What are the costs associated with building a website?
We’ve identified five different costs that come with building a website. So, before we dive into our analysis here’s a quick rundown of each of these costs and what they refer to:
- Set-up: The cost of getting started, whether that's signing up for a service, your initial meetings with a developer, or any other costs associated with getting a site started.
- Design: The cost of designing the look of your site. This could be buying a template or paying a developer to create a custom design for you.
- Building: The cost of actually building your website. This refers to creating pages and content, and adding any backend functionality required.
- Alterations and adding additional functionality: Not all websites have everything you need right out of the box. In many cases, you’ll need to pay additional money to make sure your site has all the functionalities you need.
- Maintenance: This includes any costs associated with maintaining your website, including upgrading software and plugins, updating content, keeping your website secure, and fixing anything that breaks.
As you can see, there are a lot of different expenses to consider when building a website. Make sure you factor all these costs into your assessment before choosing a method for building your site.
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How we calculated our website cost estimates
As seasoned marketing professionals, we’ve built many different websites using all three of the methods described in this guide. This experience, plus additional research, formed the basis of our assessment. But we didn’t stop there.
We also surveyed a number of entrepreneurs in various industries and stages of business growth to gather their feedback. We’ve incorporated their experiences into our estimates to remove any biases and generate an accurate estimate of costs, both in terms of money and time.
It’s important to note that while the expenses listed below are based on plenty of research, they're just estimates. The costs of building a website can vary depending on a number of factors unique to your business, so keep that in mind as you’re reading this article.
Also keep in mind these costs are conservative estimates for North American based-businesses.
Costs of building a website with WordPress
Note: this section refers to the free open-source software offered by WordPress.org, not the paid blogging platform offered by WordPress.com.
WordPress is one of the most popular tools for building a website. The software is what’s known as an open-source content management system (CMS), and installing it on your website gives you the basic backend functionality you need to run your site and edit content.
What attracts many small businesses to WordPress is the fact that it’s free, which gives the impression that building a website with this software is extremely cost-effective. However, there are a few important things to consider before choosing this method:
- It’s not really free. While the software itself is free, you still need to pay for your domain name and monthly hosting. And while many themes and plugins are also free, you'll likely wind up paying for a premium theme and plugins in the near future.
- It requires more technical knowledge. You’ll need to install WordPress on your site, add and update plugins for additional functionality, and potentially edit code to make some changes.
- There’s limited support: WordPress software is open-source, meaning developers from around the world donate their time to maintain it. While this is great, unfortunately there’s no dedicated support team to help you with any issues you have. You’ll either have to try to find the answers you need on their support forum or hire someone to fix the problem.
This isn’t to say that WordPress is a bad option. However, it’s not the free and easy tool many make it out to be. If you don’t have a lot of experience building websites you could end up spending a lot of time and money in order to get the site you want.
With all that said, let’s break down the costs:
Setup: $75
Your setup costs will consist of purchasing hosting and a domain. On average, you’ll pay at least $5 a month for basic hosting, and most hosting providers require you to pay for the entire year up front (so $60). The average domain will cost you around $15 per year.
Design: $60
While there are free website templates available, most are fairly minimal and don’t have many features. They also tend to have security problems if they are not kept up to date. If you’re serious about starting an online business you’ll likely want to opt for a premium theme, which will cost you around $60.
Building: $0
WordPress comes with all the basic functionality necessary for your site to function. You’ll just need to add new pages, upload images, and write the content. So, assuming you don’t hire someone to complete these tasks for you there are no required monetary expenses here.
Alterations and Adding Additional Functionality: $200
This is where the cost of your website can really get out of hand. On its own, WordPress provides a very basic website. But your small business will likely need additional functionality in order to generate leads, make sales, and engage with your customers. This means you’ll have to add plugins, make changes to your theme (which often involves coding PHP files), and perform various other alterations to your website.
If you have a lot of technical knowledge and experience building websites, you can perform this work yourself. However, in our experience, and after talking to many entrepreneurs, most don’t. So, you’ll likely have to hire someone to help you get your website where you need it to be, or potentially pay for courses to learn how to do it yourself. Expect to pay around $200 for this. And of course, if you do wind up doing this yourself, remember that your time isn't truly free.
