How much did you pay for your website... and why?

[Paul FilmMaker]

So my website is pretty clunky and needs to reach stage 2. It did its job in that it helped my little video production company win a load of business and now phase 2 is to make it pretty. Needs basic functionality with a nod to future SEO. This means a migrate from Wix (which is useless for SEO but great to set up quickly) to probably Wordpress and hosting etc...

Just curious. How much did you pay for your website? What did it cost you? And what did you want from it? What was the experience like?

 

[fisicx]

I built my own from scratch using dreamweaver. I then discovered Wordpress and built my own theme. Never had any training - just did lots of googling.

The trick to a successful site is not the platform, theme or anything technical. It’s all about the content. The content is an extension of your marketing plan.

With the right marketing plan you could spend next to nothing and get a great site.

In your case, with the right help you don’t need to spend anything on the site. All you need to pay for is advice.

But if you want numbers: I’ve helped launch sites for under £100 all the way up to £50,000. All are still successful in their niche.

 

[MBE2017]

I built two websites in the past, basically just a leaflet type site with a contact form, suited my needs and both did well.

Cost wise, literally nothing, but they were as basic as possible, just lead generators.

 

[cnjim]

Our first few websites I did myself when Dreamweaver was a thing. After that I've paid £750-1000 for redesigns then around £3000 for a total redesign around 10 years ago.

After that (circa 2016) we did another complete redesign to the tune of around £12,500 and now we have a full time designer to take care of all design work.

Like already mentioned, I've seen website designs cost £500 by a friend of a friend right up to some clients of ours who spend a couple of hundred thousand on a new design and rebrand.

 

[Deleted member 335660]

I built my own sites using Wordpress and apart from hosting and plugins spent nothing.

I have started learning SEO using Freshbananas course (£169) and have been quoted £1,600 by my host for doing SEO.

 

[brandvine]

Paul - for what you are after WordPress is a no-brainer. It has come on leaps and bounds in the last few years

You will get a boilerplate site (4-5 pages) off someone for £350 but the costs rack up when you want to make changes.

If you can take the time to learn yourself it will pay dividends.

Use a decent hosting platform like Cloudways £12/pm ( a little more expensive but worth it for website speed) and a theme like Generatepress £40ish per year.

They have ready-made templates which you can use as a starting point.

If you start driving paid traffic to your site or invest heavily in SEO you will need to be going in and tweaking etc quite often.

If you can't be bothered with that I've got a couple developers based in India 1/3rd the cost of those in the UK. DM me and I can pass on details.

 

[Ian J]

Use a decent hosting platform like Cloudways £12/pm ( a little more expensive but worth it for website speed) and a theme like Generatepress £40ish per year.

All of my non main sites are based on Generate Press which used to be free.

 

[Uwe (Invoiceberry)]

As others have already mentioned, it really depends on your requirements and budget.

You can buy a domain name for <£10/year, then sign up for a Carrd.co account and create a one-pager ($19/year) and if you want a blog on top of that for content marketing you can get a BlogHandy account, too.

So all in all, you could get started on less than £50/year and a few hours of work.

 

[fisicx]

You will get a boilerplate site (4-5 pages) off someone for £350 but the costs rack up when you want to make changes.

Why so expensive? And why only 4-5 pages. The whole point of wordpress is you can have as many pages as you want. If @Paul FilmMaker is writing his own content you don't need to spend anything.

Use a decent hosting platform like Cloudways £12/pm ( a little more expensive but worth it for website speed) and a theme like Generatepress £40ish per year.

You don't need anything cloudy. Cloudways uses thirdparty providers - you aren't even hosted in the UK. And no need for generate press (which isn't that good a theme), there are loads of free or single payment themes that would suffice.

All of my non main sites are based on Generate Press which used to be free.

It's the way everything is going. Subscription business models are ubiquitous. It often works out cheaper to get your own theme developed. I've got a client who uses his custom theme on dozens of sites. And because it's custom he can mess with it however he wants.

 

[brandvine]

All of my non main sites are based on Generate Press which used to be free.

You are quite right. I use the premium version. Added customisation controls for typography, spaces etc. Makes conversion rate optimisation much quicker.

 

[fisicx]

@brandvine - just been looking at some of cloudways client sites and performance is poor on all of them. In general a site hosted on a cloud platform will perform less well than one hosted in a decent data centre in the UK. There are reasons why cloud hosting can work for some business but it's a poor choice for many.

 

[brandvine]

@brandvine - just been looking at some of cloudways client sites and performance is poor on all of them. In general a site hosted on a cloud platform will perform less well than one hosted in a decent data centre in the UK. There are reasons why cloud hosting can work for some business but it's a poor choice for many.

Personal choice I suppose. I like the user interface and support, always had core web vitals scores of 90+, so never had cause to change. They scale up well.

You are right though, Paul's traffic is going to be mainly UK based and won't need the scalability so it wasn't really the best recommendation in hindsight.

 

[antropy]

Just curious. How much did you pay for your website? What did it cost you? And what did you want from it? What was the experience like?

