Websites: what is the average cost of design / develop a WordPress site?

[Toprated]

I'm designing websites since 2011 still not able to make my business profitable. Generally I design websites for £1000 which includes pages, basic seo and other generic demands of my clients. I did some big projects on behalf of some agencies here in Leeds but still do not know how much should a website cost. I've never been able to make it profitable business. Any ideas how much should I charge for a good website. My average ticket size is just 1000 around.

 

[fisicx]

Something is wrong with how you build sites if you can’t make a profit.

Wordpress can be installed, configured and a theme customised in a couple of hours. Bung in a couple of plugins and it’s job done.

But if you are spending hours with the client researching their business and setting up content then you may be undercharging.

I don’t do much website design these days but I can set up a site for under £500 and still make decent profit.

 

[ServWise]

I don't think your prices are so low for a basic brochureware site so you must be doing more than just the basics if you can't make a profit or some other factor.

How are you determining what a "profit" is? I base my quotes on how long it would take me to complete + 25% so a basic brochureware site as an example:

My 4D framework

Discovery: 2 hours
Design: 5 hours
Development: 10 hours
Deployment: 1 hours

18 hrs x 50 GBP (900 GBP) + 25% (225 GBP) = 1125 GBP

If it is taking you to too long and the cost do not cover what you have decided your hourly rate is (Even if you only use that as a guide to what things should cost) then you are either charging too little or you are taking too long or the value you have given to your time is excessive.

 

[Paul Kelly ICHYB]

You need to understand and rethink your pricing.

If doing simple 3/4 page websites, you should be making a few hundred a pop, at least.

 

[Mark T Jones]

Your GP should be pretty much 100%, so my first question would be around what fixed overheads are eating your profits?

With regards to pricing (from the POV of a consumer not an insider) I'd expect more than a simple brochure/start up site for £1000, so imitial question would revolve around what you are offering/adding, and how you can build more value onto it.

 

[fantheflames]

I find a lot of businesses struggle with this, so you're not alone OP. But grappling with pricing and profitability from all these years sounds like you need a u-haul on everything!

Work out your costs and time spent more precisely to make a profit. With all those years of experience, you should be making a profit by now. Perhaps outlining a clear brief in the early stages with a clear scope of services, say beyond basic SEO, and exploring how you can differentiate your offerings based on the client at hand, which should help justify higher prices and make it easier for you.

Sounds like you need to work from the ground up. Work out how much it's costing you and make sure you're always making a profit for every project. You don't work for free!

 

[antropy]

I've never been able to make it profitable business.

So what are your monthly sales and what are your monthly costs?

Paul.

 

[Toprated]

Something is wrong with how you build sites if you can’t make a profit.

Wordpress can be installed, configured and a theme customised in a couple of hours. Bung in a couple of plugins and it’s job done.

But if you are spending hours with the client researching their business and setting up content then you may be undercharging.

I don’t do much website design these days but I can set up a site for under £500 and still make decent profit.

Recently, I worked on a website, that was not direct client but an agency outsourced me to work on that. They demanded that the design would be implemented without theme, just using bootstrap starter and every feature was handed coded through templates. Because they're looking for a complete dynamic site, just add content, and page is ready. Yes, I'm also reached at the conclusion that spending much time researching their business, approach, architecture etc. I rarely do only theme work.

 

[Toprated]

I don't think your prices are so low for a basic brochureware site so you must be doing more than just the basics if you can't make a profit or some other factor.

How are you determining what a "profit" is? I base my quotes on how long it would take me to complete + 25% so a basic brochureware site as an example:

My 4D framework

Discovery: 2 hours
Design: 5 hours
Development: 10 hours
Deployment: 1 hours

18 hrs x 50 GBP (900 GBP) + 25% (225 GBP) = 1125 GBP

If it is taking you to too long and the cost do not cover what you have decided your hourly rate is (Even if you only use that as a guide to what things should cost) then you are either charging too little or you are taking too long or the value you have given to your time is excessive.

I rarely get theme based work, or kind of brochureware site. Mostly its custom work, with child theme, or with no theme just basic bootstrap

 

[fisicx]

@Toprated - you need to rethink how you build Wordpress sites. All that custom work is often nugatory and bootstrap is now very dated. Look for clients who want simple sites with a bit of theme customisation. Reduce the number of hours you spend not coding.