Maintenance (per year): $180
Once your site is up and running you should anticipate some ongoing costs to maintain your website and keep it working the way you want. According to a study by Volusion, you’ll pay anywhere from $0 - $20 for technical website maintenance (fixing 404 errors, dealing with server errors, fixing broken links, etc.) and $0 - $10 on additional plugins and tools every month. If we average it out, that’s about $15 per month and $180 per year.
Security and emergencies: $250
Because WordPress is an open-source platform, any out-of-date software versions, themes, and plugins make it particularly vulnerable to security issues, even for basic websites. Protecting your site with a WordPress security plugin like Sucuri starts at $199/year. And if your site is hacked, restoring your website with the help of an expert typically starts at $250.
Total cost: $765 for the first year, $505/year thereafter
While the initial setup cost of a WordPress site is fairly low, the expenses start to add up once you get into modifying and maintaining your site. Over time, these expenses can really snowball, which is why it’s important to look beyond your initial setup costs.
“Early on, I wasted a lot of time learning WordPress, purchasing themes and plugins, and wrestling with different platforms and tech headaches instead of creating great content and building out a sales funnel.”
Colin Belt - BeltCreative.com
Costs of Hiring a Website Developer
If you’re thinking that building a website with WordPress sounds too difficult then you may consider hiring a developer to do it for you.
This would take a lot of the work out of your hands and allow you to lean on the technical expertise of a professional. It also gives you the freedom to customize your site however you like. A developer can come up with a unique design and install all the functionalities your business needs to reach its full potential.
A developer may create your site from scratch, or build your website on WordPress but with custom code.
As you might expect though, this option is very expensive. Building a website from scratch is a very long process and professional web design services don’t come cheap.
You can hire developers through sites like Upwork and Fiverr, but a quality developer will charge a steep price for their services.
Most small businesses (especially pre-revenue ones) won’t have the budget to go this route. Still, if you’re curious about the costs here’s what you can expect to pay:
Setup: $200
Getting the process started with your designer will likely involve a few meetings so you can convey your vision, let them know what you need, agree on deadlines, etc. You’ll also need to pay for your domain and hosting. Budget about $200 for this process.
Design: $3,000
Once the developer has an idea of what you want it’s time for them to actually design your site. They’ll likely come up with a few different concepts to choose from, using software like Figma, Sketch, or InVision. Depending on their skills they might need to bring in a graphic designer to help with this. You can expect this portion of the build to cost around $3,000.
Building: $4,000
The next step is actually building the website and coding all the backend functionalities that actually allow your website to function. This is the bulk of the work you’ll pay for, so be prepared to spend around $4,000 for this.
Alterations and Adding Additional Functionality: $0
The first version of your website won’t be perfect, and there will likely be changes needed. Luckily, most web developers factor this into their quote, so if that’s the case you won’t be charged anything extra for a round or two of revisions.
Maintenance (per year): $1,000
One downside of hiring a developer is that moving forward you’ll likely need their help with any maintenance that has to be performed. A good strategy is to keep them on retainer, meaning you pay them an agreed-upon amount each month to handle any issues that arise. Be prepared to budget about $1,000 for the year.
Security and emergencies: $0
Some developers may include security and emergencies in their maintenance plan, but many won't. For the sake of our calculation, we'll assume that they do. However, it's not uncommon for a developer to charge $75/hour or more to fix a security issue that comes up.
Total cost: $8200 for the first year, $1075/year thereafter
As expected, when you run the numbers hiring a developer is a very expensive process. As we mentioned earlier, this is based on both our experience and the experience of other entrepreneurs. Our estimated costs are actually lower than others out there. For example, according to WebFX a custom website can cost you as much as $150,000, just to launch it!
With all that said, the website you get will be tailored to the unique needs of your business, which does have its benefits. Still, with a cost this high, this method is probably best saved for larger companies with plenty of marketing budget to spare.
Costs of using a website builder
At this point, you’re likely thinking that WordPress sounds too difficult and hiring a developer seems too expensive. Luckily, there’s a third option: using a website builder.
With this option, you’ll be able to do a large portion of the work yourself. This not only gives you more creative control but also keeps your costs down. Plus, you’ll have lots of help from a customer support team, so you’re not completely on your own like you are with WordPress.
