Historically, there are many techniques we’d draw upon to dodge this question…
You might acknowledge the question without answering it, make a profound strategic marketing point that ignores the question in hand, or just pretend it never happened. The right answer would, of course, always be to direct them down the route of a diagnosis exercise to discover what problem they need solved with a new website.
How important is your website?
Website sales have increased by 80% year-on-year.
Obviously, this has been heavily influenced by the pandemic, but the signs are indicating this trend isn’t going to flip back to pre-COVID-19 levels, and that’s not all:
- 72% in the hospitality industry said technology will be pivotal in helping them operate once lockdown eases
- 62% say an increased desire to pre-book or pre-order will impact their business over the next 12 months
- 61% of consumers will plan far more thoroughly where they are visiting
- 70% of people that would continue to order delivery from takeaways.
In short, digital solutions, whether you’re in hospitality or not, have never been more important to your business… and your website is your most precious asset.
Errr…so how much does a website cost, again?
It really is an impossible question, as you could be a small business wanting web presence and a means to showcase your brand; who you are, what you do, and how you can get in touch. Take this Storyman website we created, as an example.
Or you could be a high-profile brewery with 260 pubs, inns, and hotels across the North West, including different brands and brews, sells its own beer, has an online shop and a website that integrates with its till, table management, mobile order and pay, room booking, WiFi, online payment provider, Gift Cards & Vouchers, event booking, email and reviews systems.
See what I mean? Depending on what a brand needs their website for, the costs can be completely different.
So, this is where we’d start… Understanding your exact functionality requirements.
Core elements of your website costs
Functionality
The first thing we’d need to understand is the functionality your website might need.
First of all, we build our websites on a pioneering technology stack. As the future of website industry, this is a given. Then, we’ll collaborate on exactly what your website needs to be able to do.
Do you need a website to do the basics, with minimal functionality like email sign up and social media integration?
Or does your website need to do more, with personal profile pages or middle-ware to support specific functionality…? For example, websites for pubs and restaurants often need to include functionality for table bookings, a voucher system, and click and collect takeaway.
This arguably creates the biggest cost range of all website requirements because it fundamentally determines how the website will work and what you would like it to do.
Estimated website development cost: From £3,000 to £100,000+
Design
Once again, website design costs can vary greatly. The client may have detailed brand guidelines or a strong vision for the design of the website, or they may not have a brand whatsoever and require a full branding exercise.
Typically, we find the requirement is somewhere in-between these two extremes, but whatever the case, in-depth decisions made collaboratively with your agency are required before website development on all sorts of design aspects, including:
- Logo
- Finalised colour palettes
- UI elements such as forms and CTA buttons
- Imagery and iconography
Estimated website design cost: From £1,000 to £25,000
Components
Your components are the modules that make up your webpages. This could include items like a full-width banner, a text box, or image gallery, and you could easily end up with 100 different components, all styled in your design theme.
The key here is how many components you require and how complicated these components are to create, which, again, can change the price drastically:
Estimated website components cost: From £500 to £20,000
You need the three core elements of functionality, components, and design to create the basis of your website, but depending on your level of investment and what you do in these three areas, the end outcome will never be the same. As you can see, depending on your requirement in each of these areas, budgets can increase and decrease accordingly.
For example, you might have strong brand guidelines and a vision of what you want the website to look like already, but want significant functionality and a wide selection of components included.
Or, on the other hand, your website might require minimal functionality and only a small handful of components, but you’re starting from scratch with your brand journey and need a number of collaborative, brand-building workshops.
It’s a lot to think about, isn’t it?
Well, forget all of that…
What about if you could share these core elements with other businesses in your industry and pay a monthly £50 fee rather than pay for an upfront cost for your website?
Our bespoke web platform, brew.web is on its way and we’ll have more on this in the coming months…
…and finally!
…before I get lynched by the departments that didn’t get a mention above, it’s worth mentioning that outside of these core costs there are incredibly important additional considerations which will impact the cost of your web build and ongoing website costs. Each could easily get their own blog, but include:
- Foundation workshop
- Content
- Photography, film and animation
- Website hosting and security costs
- SEO
- Training and support
- Website maintenance
- Marketing support
Want to know more about our website offerings? Or just want a quick chat to understand more about buying a website? Please do get in touch or sign up to our newsletter to be first in line to hear about brew.web when it launches. Big things are coming…