Covid19 has made considerable changes to people’s lifestyles in general and business in particular. Today, everyone who ignored the company’s online presence is trying to break into the Internet space as quickly as possible because they do not want to lose customers and potential profit. In light of this, the question How much does it cost to make a website? becomes extremely popular. Even though it is rather general with no specific details, our specialists are ready to answer it in this post. So, if the website development costs are a hot topic for you, take a seat.
What Is Average Cost To Develop a Website?
To satisfy your curiosity right away, I will give you a price range of $10000 — $50000. It covers the concept of an average website: not the simplest one, consisting of a couple of pages and zero interactivity, and not the most complex one, such as e-commerce or video streaming platform.
An obvious question here will be: what is an average website? In this article, I mean the following examples under this concept:
- online shops
- corporate sites
- educational platforms
- information resources
- service companies websites: legal consulting, brokerage service, beauty industry, etc.
Please note, each website listed above can go far beyond the mentioned price range. Everything depends on the level of complexity and the number of features you want to fill your online resource with.
In the next sections of this article, we will see what a website consists of and what types of websites exist. Also, we will trace how the website price changes depending on the chosen components and development flow.
What Does Website Creation Cost Consist Of?
If we are not talking about the simplest website, such as, for example, a brochure site, then essential components of website development will be:
- UI/UX design
- backend
- frontend
- amin panel
Again, the price of each piece of work will vary depending on the size and complexity of your project. So in the next article sections, we’ll understand what these components are about and what price range you should count on.
UI/UX design
A modern website cannot exist without quality design. Therefore, the UI/UX part makes a significant portion of the website development costs. Note that quality design is not just a beautiful picture and the right colors. First of all, it is about usability, intuitiveness, and clarity of the product.
Considering a great variety of gadgets, one of the challenges for UI/UX designers is to adapt a website to different screen sizes. At this point, it is crucial to make the user feel equally comfortable with a tiny phone screen, an average tablet screen, and a large laptop screen.
UI/UX Design creation includes different work stages:
- product research
- personas development
- information architecture setup
- wireframes creation
- clickable prototypes development
Upon completion of these stages, the UI/UX designer proceeds to develop the visual part of the website, i.e., creating a user interface.
The main designer tools are Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Sketch, Figma, Webflow.
An approximate time needed to create a website’s design is 20–80 hours, and an approximate cost is $1000-$4000.
Backend
The backend is the brain of your website. It contains the program logic and is responsible for how the system responds to specific user actions. The backend is deployed on a server (local or cloud). When users interact with a site through a browser, the backend decides what action to take in response to a certain click or scroll.
There are many programming languages to write backend: Python, Java, .NET, Ruby, PHP, as well as a variety of systems to manage databases: MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Cassandra, Redis, Memcached.
At Softensy, we often choose Java for complex enterprise-level projects and Python for projects of mid-sized businesses. Nevertheless, we never apply a standardized approach during development. Instead, we organize a deep business analysis for each new client and select a tech stack depending on the project specifics.
Backend makes up the lion’s share of the cost to build a website. The time and price of this work are defined by third-party integrations, the type of data processed, and the website’s size as a whole.
Typically, backend development takes from 100 to 300 working hours, which is equivalent to $5000-$15000.
Frontend
The frontend is the visible part of the website that the user interacts with. This is what the browser can read, display, and run. Frontend includes everything that a user sees when opening a web page. Frontend developers work closely with programmers, UI/UX designers, and business analysts to create a nice-looking and user-friendly product.
The leading technologies used at this stage are HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Angular, React, Bootstrap, TypeScript, SASS, LESS.
React deserves special attention from this list. According to Statista, it is the most used web framework among developers worldwide. Its popularity can be explained by versatility, declarativity, and component approach. At Softensy, we have extensive experience with React and other frontend development technologies. Before the work begins, we study the project and choose the most suitable tools for its implementation.
In terms of development time, a high-quality frontend takes not less than a backend. Hence it follows that its price will be similar to the one indicated in the previous section, which is $5000-$15000.
Admin Panel
The admin panel or content management system (CMS) allows you to manage project settings, add new pages, delete old ones, change the design, update pictures and texts, etc. This functionality is crucial if your website is not supposed to be static and you plan to regularly update and modify its content. For example, this is especially important for eCommerce sites where it is necessary to display the relevant assortment of goods, stock availability, prices, descriptions, etc.