There are many different website builders available, but for the purpose of this exercise we’ll use our own Leadpages website builder as an example.
Setup: $0
Leadpages offers a free trial, so you don’t actually have to pay anything to get started. Simply register your account and start building your website. There are plenty of tutorials and support articles to help you learn how to use the builder (although we’ve designed it to be very intuitive and user-friendly) and our support team is standing by if you run into any issues.
You’ll be assigned a Leadpages domain and your site can be hosted on our servers, so it’s not necessary to pay for those if you don’t want to. However, if you want your own custom domain you can get a free domain for one year through Hover. Or you can register a domain separately for $15/year or less at sites like GoDaddy, Namecheap, or Google.
Design: $0
There are over 200 landing page and website templates included in your Leadpages subscription. So, you won’t have to pay any extra for design as well. You can choose templates based on industry, style, color, and conversion rate to find the one that best suits your business.
Building: $0
Leadpages comes with all the tools you need to build a professional high-converting website. Plus, the easy-to-use builder means you don’t have to outsource any of the work.
However, if you do need help you can always contact our customer support team, or submit your website to get feedback from our marketing experts. All of this is included in your subscription.
Alterations and Adding Additional Functionality: $0
We’ve designed Leadpages to include all the features and functionality you need. From pop-ups and alert bars to submission forms and the ability to take payments, you have everything you need to effectively run your online business.
Maintenance (per year): $444
Once your free trial expires you’ll be billed for the subscription plan you chose. The above estimate is based on our Standard plan, which is currently $444 per year. You also have the option to upgrade to our Pro Plan which is currently $888 per year and offers a few more tools and features.
Our software is constantly updated to conform to website best practices, and we’re always adding new tools and features. As for the rest of your maintenance (updating copy, adding new pages, etc.) you can easily perform these tasks in the builder. And as always, our support team is standing by to help you with any maintenance issues you might have.
Security and emergencies: $0
Because Leadpages is a hosted platform running on Google Cloud, security is not your responsibility. Between the Leadpages team and the engineers at Google, we've got your back during those rare cases when something happens.
Total cost: $444/year
When using Leadpages, the only cost is your subscription price which includes everything you need to build and maintain your website. You have the flexibility to choose the plan that best suits your needs, and you can always upgrade later if you decide you need additional tools and functionality.
Best of all, your subscription includes support from our experts, so you always have someone to assist you. This support, combined with the easy-to-use builder, saves you a lot of time in the long run.
“Leadpages websites are a brilliant idea, especially for new business owners. “
Heather Moritz - RuthSoukup.com
Your expected website costs over a five-year period
Simply giving you the costs of building your website would be rather short-sighted of us. Websites aren’t static. They’re constantly changing and in need of updates, all of which will cost you money. So, it’s only fair that we break down the costs over a longer period of time so you can see what you should expect to pay outside of just the first year.
The below estimates are based on the one-year maintenance costs outlined above, annual domain and hosting renewal fees, and the assumption that you’ll likely want to rebrand your site in year four.
As you can see, the cost difference between hiring a developer and the other two options becomes even more apparent when you look at a longer time frame. It’s also worth noting that the subscription-based model of a site builder means your costs are consistent each year, even if you decide to do a full rebrand.
Websites cost more than just money
When evaluating the cost of a project, it’s easy to just focus on dollars and cents. But the true cost of a website extends beyond your bank account.
Your time is valuable. The more hours you spend working on your website the less time you have to work on other areas of your business. So, don’t judge a website solution strictly on the dollar cost. Because if you’re spending all your time fixing your website when you should be serving customers and developing new products it will end up costing you far more than you budgeted for.
For this reason, we’ve also included a breakdown of how much time each method will take. We based our estimates on both our experience as well as feedback from other entrepreneurs who have gone through the process of building a website.
To help illustrate the value of your time, we’ve assigned it a value of $65 per hour (a typical rate a consultant would charge a client). By combining the cost of your time, along with the expenses we’ve outlined above, you’ll see the true cost of each strategy.
The time costs of using WordPress
When you build a website with WordPress you’re more or less on your own (unless you decide to spend some extra money and contract some of the work out). It also requires more technical knowledge than the other two methods.