As web developers we built our own but here are our prices for building simple sites:

OpenCart

Looking for expert help with a web project? We provide a fantastic range of digital services including ecommerce, web development and online marketing.

www.antropy.co.uk

Paul.

 

[fantheflames]

Loving this thread!

I primarily use Wordpress, but use others for clients if they want something different i.e. they are already on a different software and don't want to change. Wix, Shopify, GoDaddy, etc...

I'm not the biggest fan of GoDaddy.

One of the main reasons I prefer Wordpress is the customisation - it's great for complete beginners and advanced web developers.

My web development team like working in Wordpress.

Hosting is very low cost, but it depends what you need.

You also need to think about any add-ons you need for the complete site experience.

I've spent hours looking for plug-ins that are one-off costs, but seems that most are becoming a monthly or yearly subscription *sigh*

Our site didn't cost much to build as we did it all in-house, but we're looking at upgrading it in the new year, which will take a couple of weeks to design and develop.

Our goal is lead generation and nurturing, which is working nicely with our ads.

 

[NickGrogan]

Originally wrote websites in notepad, then Frontpage, then Dreamweaver, and now WordPress.

WordPress is easy to throw a quick site together (Astra Theme is free, fast and easy) and you can do most things with plugins or custom development. But you can end up with a lot of plugins, so check what you're actually using.

I use Webhostuk.co.uk, and Amazon Lightsail for most of my hosting. Lightsail more for "unusual" stuff.

 

[fisicx]

I've spent hours looking for plug-ins that are one-off costs, but seems that most are becoming a monthly or yearly subscription *sigh*

Which is why a good developer doesn't use plugins. Most functions you need are readily available as drop in code. 5 minutes in your functions.php and it's done.

 

[YasmeenLondon]

We definitely recommend WordPress, the open-source nature of it makes it very popular (40% of the internet is powered by Wordpress).

Still, as with any software and solution, you have to weigh the advantages with the disadvantages. But, for the most part, the disadvantages are easily managed when (if) you know what you’re doing.

To give you an idea of the cost (obviously every agency has a different pricing mechanism), our WordPress websites begin at 1,500 GBP, this is a 1-3 page website, currently, we’re running an offer which includes hosting and website maintenance for 12 months (EU server, CDN, Enhanced Security, Speed Optimisation + Spam Filtering, daily backups and website updates).

We begin by understanding the client’s business, their competition and their short and long-term goals, the client provides all the content they have + the website copy, we then design around that and create a bespoke website that aligns everything.

Obviously, if you’re capable enough you can do all of this alone, you will need a template, a way to modify/customise the template (eg. Gutenberg or page builder), Decent hosting and plugins for anything that you can't do on your own (eg security plugins, speed/caching/performance plugins, mail plugins, filtering plugins, animation/design elements plugins, but be careful because having too many plugins or plugins that clash with each other will have a major impact your website performance)

We tend to work with business owners that have no technical know-how or no time to invest in building a website, some businesses prefer we build their website and manage it going forward, while others prefer we build the website and they manage it, every business has different requirements and with WordPress, you're able to meet most.

 

[fisicx]

@YasmeenLondon - £1500 for 3 pages!

What do you do that’s different to any other Wordpress site?

 

[YasmeenLondon]

@YasmeenLondon - £1500 for 3 pages!

Yes.

What do you do that’s different to any other Wordpress site?

For starters we first do several discovery sessions, then based on that we conduct comprehensive research and competitor analysis and only then do we provide concept(s).

We also have graphic designers on-hand that provide unique elements and visual assets, we do not recycle elements and templates meaning any website we create is unique to the client.

We also allow for multiple revisions during the design and development stage.

Our websites are built to best practices in relation to speed, security and SEO, every project has a dedicated project manager and the client is able to get in touch and obtain support at almost any time ... all this requires time and time costs money and yet we're able to keep the price within reason and affordable for small businesses.

Most of our clients do not approach us for a WordPress website instead, they have a business concept and we turn it into a reality through Branding, Web Design and Marketing support.

My clients tend to appreciate the advice and consultations the most and essentially it's this comprehensive and personal service that they're paying for, not just a "Wordpress website"

Finally, I appreciate that you probably have a very different business model than a fully-fledged agency, the service you provide is different and naturally you price differently and I wish you the best of luck with that.

 

[fantheflames]

Which is why a good developer doesn't use plugins. Most functions you need are readily available as drop in code. 5 minutes in your functions.php and it's done.

Agreed. ?

But we use plug-ins from time to time.

 

[biobob]

You would be better off figuring out what you want it for rather than where it is built, what platform etc. A lot of websites are just lots of colourful pictures and videos but say nothing about the company and have very few features. Decide if you want to show portfolios, book appointments, arrange remote support, answer live chats etc

 

[m4hmo]

Paid £0 for all the sites ive made for myself over the years, in e-commerce and professional services. I taught myself how to use Joomla CMS. 16 year old school leaver me.

