How much does a website cost
There is no single figure, and anyone who names one before hearing the task is guessing. Here is what actually moves the price — and how to get your own number in two working days.
I answer within one working day, in writing. I never call.
Why you won’t find a price tag here
Two sites with the same number of screens can differ threefold in work. One is five screens of text the client already wrote; the other is five screens with payments, a booking calendar and a warehouse behind it. A published price would be honest for exactly one of them — so instead of a number, you get the list of what the number is made of.
What the price is made of
How much has to be written
Text is the slowest part of a site. If your material is ready, the work is layout. If it starts with “we’ll write it later”, that later is the biggest line in the estimate.
How many screens, and how different
Ten near-identical pages cost less than four unlike ones. What is repeated is built once.
One language or three
Every language is not only translation: it is a second and third version of every screen, plus the switch and the markup that tells search engines they are the same page.
What it connects to
Payments, CRM, booking, delivery, stock. Each connection is someone else’s system with its own rules — and the part that most often takes longer than the site itself.
Photos and illustration
Ready material is one price. A shoot, retouching or drawn graphics is another.
Who keeps it alive after launch
A site is not a finished object: prices change, offers change, browsers change. Either you keep it, or someone does — that also has a cost.
What people usually overpay for
- Screens nobody reads. A page “about us with history since 2014” costs the same as one that brings requests.
- Design for a portfolio. Animation that impresses colleagues and slows the phone of your client.
- A big system before the first client. A CRM and a personal account for a business with five orders a month.
- Paying twice for the same thing. A mobile app written separately for each platform, when one codebase would do.
How you get your figure
You describe the task in a short form. If something is unclear, I ask two or three questions in writing — within one working day, without a call. Within two working days you get one figure for the whole scope, with a list of what is included and what is not. The figure is agreed before the work starts and does not grow along the way; if the scope changes, the new figure is agreed the same way, in advance.
Get a priceQuestions people ask
Why not just publish a price list?
Because it would be a number for an average task, and average tasks do not exist. You would either overpay for what you don’t need, or discover the real figure halfway through — which is worse.
Can it be done cheaper?
Almost always — by cutting scope, not quality. I say which parts can wait and what they cost separately. Cutting the invisible work instead is how sites end up rebuilt in a year.
What if my budget is fixed?
Say the figure straight away. Either it fits and I say what goes in, or it doesn’t and I say so honestly — instead of starting work that stops halfway.
Is support paid separately?
Yes, and only if you want it. Everything is handed over so that another developer can pick it up; nothing is locked to me.
A template would be cheaper, no?
Cheaper at the start. The cost comes later: templates are heavy, slow on phones and awkward to change — and the change always comes.