Web Design – A Pricing Guide

Spend one hour on development for every $1,000 in projected yearly revenue.

Web design can be as subjective as art. You want your website to replicate a brick-and-mortar business. It should look professional and have branding and instant appeal. You might give someone $5,000 to build your website with a point and click website builder, or you might pay a professional web designer $5,000 for a much better site designed from scratch. How do you know what to pay? It comes down to your specific needs, both upfront and in the future. The best way to figure out how much you should spend on your website, is to make a list of the required functionality starting with your website budget. If you are planning on generating $100k per year in customers/sales through your website, you should think about spending $10k-$20k on professional website development and website management. 

Should I Use A Website Builder?

There are many tools called “website builders” to help the average person create a website on their own. Should you use a website builder? I’ll answer this question with a question:

Do you change your own motor oil? To do so, you get under the car, remove the oil pan screw, drain the oil, change the filter, replace the screw, replace the oil. Simple right? Although, changing car oil is a simple task, most people take their car in to have the oil changed by a skilled professional; paying $100 for 15 minutes of work. So why would you try and build something as complex as your business website by yourself, or through friends and family, using something as generic and limited as a website builder? 

Many of these companies lure you in with flashy marketing and unbelievably low prices. Their ads feel warm, exciting, and convincing—promising that with just a small monthly payment, you’ll have everything handled and your business will take off. The introductory rate looks amazing, and a friendly sales rep makes it seem effortless.

But once you launch your website, reality hits. The site sits stagnant, performs poorly, or develops problems you can’t solve. Support is no longer the friendly sales rep—it’s automated AI, chatbots, or ticket queues. No helpful conversation. No real guidance. No one who actually understands your business.

Eventually, you start telling yourself the website is “fine,” or maybe it’s not that important after all. But the truth is simple: these platforms are built on cheap, limited systems that can’t produce real results. And of course it feels overwhelming—you’re not a professional developer. You were sold the dream, but handed the bare minimum. Which leads us to the cold hard truth about e-commerce websites:

Web-Based Businesses Do Not Run Themselves

Companies will advertise that they have a solution to your website problems by giving you the power to “Do-It-Yourself.” These website builders force your business into a point-and-click, cookie-cutter model. Most are bulky and inefficient. They are a one-size-fits-all approach to something as special and unique as your business. The sites look and feel franchised — they all share the same layout and features. Your clothing store looks just like all the others on the platform using the same templates and color schemes. The products might vary, but your layout still screams: “I built this myself!”

Geared for simplicity, they do not take into consideration your sales model, user experience, or marketing demographics. Your pages load slowly because of all the 5MB images that were never compressed correctly. Your visibility to search engines and AI models is non-existent because your site lacks the necessary content you never had time to write. And if the website builder is geared toward sales, take a look at how much it will cost you down the road once your online store starts to pick up. Suddenly you’ve jumped pricing tiers, paying $2,000 per year for designing your own website. We charge $75 per month for managed hosting — that’s a pretty big savings.

The only thing thriving on these website builders are the upsells. Ever wonder why they advertise successful businesses or TV personalities? If they showed the average user’s website, you wouldn’t feel confident about your results — and that’s how they hook you. They sell the sensation that you will be accomplished, and for next to nothing. Maybe it starts out as a freemium plan or a small yearly fee that skyrockets on renewal. It costs almost nothing to begin but becomes expensive very quickly. You’ll surely wish you started with the keys in your own hand — a site you can own, change, and move. Something done right from the start. A professional, unique design and experience to rival your brick-and-mortar presence.

You need a professional web developer and manager, not a website builder. A knowledgeable, skilled, human professional — someone within your own country who understands your company culture, who will analyze your business model, and design webpages with real sales funnels geared toward conversions. And when something goes wrong? Lightning-fast checks and repairs — fixing bugs with both coding and marketing solutions, keeping up with preventative maintenance without the upsells. A company capable of analyzing your industry and competition with real analytic precision, giving your business a legitimate chance to succeed.

Please check out our video on The Basics of Web Design for more information on why you should have Host Much design your website for you.

How Much Does Web Design Cost?

How much does it really cost to have a professional web design firm like Host Much, custom-build your website with security features and all the other important elements, bells and whistles?

Our web design fee is typically $190 per hour. Although, a company website (even for a small business) could potentially cost between $5,000 and $10,000, with $7,000 being the average cost to set up, design, build, database, refactor, test and create content. However, we do offer discounts on design work to our loyal customers that have a Elite Web Hosting or Superior Web Hosting account with us.

Okay, But How Much Will You Charge Me Total?

Depending on your project, we have two options:

1. Flat Fee Web Design

Basic websites starting at $1750+. We can layout your needs, create a wish-list and come up with a cost effective solution for your budget. A plug n’ play starter website for personal or small business use.

2. Hourly Rate

While the cost to actually develop the entire website could range from $120/hr to $210/hr based on the complexity of the website (i.e., custom functions, templates, frameworks, databasing) and the specific needs for content creation, layout and other programming, the average hourly rate is approximately $150. Multiply that by the average development hours of 50 and you get $7,500 for the average project.

Here’s a basic web design price list:

• Setup: $380
• Project Scope, Domain, Web Hosting, SSL, Template, Layout,
• Planning, Design & Building: $5,500
• HTML, CSS, Javascript, Databasing, Programming, Testing, Modifications & Revisions
• Content creation: $1500
• Most clients need us to create their content.
• Client training & consulting: $760
• ————————–
• Total:   $8,140

* An out of the box template website will usually cost $1750, and a custom website design will usually cost a minimum of $5,000 but can go upwards of $12,000 depending on project complexity. Content creation will also vary from $500 to upwards of $5,000 depending on how much content the client wants us to create for them, the quality, voice, etc… You can view our web design packages here.

Conclusion

Websites are complex. They do not have a one price fits all. Just like businesses do not have a one price fits all sales price. Timeframes vary. Plan for $190 an hour on additional development. Create a features list and allow several hours of development time per revision/feature request and take into consideration testing and consulting. Detail your project and keep all the features concise, so you can receive an accurate quote on hours. If $190 per hour seems too high for your website budget. I ask you this: How much did you pay the person that fixed your toilet and sink???

And if you think you should just spend the time and do-it-yourself, then you should also be doing your own plumbing, car maintenance therapy and consulting. One or two mistakes can have devastating effects on your website and company brand. What’s your free time worth to you? What’s your business worth to you? If you’re not comfortable paying hourly, you should negotiate a flat rate website package based on the functionality that your site requires. I leave you with this important statement:

For your online business, hire a skilled professional — not a friend, family member, hobbyist coder, or AI model. Hire someone who can assess your industry, answer your questions, guide your decisions, and build your website professionally and ethically. Choose a company that’s available when you call, not just when a chatbot responds.