Of course, you can choose a ready-made CMS. There are plenty of them on the market now: WordPress, Shopify, Joomla, and others. However, in this case, the main drawback is that the available functionality may not be enough or, on the contrary, overwhelming for your site. Also, you should consider that most malicious programs target exactly out-of-the-box solutions. Therefore, by opting for ready CMS, you increase the chances of hacker attacks.
With a custom admin panel, you can develop functionality that 100% meets your business needs. Plus, you can save money in the long run as you don’t have to pay a considerable subscription fee every month. The price for admin panel development is about 30% of the total website development costs and can vary from $2000 to $8000.
Total Development Costs Of a Website
So, how much does it cost to develop a website? Let’s sum up the above figures in the table below.
Note: the price is calculated based on 50 dollars per hours rate in Ukraine.
How Does the Price Change According To Website Types?
If you google the website types, you will get a lot of different classifications. Most of them are based on the site’s purpose: a news site, blog, portfolio, social media, etc. However, such a classification does not affect the website costs because it does not tell much about site complexity. The main factor influencing the amount of work and final price are the number of pages and features to implement. Therefore, we’ll use the following website classification to see how the website development costs change:
- single-page site
- multiple-page site
- web application
The names of the first two types are pretty self-explanatory. A single-page site consists of one page, so it can be developed quite quickly without huge investments. A multi-page site is a broader concept. Such a site can include from three-five pages to three-five dozen pages. In this case, the development price will grow directly proportional to the number of website pages with no defined limits and boundaries.
A web application is a more complex concept. It’s generally believed that it differs from the website in the presence of interactive features. That is, the user can not only view the content but also perform some actions: fill in data, run analytics, build graphs, and so on. However, the distinction between a website and a web application is somewhat blurry, especially if we speak about the complex multi-page site. Next, I will provide examples of each of the three website types to clarify each concept better.
Single-Page Site Examples
- Landing page. However, a landing page may also exist as part of a multi-page site but not as a standalone solution.
- Brochure website. Again, it is not necessarily a one-page site always. Depending on your wants and needs, it can be implemented on several pages.
- Personal website. Such a site gives information about the specific person — usually, a self-employed specialist: author, doctor, barber, etc. Just like the previous two website types, it can be transformed into a multiple-page solution.
The price of a single-page website falls under the range of $1000 — $3000.
Multiple-Page Site Examples
- Blog
- News
- Portfolio
- Business website
- eCommerce website
A multiple-page site concept includes any website that has several pages and contains navigation. The eCommerce site is under the question in this list because it can be categorized as a web application. Still, small and medium online shops may fall short of the app category, so I will classify them as multi-page sites.
The price of an average multiple-page site may vary from $13000 to $42000.
Web Application Examples
- Social media app (Facebook, Twitter)
- eCommerce marketplace (Amazon, eBay)
- Education platform (Wikipedia, Coursera)
- Streaming platform (YouTube, Netflix)
The above are examples of large-scale projects that can take years to develop. After releasing MVP, developers start filling up the product with extra features, update existing ones, and improve app performance. The cost of such a project can reach several hundred thousand dollars and more.
Additional Costs To Make a Website
Website price is not limited to development costs only. There are many extra spendings necessary to launch a full-fledged product. Here are the most important ones:
- Domain name. You will need it to give your site a unique address by which users can find you on the Internet. Price — $5-$20 a year.
- Hosting. It is a disk space on which your site is located. It keeps your site available 24/7 and has a direct impact on site loading time. Price $80-$200 a year.
- Site maintenance. This includes maintaining a high level of site performance and ensuring all site functions are working properly. Price varies from $1000 to $15000 a year.
- Marketing costs. If you want your website to bring you money, you should constantly improve and promote it. For this, various marketing tools exist, such as pay-per-click advertising (PPC), search engine optimization (SEO), copywriting, etc. The total price starts from a few hundred dollars and may reach several thousand dollars a month.
How Much Does It Cost To Make a Website? Final Word
The cost of a website development depends on many factors. The main ones are the number of site pages and the complexity of features.
- The simplest single-page site can be developed in a few weeks with minimal investment — up to a few thousand dollars.
- The multiple-page website development can take several months. The price may reach tens of thousands of dollars.
- Web app development may last for years, with a price reaching the million-dollar mark.
To get an accurate answer to the question How much does it cost to create a website, you need to consult with an experienced web development company. After you describe your requirements, they will provide you with a detailed project estimate.
This article was originally published at Softensy.
