How much does a website cost?

It is now essential for a company to be present online, to have a website. Whether through a simple showcase site or by creating a more complex site to sell products or services.

So many people have been confronted with the question: "How much does a website cost?"

Unfortunately, there is no ready-made answer. Indeed, asking this question is a bit like asking a concessionary how much a car costs. Obviously, the answer will be quite different if you want to buy a powerful car or a more modest one. Maybe you need a utility vehicle or a truck instead?

As with a car, there are many factors that have an impact on the final price of a website. Below we will try to list the different elements that you should take into account.

The exclusivity of design

First of all, you can choose a ready-to-use theme, i.e. a pre-designed site that you can adapt to fit your graphic charter. This option, which in any case will not apply to more complex projects, will be less expensive in the short term but also less original and above all less flexible, even for smaller projects.

At Cherry Pulp, we prefer to start from a blank sheet of paper and create a custom design, specific to your company. This allows us to highlight your identity and values in an optimal way. From experience, we are also convinced that a site created "from scratch" will be more efficient, more secure and easier to maintain in the future. This option, which is more expensive at the beginning, will have a better return on investment in the long term.

Exclusivity of content

The exclusivity of the content that jumps right out at you when you open a web page is above all the media content, i.e. the photos or videos. You can use images from free image banks. Some of them are free, others are paid for. However, in this case you do not have the exclusivity of the photographs. You therefore take the risk of finding the same images on many other sites.

If your budget allows it, you can on the contrary carry out a shooting with a professional photographer or videographer in order to have the exclusivity of your photographies.

Once the "wow" effect is over, the visitor will then start to immerse himself in the content. Here again, if your budget allows it, getting help from a professional can really pay off. The latter will ensure that the content of the site is concise, "makes you want to" and is optimized in terms of SEO.

The number and originality of templates

It is not so much the number of pages your site will contain that will influence its price, but rather the number and originality of the templates.

A template is a type of page. For example, a contact page will probably consist of a card or a form. On the contrary, the page containing a blog article will be composed of images, videos and more text.

These 2 pages will therefore have a different template.

The more different templates your site has, the more unique it will be, but the greater the workload in terms of ergonomics and creativity will be (and therefore its price...).

This logic also applies to the complexity of each template. See for example the work done by Cherry Pulp for the "The group" page of the Art Blanc site. This one is composed of a dynamic timeline. Obviously, a small descriptive text would have made the layout easier, but would the user experience have been comparable?

The number of features

Of course, the number and type of functionalities also influence the final price of a website.

To create a showcase site in your image with simple functionalities such as translation into several languages and subscription to newsletters, the final cost will be lower than if you opt for the creation of an E-commerce.

Indeed, in this case, the developer will also have to code functionalities such as shopping cart management, online payment, possibly stock synchronization with an external tool...

The animations, the finishing touches

There are also a multitude of small details that also have a significant impact on the total cost of a website. Playing with videos, 3D, animated rather than static pictograms are all elements that bring a real added value to your site, but they also have a cost.

Here is an example of a mini-site made by Cherry Pulp where a particular effort was made on the animation of the pictograms, in order to make the site as playful as possible.

Eligibility for grant funding

It is important to know that depending on your activity, you can apply for subsidies allowing you to be reimbursed from 50% to 80% of the amount of the quote!

Cherry Pulp, an agency specialized in the creation and redesign of websites, is certified as a service provider within the framework of these subsidies and will be able to help you in these steps.

You can find out more here:

Brussels :

https://www.1819.brussels/fr/subsides/aide-la-consultance-conseils-exterieurs

Wallonia :

As you may have read, many factors can influence the price of your website.

Also keep in mind that putting your website online is only the beginning of the adventure. Afterwards, you will have to take into account maintenance and web hosting costs (which includes the domain name, SSL certificate and server, among other things). Above all, in order to exploit its full potential and be visible, you will need to plan a budget for its promotion (on Google Adwords for example), search engine optimization or its improvement by iterations via reactive support after analyzing the site's statistics (via Google Analytics). This is essential to remain efficient!

Therefore, we find that the best way to approach a digital agency is to communicate your global budget for your project. Depending on the type of website, web agencies will then give you an estimate for the creation of a website which will generally be around €5,000 for a showcase site created with a CMS (Wordpress for example), between €5,000 and €20,000 for an Ecommerce (Shopify or Woocommerce) and €25,000 and more for custom web solutions. Remember also to ask the web design agency for its hourly rate, this always gives a good indication, especially for the support and maintenance of the site.

Then, all you have to do is choose the agency that will stand out for its approach, its experience in similar projects, its portfolio, its team or its values.

Par Fix Co-founder - General Manager