Most business owners ask “how much does a website cost” expecting a single number back. The honest answer is that it depends on a short list of specific things, and once you know what they are, you can estimate your own project fairly accurately before you ever talk to an agency.
What actually drives the price
Four things move the number more than anything else:
- Page count and structure. A five-page brochure site costs a fraction of a twenty-page site with a blog, careers section and resource library.
- Custom functionality. A booking system, a members’ area, a product catalogue with variants, or an integration with your CRM all add real development time, not just design time.
- Content readiness. If you’re handing over finished copy and photography, the project moves faster. If the agency has to write copy, source images and chase you for product details, that time gets billed somewhere.
- Revisions and scope changes. Two structured rounds of feedback is normal and priced in. Major structural changes to the homepage after sign-off usually isn’t, and that’s where “final” invoices creep up.
What a realistic range looks like
There’s no universal number, but as a rough shape: a clean brochure site for a small business, five to eight pages, no custom functionality, tends to be the least expensive tier. A full business site with a blog, lead-capture forms and some custom design work sits in the middle. An ecommerce store or a site with booking systems, member logins or API integrations costs more, because it’s closer to software development than page layout.
If a quote seems unusually low, ask what’s excluded. Cheap quotes usually leave out things like mobile optimisation, basic SEO setup, or more than one round of revisions, and you’ll be quoted again for each one later.
Timeline is part of the price
Rushed timelines cost more, not less. A starter site built properly usually takes two to three weeks; a full business site or an online store takes four to eight weeks, depending on how much custom work and content is involved. If someone promises a fully custom site in three days, ask what corners are being cut to hit that.
How to protect yourself when comparing quotes
Ask every agency you’re comparing the same three questions: is this a fixed price or an hourly estimate, how many revision rounds are included, and who owns the code, designs and domain once the project is finished. The answers will tell you more than the headline number will.
A fixed price removes the single biggest source of website budget overruns: scope drift billed by the hour. It also forces the agency to actually think through your project before quoting it, rather than guessing and correcting later at your expense.
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