Because of this, the process is very time-intensive. You’ll spend many hours troubleshooting, making changes, and finding the right plugins for your website.
Here’s an estimate of the time you can expect to spend building a site on WordPress:
Setup: 1 hour ($65)
Setting up a WordPress site involves purchasing a domain name and hosting and installing WordPress on your site. Most web hosts offer tools that simplify the process and allow you to install the software in just a few clicks.
Set aside an hour to purchase your domain name, register with your web host, and install WordPress.
Design: 10 hours ($325)
There are plenty of WordPress themes to choose from, and installing a new theme on your site is quick and easy. In most cases, you just search for the theme you want in WordPress and click “Install.”
The real time is spent finding the right theme. There are thousands of different themes created by many different designers. That means WordPress themes are scattered all over the internet. Sure, you can find some good themes with a simple Google search, but you’ll likely have to go to a few different sites before you find the right one.
Some themes have options to change things like colors and fonts, but not all. In these cases, you’ll have to make changes to the code in order to get the theme looking exactly how you want it to.
Plus, you'll want to factor in your time searching for the perfect images to use on your website.
Building: 120 hours ($6,500)
This involves writing content, adding images, and building out each of your pages. However, before you even start building your site you’ll need to learn how to actually use WordPress. You’ll likely need to watch a few tutorials before you begin (and probably during the build as well) to get the hang of the software.
Now, if you’re happy with the way your theme is laid out and don’t want to add any new sections or features, then our estimate is high. You can simply type in your content, upload your images, and you’re done.
But let’s face it–no generic theme you download from the internet is going to perfectly suit your business. You’re probably going to want to add a new section to your homepage, or a few extra images, or maybe a table of contents on one of your pages. If your theme isn’t designed to accommodate these changes it will mean searching forums for a solution or trying to find a plugin that does what you want it to.
Add this to the time it takes to learn WordPress and create all the content for your site, and you’re looking at around 120 hours.
Alterations and adding additional functionality: 40 hours ($2,600)
This is one part of building a WordPress website that can be a real time suck. Most templates aren’t going to come with all the functionalities you need for your website. This is when you have to start searching for plugins or looking for someone who can help you get your website where you need it to be.
There are thousands of WordPress plugins and finding the right ones for your website can be very time-consuming.
Based on our experience, this process can take as much as 40 hours.
Maintenance (1st Year): 80 hours ($5,200)
As we’ve already discussed, you’ll likely need to perform a number of changes and fixes to your small business website throughout the year. The amount of time you’ll spend on this really depends on your technical knowledge.
If you don’t have much experience with websites you’ll likely spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to do things. In this case, expect to spend up to 80 hours on website maintenance over the course of a year.
Total time costs: 231 hours ($15,015)
As you can see, building a site with WordPress is going to take up a lot of your time. When you attach a dollar figure to it (over $15,000) you begin to realize just how costly this route is.
Keep in mind that these estimates are based on a mid-sized website. Smaller sites will obviously take less time, while a larger site might take even more time. According to WP Builder Helper, building a website with WordPress can take anywhere from two weeks to a few months, so production time can vary quite a bit depending on the type of site you’re creating. And while your site is in production, it's difficult for it to generate revenue for your business.
“I knew there was going to be a learning curve for the tech aspect of starting a website, but I didn’t know how big that learning curve was going to be. My goal in starting was to get something that looked decent for as low cost as possible. While I may have saved money, I definitely spent more time (and had more headaches) due to opting for the [WordPress] route.”
Julianna Poplin - TheSimplicityHabit.com
Time Costs of Hiring a Developer
One advantage of using professional web design services is that you have someone else doing the work for you. However, that doesn’t mean the project won’t require any of your time. Here’s the amount of time you can expect to spend on your website build if you hire a developer.
Set-Up: 10 hours ($650)
A lot of your time will initially be spent simply trying to find a web developer you want to work with. Sites like Upwork, Fiverr, and MarketerHire have made this process easier, but you’ll still need to create the job posting, review applications and work samples, and conduct interviews. You’ll probably want to speak to at least three developers before deciding to hire one.
Expect to spend about one hour creating your job posting, five hours reviewing applications, three hours conducting interviews, and another hour to review and make your final decision.
