.
Local Hiring
Do you want to choose a developer in a nearby location? Local hiring is about selecting a web development company in your home country or nearby. For instance, if you reside in the United States, you can find local developers to accomplish your project.
However, local hirings have many disadvantages, like high development costs and time spent on finding the right service provider.
Hiring developers in your home country can be very costly, especially if you come from the USA or Europe. The cost of developing a website is relatively high there. Further, with tight competition among developers and high demand, hiring the right web developers for your project is challenging.
Offshore Hiring
Do you want a sharp reduction in your web development cost? Offshore hiring is the preferable way of developing a website at lower rates than your home country.
Outsourcing is considered the best option for choosing a web development service that provides hefty savings. This is because you can outsource your project to a service provider located in a region where web development is much cheaper.
They charge much lower than developers in the USA.
For instance, you can hire web developer in India to get the best deal for developing your website. Hiring developers in India can help you save up to 70% of the development costs. And, that’s really a huge saving!
The following table shows web development rates for developers in different regions:
| Region | Hourly Rates |
| Europe | $70-$100 |
| USA | $100-$150 |
| India | $20-$50 |
| Australia | $80-$120 |
Note: These numbers are just estimates and differ from one project to another.
As you can see, the USA has the highest developer rates, so the web development cost will be huge there. Contrarily, India has the lowest rates of hiring developers, so you can reduce the cost of developing your website significantly.
You Should Consider Outsourcing Your Project For Cost Benefits
Outsourcing is one of the most popular ways of web development. Have you a big project that your team can’t handle? Find a reliable website development company and hand over all the responsibilities to them.
Under this approach, the company takes care of everything from selecting the right technology to developing and deploying the website. There is a complete guide on how to outsource web development in 2022 to find the best way to outsource your project.
This approach provides many advantages, as mentioned below.
- Cost-effective
- Technical expertise
- Access to global talent
- Seamless communication
- Single channel for all delivery
How Does the Type of Development Influence the Cost of Building a Website?
There are multiple ways to build a website; you can use a CMS like WordPress, choose a custom tech stack, or leave it completely on the service provider. The type of development for creating your website can impact the cost, and it might be different in various scenarios.
Here is a rundown of the website development cost based on your selected development type.
Template-based website
It is convenient to build a website using content management systems like WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, Magento, etc., as they offer prebuilt functionalities for this purpose. These are cost-effective website builders that provide extensive options for creating websites.
For a template-based website, you can choose to work on any of these platforms and use a prebuilt or off-the-shelf theme.
Some of these platforms are open source and eliminate the cost of licensing.
Conversely, many of these platforms also require licenses that add to the overall development costs. For instance, Shopify requires a subscription to build an eCommerce website, while WordPress is available free of cost.
WordPress
WordPress website development cost includes:
| Cost Factor | Estimation | Reason |
| WordPress (Open Source) | $0 | No license fees, it’s free |
| WordPress (Premium) | Starting $15/month | Small to large businesses |
| WordPress VIP | Starting $2,000/month | Enterprise solution |
Drupal and PrestaShop
Cost for using Drupal or PrestaShop for website development.
| Cost Factor | Estimation | Reason |
| Drupal | Both platforms are free | The cost is derived from other factors like hosting, development, SSL, etc. |
| PrestaShop |
Magento
Cost to build a Magento eCommerce website.
| Cost Factor | Estimation |
| Magento Community Edition | $0 (No license fees, it’s free) |
| Magento Enterprise | $22,000 or more |
| Adobe Commerce Cloud | Starting $40,000 |
Shopify
Shopify eCommerce website development cost.
| Cost Factor | Estimation |
| Basic Shopify | $29/month |
| Shopify | $79/month |
| Shopify Advanced | $299/month |
| Shopify Plus | Starting at $2,000/month |
Above, we have discussed various platforms and their costs to build a website. However, this cost of website development may vary based on themes and plugins used.
Custom Web Development
Custom web development is an apt choice for large-scale businesses, marketplaces, eCommerce stores, and others as it offers excellent customization. Usually, websites for large businesses require more features and integrations that increase the cost of developing a website.
The cost of the website in case of custom web development can start from $25,000, which can go to $200,000 or more depending on your requirements, complexity, development technology, cooperation with the development team, etc.
Some popular technologies used for custom web development include:
- PHP
- Laravel
- CodeIgniter
- CakePHP
- Python
- MEAN Stack
- MERN Stack
Website Development Cost By Website Parts
A website is built of two main pieces, i.e., the front-end and back-end. These are the building blocks of a website. Website development has various phases that include creating these building blocks.
Thus, there is a phase for front-end development and another for backend development besides ideation and prototyping.
Understanding these phases and associated costs is the best way to gauge the average cost of building a website.
