Once the basic scope of a website is understood, the next surprise is often how different the proposals can be. One supplier may quote a few thousand euros, another several times that amount, and a third may refuse to give a fixed price until a discovery phase has taken place.
This can make web development look arbitrary. Sometimes it is. More often, the suppliers are not actually proposing the same thing.
A website is a product; building one is a service
The finished website is a product. The process used to create it is a service involving decisions, revisions, technical work, content, testing and collaboration. Requirements develop during that process and seeing the first working version may expose problems nobody noticed in the brief.
A good proposal should therefore make clear what is included, what is not, and how additional work will be handled.
Pricing per page tells you very little
“Ten-page website for €X” is attractive packaging because everybody understands the unit. Unfortunately, pages are not equivalent units of work. One may contain a headline, photograph and three paragraphs; another may require a product search, database connection, conditional form, pricing calculator and user account.
Page count is useful for understanding volume. It is a poor substitute for understanding complexity.
Why two proposals can be completely different
- custom design versus a modified template
- strategic and UX work versus immediate production
- copywriting versus client-supplied text
- original imagery versus stock
- bespoke development versus third-party tools
- SEO preparation
- accessibility
- browser and device testing
- analytics and tracking
- training
- hosting and maintenance
- warranties or post-launch support
One supplier may appear considerably more expensive simply because several things you will eventually need are already included. Another may be cheaper because those tasks remain yours.
Cheap tools are not necessarily cheap websites
Templates, no-code platforms and AI-assisted production have made it possible to create technically competent websites much faster than before. This should reduce costs where the problem is mainly production.
But software does not automatically provide positioning, content strategy, strong copy, useful hierarchy, original imagery, good UX, sound technical architecture, accessibility, testing or accountability when something stops working.
A hammer becoming cheaper does not remove the cost of deciding what to build.
Don't forget the cost after launch
- domain names
- hosting
- content-management or ecommerce platforms
- third-party software
- email services
- maintenance
- security
- technical updates
- analytics tools
- content production
- search optimisation
- advertising
- development of new features
Ask what you are likely to own, what you are likely to rent and what will happen if you decide to change supplier. These are not particularly glamorous questions. They become much more interesting when nobody asked them before launch.
Budget for the website that deserves to exist
The aim is not to spend as much as possible, nor to obtain the maximum number of pages for the minimum price. A website should earn its keep.
The useful calculation is not simply “How little can we spend?” It is: What is this website expected to do for the business, and what is it worth investing to make that happen properly?
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