Design: 6 hours ($390)
Once your developer begins working on your website, the first thing they’ll do is start coming up with your design. This will involve some initial meetings with you to establish how you want your website to look. Here are some of the things you’ll need to provide your developer with in order for them to get started:
- Your logo
- Your color scheme
- Any images you want to use
- Examples of website designs that you like
All of this takes time. For example, if you don’t have a logo you’ll need to either create one or hire someone to create one for you. You’ll also need to spend time sourcing images and reviewing websites that you like.
If you add all this up, and account for additional emails and phone calls with your developer, you can expect to spend around six hours on the initial design.
Building: 31 hours ($2,275)
This is the process that will take the bulk of your developer’s time. Sure, the front-end design is what visitors see when they arrive at your website. But it’s the backend code that actually makes your site function.
Like design, this will involve a number of meetings to ensure the final product is to your liking. You’ll also need to provide your developer with a list of functionalities and features you’d like your site to have.
Finally, you’ll need to fill your site with content. Developers aren’t writers, so you’ll either need to hire someone to write the content for you (which will further add to your expenses) or write it yourself. For the purpose of this exercise, we’re going to assume you’ll decide to "save money" by writing the content yourself.
So, similar to design we can estimate you’ll spend roughly six hours gathering information and meeting with your developer. As far as writing your content goes, that’s really going to depend on your website. However, if we assume you have a five-page website, we estimate you’ll spend roughly 25 hours (5 hours per page) creating your content.
So combined, you can expect this process to take 31 hours of your time.
Alterations and adding additional functionality: 16 hours ($1,040)
Of course, the initial design and build that your developer presents to you likely won’t be exactly what you want. You should expect multiple revisions throughout the process before you finally receive the finished product.
As your website is being built you’ll have multiple meetings with your developer, and likely a few additional phone calls and emails. You’ll be frequently reviewing their work, providing feedback, and checking in on their progress.
All in all, expect to spend 16 hours on this type of work during the project.
Maintenance (1st year): 20 hours ($1300)
After your website has been completed you’ll work with your developer throughout the year to ensure everything continues to function properly. Even though your developer is there to help you, you’ll still want to be monitoring your site so you can alert them if anything goes wrong. You’ll also likely end up requesting additional changes and functionalities once you actually start using your site.
So, anticipate spending about 20 hours a year on website maintenance.
Total time costs: 83 hours ($5,395)
While you have a developer doing most of the work for you, you still need to provide them with guidance and manage the project. Most people underestimate how much time this will take. While it’s still far less than building a website yourself in WordPress, it’s certainly not an insignificant amount of time.
You also have to keep in mind that building a website from scratch is a long process, even for an experienced developer. Plus, your project probably won’t be the only one they’re working on. Production time varies depending on the complexity of your site, but you can expect to wait a minimum of 14 weeks for your website to be fully ready. By comparison, it’s possible to create a website in just a couple days with Leadpages.
When you combine all this with the actual dollar cost of hiring a developer this option becomes much less appealing—unless you have a large budget, a team to help you oversee the project, and a lot of time to work with.
Time costs of using a website builder
While a website builder means you’ll be doing the work yourself, the interface is designed to be extremely user-friendly. This greatly reduces the number of issues you’ll have to troubleshoot. Best of all, when you use a site builder like Leadpages, customer support is always available to walk you through any problems you have. As you’ll see, this greatly reduces the time you need to spend building your website.
Setup: 1 hour ($65)
To get started, all you have to do is sign up for your Leadpages account. Simply submit your information, choose your plan, and you’re done. If you want to connect your Leadpages site to an existing domain, you can do so in less than 5 minutes.
Design: 1 hour ($65)
Choosing a design for your Leadpages site is quick and easy. Sort the professionally-designed website templates by industry, style, color, and conversion rate to find the one that best suits your business. Once you’ve chosen your design you can swap in a new logo, change the color scheme, and make other alterations in the builder.
Building: 55 hours ($3,575)
Before you actually begin creating your small business website you’ll likely have a few questions about how the website builder works. Luckily, our knowledge base has all the answers. Our customer support team is also happy to answer any questions you have.
Once you’re comfortable with the software you can start adding and removing sections, uploading images, and writing your content. Expect to spend about 10 hours per page if you want to make it epic, quite a bit less if you keep it concise.