And look a building plugins. Far more lucrative and you won’t have to deal with clients.

 

[Toprated]

I find a lot of businesses struggle with this, so you're not alone OP. But grappling with pricing and profitability from all these years sounds like you need a u-haul on everything!

Work out your costs and time spent more precisely to make a profit. With all those years of experience, you should be making a profit by now. Perhaps outlining a clear brief in the early stages with a clear scope of services, say beyond basic SEO, and exploring how you can differentiate your offerings based on the client at hand, which should help justify higher prices and make it easier for you.

Sounds like you need to work from the ground up. Work out how much it's costing you and make sure you're always making a profit for every project. You don't work for free!

Agree

 

[Toprated]

So what are your monthly sales and what are your monthly costs?

Paul.

One of two websites Monthly. Recently I worked on a project which took much time, project from an agency, complete custom work, without any theme just basic bootstrap to start. Managed their content as well, multiple times. I rarely get just 5-7 pages business website to implement.

 

[Toprated]

@Toprated - you need to rethink how you build Wordpress sites. All that custom work is often nugatory and bootstrap is now very dated. Look for clients who want simple sites with a bit of theme customisation. Reduce the number of hours you spend not coding.

And look a building plugins. Far more lucrative and you won’t have to deal with clients.

They demanded to use bootstrap starter theme only, which is just basic to start the development. This was like a complete theme development.

 

[Shopclicks]

You need to be charging more. If I quoted on the time it takes to build a site plus a margin, I'd end up in the same boat you're in. You need to raise the price of a basic site and then charge over and above for extra features and functionality. You also need to be charging for ongoing maintenance and upsell new features.

People who want cheap websites can go elsewhere. You also shouldn't standardise your pricing. Look at the business you're building for. Should a one man joinery business pay the same as a furniture store with 10 staff for a similar website? Absolutely not. Scale your pricing based on the size of the organisation.

 

[fisicx]

They demanded to use bootstrap starter theme only, which is just basic to start the development. This was like a complete theme development.

Then you way undercharged. Theme development is very expensive. Last time I built a custom theme my fee was nearly £5k

 

[HFE Signs]

Sorry to detract, how much would you expect to pay to change the payment gateway provider on a site like ours (API based implementation)? Or is this a daft question? Thanks

 

[fisicx]

I've done loads of API integrations and the average time is about 7 hours. No idea why but that's just how it is. Which means my fee would be £350. Others may be cheaper, some more expensive.

 

[Toprated]

Sorry to detract, how much would you expect to pay to change the payment gateway provider on a site like ours (API based implementation)? Or is this a daft question? Thanks

maybe 200 or less but also depends on what payment features we are incorporating into website and how much time it gonna take,. Implementation with APIs are simple thing. Which Payment provider you're planning to add. We can discuss in detail.

 

[Toprated]

Sorry to detract, how much would you expect to pay to change the payment gateway provider on a site like ours (API based implementation)? Or is this a daft question? Thanks

@HFE Signs Do you really need to update the payment gateway. I checked your website, it has been implemented with CakePHP, I'm good at it. Let me know so we can take it further.

 

[fisicx]

maybe 200 or less but also depends on what payment features we are incorporating into website and how much time it gonna take

Where do you live? Under £200 to research, implement and test a payment gateway API is way too low.

 

[Shopclicks]

maybe 200 or less but also depends on what payment features we are incorporating into website and how much time it gonna take,.

And there it is .... The reason for your original problem. Under-quoting.

 

[Toprated]

Where do you live? Under £200 to research, implement and test a payment gateway API is way too low.

Haha, I do things personally. hardly could take a day if API integration is straight forward. But I mentioned that if we need additional things doing into it example Vault a card/save card etc kind of or recurring payment then that could take time. It depends. I live here in Leeds. Recently shifted.

 

[Toprated]

And there it is .... The reason for your original problem. Under-quoting.

Haha, a lot to learn sir. But I quoted because sometimes things are straight forward. Most of the payment gateways give their payment pages which we can use further in our code. Sometimes integration is very straight forward, some times client look for recurring payment/save card etc which are additional things. I'll be in touch with you Sir. @Shopclicks

 

[UKSBD]

I help a few people out with their sites with just "straight forward" stuff.

