How much development of a new website costs?
16.10.2015
”Hello, I would like to know, how much a +/- standard website costs?”
We are very often facing this quite difficult question. Development of a website shouldn't be viewed as a product, it is rather a set of services which results in the client receiving its website.
We operate in the field of website development already for more than 8 years, but still we can't give a precise answer to this question, before a scrupulous pre-development analysis has been performed. After performing such analysis, we can give already a precise estimate for development of a website.
WHY COSTS OF WEBSITES ARE SO DIFFERENT?
When addressing us, our clients are frequently confused by the wide range of costs for website development, which may vary from a couple of hundred euros up to tens of thousands euros for one website with a similar specification.
Usually, the cheapest variants are offered by students who want to earn some extra money (who hasn't in their student years?), so costs are very low and many people also get hooked, however, one should take into consideration that in these cases a website is developed by one person, namely, a designer, browser programmer and server programmer in one person. Maybe, the website developer is good in any particular stage of development, however, for one person to preserve high quality through all stages of the website development process is next to impossible. Moreover, one shall take into account the fact that this person can change his or her profession at any moment, engage in a better paid work, and further support of your website won't be available, in the worst case – the website is left unfinished.
Another very common variant are template websites, i.e., an already prepared website template is taken, which has been used already for hundreds of times, your provided information is inserted in the template and that's it. Among Latvian website developers this is a frequently used variant in order to offer the lowest price to the client. And also in this case prices constitute a couple of hundred euros for fairly simple websites. By choosing this variant one shall take into account that tens of similar websites may appear at any moment, very likely, even among competitors.
In our case websites are created from scratch, first carefully learning desires of the client, creating the website specification and only afterwards starting the website development process as such. Several people are involved in this process (project manager, designer, browser programmer, server programmer and text inserter, if necessary), moreover, the client is contacted regularly – the development progress is explained, design variants are shown, details are agreed etc. Of course, the resulting costs are higher, because professional specialists of their field are employed in this process, the costs don't constitute a couple of hundred euros, however, you get a high quality website developed in compliance with the modern technologies, and support in future, which is also not a minor aspect.
WHY NOT TO CHOOSE THE CHEAPEST VARIANT?
The law of economy doesn't allow receiving high value at low price. If you choose the cheapest offer, you undertake the risk of additional costs. If you can do so, you have enough money to pay for something better.
This is a very precise quote of John Ruskin (1819-1900), which applies to our field of operation for all hundred per cent.
Your website is your representation object on the Internet, consequently, the potential client judges your company from your website, moreover, nowadays users are increasingly often verifying the company image on the Internet, before making any purchase of a product or service.
Is it worth to save money on it? Think for yourself.