Long story short, small business owners find it hard to create a well-designed website for their business. Reasons are unawareness of the cost, tight budget, time management, lack of expertise, etc. And the consequence is a downfall in the business due to the lack of a proper website. Are you a small business owner who thinks about giving up? We can feel your pain and have rolled up our sleeves to help you. Don’t worry. Creating a small business website is not necessarily crazy expensive. This white paper is ready to tell you the average website design cost for small businesses.
Things needed for designing a website for a small business
Any website requires some basic components to be researched and purchased. These essential components determine the entire cost of a website building. Before investing online, you should know the basic cost factors of small business website design.
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Domain name
A domain name represents a business name or displays the business’s online address. Hence, the name should match the brand’s or company’s name. Selecting a good domain name is the first step to making the site visible online.
Generally, domain names cost less than $1 to the highest $15 per year at GoDaddy, HostGator, and Dreamhost. Desirable domain names are more expensive than ordinary ones.
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Website hosting
A website hosting makes the website available on the internet 24/7. It works as a power company for the site. Website hosting pricing plans vary according to their types and services ($20 to $300 per year).
Shared hosting is the cheapest among all the types. It allows the site to share a server with limited server resources. VPS hosting offers more resources and costs higher compared to shared hosting. And managed hosting is the most expensive, works for larger businesses with high traffic.
For a small business website, shared hosting is the best option. It will be budget-friendly and support the small site better. You may buy VPS hosting if your site demands a little extra.
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SSL certificate
SSL or Secure Sockets Layer certificate will safeguard your site, its visitors, and the overall business from hackers. As a result, a user will purchase your product unworriedly by sharing his details.
Though this protection is optional, it is essential to motivate visitors to buy from you. Most businesses consider SSL essential to ensure constant leads and profit.
An SSL certificate can be bought with or without hosting. You may buy hosting, which includes free SSL certificates. You have to pay around $10 to $200 per month to buy an SSL certificate.
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Design
The design of a small business website widely varies according to the company’s preference. Likewise, the design cost also changes. A simple and straightforward design will cost less compared to a high-end, complex layout.
The more complex the design is, the more it requires design time and cost. On average, website design cost ranges from $1,500 to $15,000.
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Number of web pages
The number of web pages makes a significant difference in the design cost. Compared to other business websites, small business websites, on average, have 1 to 50 pages. The cost of designing and building this amount of web pages ranges from $1,000 to $5,000.
Some agencies offer price tiers for specific page number categories (like $1,000 for 1-10 pages). You have to see in which category your site’s page numbers belong before spending bucks.
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Functionality features
Adding functionality features to the site will be a good practice to attract potential business. You should employ features like user-profiles and online payments to earn more clients as a small business owner. Customizing such additional features will cost you around $2,000 to $25,000.
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CMS
A CMS or Content Management System is software to edit and update the website when necessary easily. If the preferred CMS needs customization, the cost will increase. In general, CMSs cost between $2,000 to $25,000.
Average Cost of Website Design for Small Businesses
The average cost of website design for small businesses widely varies. Designing a DIY website will cost $1,000 maximum. In contrast, this cost will increase many times higher when you approach professional help.
A professional website design for small businesses can cost between $5,000 to $15,000. This range can exceed if the site requires complexity. Since the site is for a small business, spending limitlessly is unnecessary.
The following sections depict the average site design cost by different web developers. In addition, a website design cost calculator is there to understand the difference better.
By in-house DIY web developers
Building a website by yourself or with in-house teammates may not be easy as it sounds. Basic knowledge of coding and technology is required to do so. Building a site with any CMS will be the most affordable option if you know the basics.
WordPress is the best for those who know to code and who doesn’t. Listed below are essentials with their minimum cost.
- Domain name – registering a brand-new domain name will take around $10 to $12 per year. You may get a name in less than this. NameCheap is considered one of the best sources for buying unique domain names.
- Web hosting – Hosting companies like HostGator or BlueHost provide shared hosting at $100 per year. If you want VPS hosting, you have to pay a little more.
- SSL certificate – No matter if your site has selling points or not, you must make it well-secured with an SSL certificate. An HTTPS protocol costing $10 to $20 will be good for a small business website. Some hosting providers offer a free HTTPS protocol to encourage the buyer to buy their subscriptions.
- Website theme – Themes are not always paid. You will get some free of cost. However, buying a premium website theme for a small business site is recommended. A quality theme would cost around $100 to $150 and provide a great layout with solid coding.
- Plugin – Like themes, plugins are also available as free and paid. Again, like paid themes, paid plugins to work more than free ones. Premium plugins cost between $100 to $200.
- Photos – Photos are highly needed to dress up a website. If you are already a photo expert, then there is nothing to worry about. However, you should purchase high-quality, royalty-free images from trusted sources if you are not. Buying images will add a cost of $50 to $200. Some websites have libraries of free, high-quality images, though. Therefore, think wisely before choosing photos.
Total estimated cost of DIY website design for small business
Components
Cost (minimum)
Domain registration
$10
Web hosting
$100
SSL certificate
$10
Website theme
$100
Website plugin
$100
Photos
$50
Total cost
$370
By professional web developers
Hiring a professional web developer to build a site is the best choice when you are a busybody. Along with the essentials, a professional will charge depending on the site size and required settings.
For instance, if the design cost is $8,000, it will include the cost of primary materials, and the rest will be the designer’s charge for his work. Read these paragraphs to get an idea of professional website design costs.
- Web page numbers – Professional web developers sometimes offer website packages for specific numbers of web pages. Their pricing tiers may or may not fit your budget. Hence, check how many web pages you need and how they charge averagely for each page.
Please find the best deal by comparing your budget and their charges. A good rule of thumb is to pay $80 to $100 for each page. For instance, if you need 15 web pages, you have to pay $1,200 to $1,500.
- Theme customization – Theme customization and coding can make your site function as you want. Customizing a purchased theme will cost $1,000 to $2,000. More customization will add more cost to the site development.
- Logo customization – Though it is optional, a customized logo will add credibility to the site. For a small business website, the logo customization will cost $500 to $1,000.
- Images and graphics – Customized images and graphics give a sophisticated look to the site. Hiring a professional graphics design specialist for this purpose will add $2,000 to $4,000 to the cost.
- Additional features – You can add extra features to your site to enhance its functionality. Your web developer needs time to work on the image carousel, membership portal, user profile, calculator, and payment getaways.
Finally, design revisions are needed to ensure all the features are working as intended. $2,500 to $5,000 is the average cost of such workloads. The cost will increase if the number of features increases.
The total estimated cost of professional website design for small business
Components
Cost (minimum)
Primary materials
$300
Web page numbers
$1,200 ($80 per page for a 15-pages site)
Theme customization
$1,000
Logo customization
$500
Images and graphics
$2,000
Additional features
$2,500
Total cost
$7,500
The Bottom Line
Now that you know, the average building cost of a small website doesn’t stop after creating one. The newly-built site will need maintenance. To know how much a website costs per month to maintain, learn what it requires per month.
If you hire a professional on a monthly basis for the maintenance, you have to pay him a specific amount. If the site is a DIY creation, check if the components were purchased on a monthly or yearly subscription. If monthly, renew them every month.