One recently had to move their hosting.

No problem, I set it up for them, rebuilt it, gave it an update, added a few features about 4 hours work - simple

Next day, get a call email not working
Have you changed to the new settings I sent you? - How do I do that?

Another hour, hand holding and setting it up on Gmail

The emails are coming through fine now but they are all mixed in with my other emails.

Is that the same google account you were using previously? - I don't know

Turns out he has at least 3 Google accounts, this one is in a Workspace account, but he isn't the main admin for it, someone set it up for him years ago but can't remember who.

It's taken longer trying to set the email up on his devices than it did to set up the hosting, change nameservers, rebuilt and updated the site.

Don't you just love "straight forward" jobs.

 

[DesignsOnline]

Asking what the average price of a website is, is like asking the average price of a car.

You wont get a reasonable answer as it depends on too many factors. Just as there are cars (think battered old Yugo)and there are cars (Think Maybach or Ferrari La Ferrari).

The same principle applies, there are websites and there are websites. It depends on what you are offering, who you are building websites for, bespoke development and bespoke design, or thrown together free WordPress theme? 6 - 8 pages or huge? Same principles apply all over again to SEO,
following a few basic onsite seo tips you found on a forum somewhere or building in propper onsite SEO with everything currently required in 2024, carefully measuring market competition and researching keyword intent etc...

Depends on what you are really offering and how much time you are investing, and the results that you are obtaining for your clients etc...

 

[Kay Mankoo]

I used to charge £500-£1000 for a website design and build 10 year's ago, as a freelancer. It's just not viable these days. I now run a small digital agency in west London, and we provide bespoke web design, WordPress builds, bespoke functionality where required, and on-page SEO starting at £3,500. The price goes up, if the client requires more than one design to choose from, or if they need really bespoke functionality that a plug-in won't provide. We'll also bill by the hour if there's any scope creep involved.

Where we really stepped up our game was being able to provide website maintenance, on-going SEO, and paid ads management, as part of a retainer.

As other's have mentioned a good way to judge what to charge for a website is to understand who the client is, what their product or service is, and how much their product or service is worth as a sale to them. Then look at the value you can give their business with a good website design, that does what they need, and gets them conversions.

FYI, the agency I used to work for 15 years ago (before I went solo), used to do websites for £5000 back then. They now do them for £50,000 minimum.

 

[this.is.giles]

Try not to think about it in terms of the time it takes, but more the value you're adding to your clients business. If you can create a site that starts getting results, then you could (or should) be charging £5K+, but if it's not delivering a return, then you probably won't be able to charge decent money. Can you share any of your work?

 

[Szymon]

I used to charge £500-£1000 for a website design and build 10 year's ago, as a freelancer. It's just not viable these days. I now run a small digital agency in west London, and we provide bespoke web design, WordPress builds, bespoke functionality where required, and on-page SEO starting at £3,500. The price goes up, if the client requires more than one design to choose from, or if they need really bespoke functionality that a plug-in won't provide. We'll also bill by the hour if there's any scope creep involved.

Where we really stepped up our game was being able to provide website maintenance, on-going SEO, and paid ads management, as part of a retainer.

As other's have mentioned a good way to judge what to charge for a website is to understand who the client is, what their product or service is, and how much their product or service is worth as a sale to them. Then look at the value you can give their business with a good website design, that does what they need, and gets them conversions.

FYI, the agency I used to work for 15 years ago (before I went solo), used to do websites for £5000 back then. They now do them for £50,000 minimum.

On a similar note question, what is the price your average retainer price for such services?

 

[antropy]

Try not to think about it in terms of the time it takes, but more the value you're adding to your clients business. If you can create a site that starts getting results, then you could (or should) be charging £5K+, but if it's not delivering a return, then you probably won't be able to charge decent money. Can you share any of your work?

All well and good, but how would you communicate this to a new client? How would you prove that previous sites you've done are generating value for your clients?

Paul.

 

[Kay Mankoo]

On a similar note question, what is the price your average retainer price for such services?

It varies, but I've just put together a new list of rates for 2025. I'll give you starting rates for each one:

Website maintenance (WordPress) - from £100 p/m
SEO - from £300 p/m
PPC - from £400 p/m