There are guides you can follow for the structure of your website. Look at your competition and try to do it better. Also make sure you site is fully compliant, i used an extension called SeoQuake on mozilla at the time - make sure you have ticked all suggestions that it pulls up. I don't do any of this stuff now.

 

[macScot]

We set up our own website and host it on our own machine (virtual machine) as well. So apart from keeping a machine running, the only cost we incur is the domain charge of approximately £10 per annum.

Our website consists of Html pages, basic CSS stylesheets, and images. We publish product information and prices, download links to software, our contact details, and support articles as we provide a service.

The website is hosted on a VirtualBox VM running Linux OS and Nginx. We have replicated and backed up the VM so that we can quickly switch this to another machine if there is any failure, and we also edit and backup our website within Dropbox and then copy it to the VM running the server, so should something happen or if we ever chose to host it to a cloud VM, then we can easily port across the entire website by downloading the entire content from Dropbox.

Our downloadable software files are also hosted in Dropbox so we link to these on our website, so links remain active (e.g. if on an email) even if the website went down.

The web pages can be created very easily using existing templates and free online tools such as word to Html or similar for quick formatted versions.
W3Schools and google search usually help find out how to style or tag Html files, and Youtube was also a great help.

We use Cloudflare services (free so far as only one domain) for security.

We intentionally chose to avoid hosted solutions so that we do not get tied down to a specific provider or service and can easily port the website to a virtual machine on the cloud, however, we have found for our need the locally hosted VM works well for our static content and we have saved costs of finding a hosted solution without getting tied up to a specific platform.

We also intentionally chose to avoid packages like WordPress, purely from a safety/trust standpoint of not wanting to use third-party add-ons or running scripts that we did not create ourselves, and similarly, we have avoided the use of implementing any javascript online libraries for this specific reason. To us, our customer safety and security are paramount so we would rather not have fancy scripts running unless we program these ourselves from scratch.

 

[Russ Michaels]

This is rather a "how long is a piece of string" question.

It depends on what you want to do and how much work is involved.

You can't go to a builder and say "how much for a house", since a 5 bed house is obviously more than a 2 bed house.... plus all the other options, features, fittings etc.

You can find some cheap freelancers in India who will build you a site for £100, but you will get what you pay for, just like hiring a dodgy cowboy builder.

The majority of the work I do is fixing all the problems caused by cheap freelancers or by people with no experience doing it themselves. such sites are rarely being maintained properly if at all, and will usually have a ton of vulnerabilities and often have been hacked already.

Other issues includes Zero on-page SEO, zero security, malware, a terrible performance due to zero optimizations etc, no GDPR compliance, no privacy policy or terms and conditions. Domains not aligned properly, so criminals and spammers are sending out spoofed emails, emails going to spam, not getting emails from contact forms etc etc

 

[WebCider]

So my website is pretty clunky and needs to reach stage 2. It did its job in that it helped my little video production company win a load of business and now phase 2 is to make it pretty. Needs basic functionality with a nod to future SEO. This means a migrate from Wix (which is useless for SEO but great to set up quickly) to probably Wordpress and hosting etc...

Just curious. How much did you pay for your website? What did it cost you? And what did you want from it? What was the experience like?

I agree with #2's reply - it does not matter which system or platform you use, the content/products are much more important. Every system has its own pros and cons, so it is all depends on your budget and what's your priority. But I doubt you can migrate your website from Wix? I know you can transfer domain name out from Wix though.

 

[MBE2017]

I think the the most important thing for anyone to consider is whether your website does what you require it to do. Some will cost more than others for obvious reasons.

 

[catshill]

I started with handmade html, then added css, then moved to wysiwg and then onto cms with Wordpress. I’ve built around 60 sites. More recently I have been playing with Gutenberg themes like twenty twenty two. Very different and in some respects challenging, but I can see the direction WP is going so I think the time investment it worth it.

 

[Avilon]

Just curious. How much did you pay for your website? What did it cost you? And what did you want from it? What was the experience like?

I attended the courses, learned the basics (even more) of PHP, Python, JavaScript, built lots of single page websites and some multi page ones. I was very inexperienced at these times and I thought I could do everything about my business myself, then I discovered teamwork and how money should be used in this regard.

 

[Kerwin]

@brandvine - just been looking at some of cloudways client sites and performance is poor on all of them. In general a site hosted on a cloud platform will perform less well than one hosted in a decent data centre in the UK. There are reasons why cloud hosting can work for some business but it's a poor choice for many.

Sorry but this is incorrect.

"Cloud" is just a buzzword. Let's use Amazon EC2 as an example (as it is probably the most famous cloud provider). It is hosting Virtual Private Servers in data centres across the globe. You can choose whichever country you want to host your website. Amazon EC2 uses the same software for virtual machines as any other VPS host.

You can rent a dedicated server in any datacentre, install and configure KVM (assuming your dedicated server is running Linux) and you'll be offering the same thing. Cloud generally means you pay by the hour (or even minute) rather than monthly. It is not used to indicate performance. It is usually used because you can spin up a new virtual server in seconds rather than hours or days.

 

[fisicx]

I meant performance of the website as measured by Google.