Let’s take a look at the different factors in detail.
Front-end Development
The front-end is the part of a website that is visible to users and allows user interactions. It forms the UI of a website that is developed using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. The factors that influence the cost in this phase include responsiveness and the complexity of animations.
To summarize, the average cost of front-end development could be between $1,000 to $12,500 or more, depending on the project’s needs and complexity.
Backend Development
It is the server side of a website that is not accessible to users. It stores and arranges data and does necessary processing for updating the front end. This part of a website is also responsible for the smooth functioning of the website.
This phase’s important cost-influencing factors include third-party integration, data processing tasks, complex queries, etc.
To summarize, the backend development cost could be between $4,000 to $12,500 or more, depending on project needs.
Key Takeaway: Website development includes many phases, and the time aspect for every stage depends on your project requirements and complexity, as said earlier, which further influences the average website development cost.
Hidden Factors That Affect the Cost of Building a Website?
You have gone through various essential factors affecting the cost of creating a website, starting with the type of website.
If you want high volume sales, the cost of an eCommerce website will be higher because more features and functionalities need to be built to gain a market edge.
Further, the technology you choose is also a factor in website development costs. For instance, using WordPress can be free, but there are many hidden costs for hosting, domain, etc. Similarly, Shopify comes with various plans, and there are no hidden costs.
The following are some hidden factors that increase your cost of website development.
| Expense Factor | Explanation | Price |
| Web pages (1-250) | A website has multiple web pages. The more number of pages it has the more will be the website development costs. | $1,000-$10,000 |
| Theme | If you need to develop a custom theme it will add to your cost of website development | $2,000-$15,000 |
| Domain name | A unique name of your website that appears in the address bar in a web browser. | $5-$15/year Customized domains: $200-$300 |
| Website hosting | It is the server from where your website is accessible on the web | $75-$200/year |
| SSL certificate | SSL is essential to make your website appears safe | $10-$1000 monthly |
Verdict on the Cost of Website Development
As mentioned previously, providing an exact figure of the cost of a website isn’t easy without adequately understanding your needs and prerequisites. You can get a rough idea of the cost of developing your website.
You must consider website type, size, features, technology stack, web pages, and many other things to decide the cost. A review of various cost-affecting factors in your context can help get a rough estimation. However, to simplify your task, we are providing a few estimates.
| Type of website | Estimated cost |
| Small business website (8-16 pages) | $2000-$9000 |
| Large business website (25-75 pages) | $10000-$75000 |
How Can CSSChopper Help You?
You require professional guidance while creating your website to get the best one for your business. Our team can assess your requirements and build an excellent website based on your unique business requirements. We develop robust websites to help you establish a solid online presence.
The following points showcase our excellence.
Create various websites: We build different types of websites, including static, dynamic, CMS-based, eCommerce websites, and web portals.
Top-notch technology: Our web developers are well-versed in leading technologies, including PHP, Ruby on Rails, Magento, WordPress, Drupal, PrestaShop, Python, and more.
Seasoned developers: We have highly experienced web developers with proven expertise in the latest web development technologies.
You can rely on us to develop your business website with splendid features. Request a free quote to discuss the project and cost estimates.
Frequently Asked Questions
A basic small business website can cost around $2,000 to $9000 or more. The cost of developing a website for a small business may vary depending on the functionalities, complexity, the number of web pages, customization, and other factors.
Your budget doesn’t hold you back from creating a website, but it does impact your web development options. With a tight budget, for instance, you can develop your website using a website builder instead of choosing custom web development. To get an estimated budget, you need to evaluate different cost-affecting factors.
On average, a website costs around $12,000 to $150,000. Moreover, the cost of website development further depends on website type (corporate, web portal, eCommerce, or any other website), complexity level, requirements of features, and many more factors. Apart from this, website maintenance also plays a key role in website cost.
Website maintenance can cost from $400 to $60,000. Website maintenance includes various tasks such as updating the CMS, security patch updates, fixing bugs, optimizing the website’s speed, and more. The cost of maintaining a website may vary based on the work that has to be done.
The cost of hiring a website developer depends on experience, skills, and other traits. The hiring rates start at $20/hour, and you can hire developers per your requirement. You can build a team by hiring developers or extend the team by hiring resources if you already have a team.
Factors like website development, maintenance, front-end and backend development, database integration, third-party integration, etc., influence the cost of developing a website. Also, whether you want to use a website builder or create a custom website also impacts the cost of developing a website. Besides this, factors in setting up a website, like SSL, domain name, hosting, etc., also contribute to the cost of website development.
It could take from a few weeks to a year in developing a website depending on your requirements, complexity, requirements, and other factors. For instance, a small business website will take fewer time than a large corporate website.