So, for a five-page website that would be 50 hours. If we add another five hours to learn the software that’s a total of 55 hours. This is an extremely conservative estimate. Most Leadpages customers launch their first website with about 20 hours of effort.
Alterations and adding additional functionality: 20 hours ($1,300)
While building your site you’ll likely go through a few different versions as your try to find the right look. You’ll also probably want to add additional functionality to your site, including forms, pop-ups, and alert bars. Or you might want to connect your favorite marketing tools to your site.
Expect to spend an additional 20 hours perfecting your website and adding the functionalities you need over the first few months of your new website.
Maintenance (1st year): 40 hours ($2,600)
While you won’t have a developer to perform all your maintenance for you, you’re also not completely alone like you are with WordPress. If you encounter any problems with your website after it’s built, you can contact customer support for assistance.
Our team will either send you a helpful video to show you how to resolve the issue or in some cases they might even be able to fix it for you.
Over the course of the year, you can expect to spend about 40 hours maintaining your website.
Total time costs: 117 hours ($7,605)
When we run the numbers we find that using a site builder will take you a little more time than hiring a developer and a lot less time than creating a site with WordPress. And for smaller sites (one or two pages) you can likely cut this estimate in half.
It’s also important to note that you’ll be able to launch your site a lot quicker than you would be hiring a developer. Because you’re in complete control of the process you don’t have to wait for someone else to do the work or waste time in meetings. Depending on the size of your website you should be able to launch it in weeks or days, rather than months. Which means a faster path to a revenue generating website with Leadpages.
Your expected time costs over a five year period
Just like with your dollar costs, let’s look at how your time costs build up over a five-year period. This table is based on the time you’ll spend on yearly maintenance, as well as a rebrand in year four.
When comparing all three methods, it really becomes apparent just how much more time-intensive building a website with WordPress is. While hiring a developer will take the least amount of your time, it’s still a lot more than most people expect.
The total cost of a website (dollar costs + time costs)
To get a true estimate of how much building a website will cost you, here’s your dollar and time costs added up for each method over a five-year period.
WordPress is often touted to be the cheapest way to build a website. However, when you factor in hidden costs and the time involved to build a website this way, that’s simply not true in most cases. And while hiring a developer compares favorably to using WordPress, it doesn’t provide nearly as much value as using a site builder.
Overall, website builders like Leadpages strike the best balance between keeping your dollar costs low while also minimizing the amount of time you need to spend on the project.
Which option is right for you?
It’s important to note that the above costs are just estimates. These can vary widely depending on various products or tools you use, your own technical knowledge and abilities, and the types of developers/freelancers you decide to hire. So your decision isn’t as cut and dry as the above numbers might lead you to believe.
So, with that in mind, which option should you choose?
Choose WordPress if…
You’re technically savvy and already very familiar with WordPress and how it works. Someone who’s more technical can greatly reduce our time estimates, making this a much more viable option.
WordPress is also a great choice for bloggers, as it makes creating, editing, and posting new content easy. If you like WordPress’ blogging capabilities, but want to take advantage of Leadpages’ landing pages, pop-ups, and alert bars, check out the Leadpages WordPress plugin. That way, you can enjoy the best of both worlds.
Choose a developer if…
You’re a large company with lots of resources and the need for a completely customized website. There’s something to be said for a site that’s built especially for your business, but it really only makes sense for companies that have a large budget and a team of people to manage the project.
For most small businesses, the large upfront costs won’t make financial sense for them.
Choose a website builder if…
You’re on a tight budget and don’t have a lot of experience building a website. The subscription model means there are no unexpected costs and you know exactly what your expenses will be every year. The builder has also been designed to be easy to use, no matter what your experience level is. If your concept of business blogging is to write just a handful of articles per year, then blogging with Leadpages allows you to avoid WordPress. And having access to customer support means help is just a click away without hourly charges for the privilege.
For these reasons, site builders are generally the best option for small business owners.
Start building your website for free
Need to build a new website for your small business? Use Leadpages free for 14 days to test our website builder and start building your site. You can experiment with different templates and layouts to find one that suits your business, all without having to put any money down.
It’s a great risk-free way to begin your website build and get a feel for what creating your own website is really like.
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