Why "how much does a website cost" doesn't have one answer
It's a completely reasonable question, and it's also one that doesn't have a single honest answer — the same way "how much does a building cost" doesn't. A one-room shed and a three-story office both count as "a building," and the price gap between them is enormous. Websites work the same way: a five-page brochure site and a custom e-commerce platform with inventory management are both "a website," but they're not remotely the same project.
Any provider who gives you a fixed number before asking what your site actually needs to do is either guessing or quoting their cheapest possible template, hoping the real scope surfaces later as "extra" charges.
The four things that actually drive cost
Instead of a price table that would be dishonest the moment your project doesn't match it exactly, here's what genuinely determines cost, in roughly the order of impact:
- Number and depth of pages. A 5-page site (home, about, services, portfolio, contact) is a fundamentally smaller project than a 30-page site with deep service sub-pages, a blog, and a resource library.
- E-commerce, or not. Adding a working cart, checkout, payment gateway integration, and inventory tracking is a different scale of build than a catalog page with a "call to enquire" button. See our E-commerce Development page for what a complete build actually involves.
- Custom functionality beyond a template. Booking systems, member logins, integrations with software you already use, multi-language content — each of these adds real development time a standard template doesn't need.
- Design complexity. A site built from a well-executed existing template costs less than fully custom design work, illustration, or photography-heavy layouts. Neither is wrong — it depends on what your brand actually needs.
Why "cheap" website deals are worth being cautious about
A suspiciously low quote for a full business website almost always means one of a few things: a heavily recycled template with minimal customization, corners cut on testing and cross-device checking, or a plan to charge more later for things that should have been scoped upfront (a working contact form, mobile responsiveness, basic SEO setup). None of these show up as a problem on launch day — they show up a few months later.
Key takeaway: the cheapest quote and the cheapest total cost are often two different numbers. Ask what's included, not just what the headline price is.
What a genuinely scoped proposal should include
Regardless of who you work with, a proposal worth trusting should be specific about what's actually covered:
- Exact number of pages or page types included
- Whether e-commerce or custom functionality is in scope, and what specifically
- What platform it's built on — see our Web Development page for how we decide between WordPress and custom PHP
- Whether hosting and ongoing support are included, or a separate line item — see Support & Maintenance
- What happens if the project scope changes mid-build
FAQ
Conclusion
There's no shortcut around getting a scoped, honest proposal — but knowing what actually drives cost means you can ask the right questions and spot a lowball quote before it becomes an expensive surprise. If a provider can't explain what's driving their number, that's worth a follow-up question before you sign anything.
