Creating a website for your business could seem like an excessive investment. But how true is this?
Statistics show that companies with an online profile connecting with many more customers have a considerable advantage in the globalized market.
Also, a website is a much more professional approach to your online presence than an Instagram or Facebook page! It is more permanent and can offer a more streamlined customer experience (leaving a more lasting impression on the people that see your page).
However, this quantum leap for your business does come with a price.
The website development costs can vary significantly as it depends on various factors, namely:
- The size or number of pages
- The complexity, or number and type of functions
- The programming language you decide to utilize
- The number and location of specialists that you hire to design the page
A complex website also requires monthly maintenance, costing you around 100$ per month.
However, it is worth noting that a well-designed website can put your business right where it needs to be more profitable- saved on your customer’s mobile phones. Furthermore, a fairly complex, not exactly cheap website can automate various operations that are necessary for your business, such as sales, accounting and finances, project management, and much more.
This means you can recover some of the initial capital you invested in being on the cutting edge of your industry and ahead of the competition.
Factors that influence professional development costs
As we have already mentioned, prices will vary hugely depending on what kind of webpage suits your business model better – and on what functions you would like to incorporate. It is possible to use builders and platforms, such as Wix and WordPress, that offer templates that guarantee fewer work hours and the lower final cost of developing an app. For more info, you can check https://mlsdev.com/blog/app-development-cost.
However, remember that if you want to make a unique website that screams your brand and ensures a great user experience, this basic strategy is probably not the way to go because many websites today use the same basic templates.
The number of work hours necessary for developing a website is the most influential factor you will need to consider when budgeting for your website. On average, a web-developer charges anywhere between (*25$) and (*150$) per hour, depending on the geographic position of the developer.
The USA has the highest rates for web developers- if your company is based in the USA, you could choose to outsource the work to professionals that live elsewhere and charge less.
The cheapest options
Constructor development will average around (18$ per month), plus maintenance.
Platform development will average around (30-300$), plus maintenance.
These options are economical and can be set up in very little time, but they also come with problems. Free options are severely limited in functionality, and “uniqueness” and advanced options can cost significantly more. But, if you want to integrate a pop up game or a Wheel of Fortune App on your Shopify store or WooCommerce website, it can be easily and cost-effectively done, by an expert like “Tada”. It specializes in incorporating the best-in-class lead magnet ideas and shopping cart abandonment strategies for Shopify sites that want to have the best store conversion ideas and web designs.
Also, they tend not to perform very well on search engines. So while they may be perfectly adequate for a personal website or blog, they may be far from ideal for bringing growth to your business.
The more professional approach
If a website is of moderate complexity and consists of 50 pages, the development process requires around 400 development hours. We can apply the numbers we mentioned previously (developer costs), and we find that such a website could end up costing between 10,000$ (in SE Asia) and 60,000$ (in the USA).
Bear in mind that outsourcing also implies the possibility of certain drawbacks that you should accurately consider while planning. These include language and cultural barriers and time-zone differences that may make optimal communication with the developer more difficult.
Author’s bio: Anastasiia Lastovetska is a technology writer at MLSDev, a software development company that builds web & mobile app solutions from scratch. She researches the area of technology to create great content about app development, UX/UI design, and tech & business consulting.
Featured Photo by Farzad on Unsplash
