- Five things set the price: how many unique page designs you need, what the site has to do, who prepares the content, what it connects to, and how it will be looked after.
- A template site and a custom business system are different products that happen to share a name, which is why price lists mislead.
- Ask for a fixed, itemised quote. An hourly estimate moves every risk onto you.
- If the budget is small, build fewer pages properly and grow later.
"How much will it cost?" is the question I hear most, usually in the first minute of a call. The honest answer is "it depends", which sounds like dodging. So here is exactly what it depends on, what different kinds of project involve, and how to tell a fair quote from a padded one.
Why prices vary so much
Here are two requests of the kind I see every week. A café owner wants five pages: home, menu, story, gallery, contact. A boutique hotel wants room pages, live availability, a deposit taken by card, confirmation emails, and a dashboard where staff can see the day's arrivals.
Both are "a website". The first is mostly design and content. The second is a small piece of software with money moving through it. Quoting them from the same price list would be like a builder pricing a garden shed and a house per square metre.
The five things that set the price
- Unique page designs. A site with 40 pages might only need four layouts: home, service, article and contact. You pay mainly for layouts, not page count. A custom design for every page costs more than one strong system used everywhere.
- What the site has to do. A contact form takes an hour. Online booking with rules (minimum stays, staff calendars, deposits) takes weeks. Each function needs logic, testing and protection against misuse.
- Content. Words, photos and translations are the most underestimated part of every project. If you write and supply everything, the price drops. If you need copywriting, product photography or three languages, it rises.
- Connections. Payments, a CRM, accounting software, email marketing, a booking calendar. Each outside system has its own rules, limits and failure modes.
- Care after launch. Hosting, updates, backups, security monitoring and small edits. A site that nobody looks after gets slower and riskier every month.
Five kinds of project, from smallest to largest
Every quote I write falls somewhere on this ladder. Each step up adds work for a real reason, and it helps to know which step you are on before you compare quotes.
| Kind of project | What it usually includes |
|---|---|
| A single landing page | One page that explains what you do and makes it easy to get in touch. Ideal for a launch, an ad campaign or a new business. |
| A small business website | Around four to six pages with their own design, contact forms, search set-up and a layout that works on every phone. |
| A larger site or online store | More pages and layouts, products and checkout, simple bookings or integrations, and often help with the writing. |
| A site with real functionality | Bookings with payments, customer accounts, several languages, a CRM connection, or a large content library. |
| A web app or business system | Client portals, custom CRMs, dashboards, complex stores and anything that runs on your own business rules. |
The same project costs different amounts in different countries and with different teams. That is why our Design Studio simply asks how far you want to go: start small and grow, a complete solid site, or the best it can be. After we talk, I tell you honestly what fits, and if the budget does not cover everything you described, what I would build first.
Running costs people forget
- Domain name renewal, every year.
- Hosting. Anything from almost nothing for a fast static site to a real monthly bill for a busy store or app.
- Business email accounts.
- Paid plugins and apps. On Shopify and WordPress these monthly fees add up quietly, so ask for the full list before you agree.
- Payment processing fees on every sale.
- Updates and security. Somebody has to keep the site patched. If it is you, budget the time.
Why we do not publish a price list
A price list makes you choose a package before anyone has understood the problem. Either you pay for things you do not need, or the package leaves out the one thing you do, and that turns up later as an "extra".
It also does not match what buyers say matters to them. In GoDaddy's 2022 research with US small-business owners who had recently hired a web professional, the qualities that decided the hire were vision, trust and value. Discounts and low prices, while important, were not the deciding factor for anyone they interviewed.
I also understand why "contact us for pricing" annoys people, because it is often a sales tactic. So this is how we keep it fair:
- You can design your site in our Design Studio and say how far you want to go, before you talk to anyone.
- One free video call in your time zone, where I mostly listen.
- One fixed, written, itemised quote, valid for 7 days.
- The price only changes if you change the scope, and any change is quoted before the work starts.
How to compare quotes
Put the quotes side by side and check that each one answers these questions in writing:
- Is the scope itemised, page by page and feature by feature?
- How many rounds of design changes are included?
- Who writes the words and supplies the images?
- Who owns the domain, the code and the content when the project ends? It should be you.
- What are the monthly running costs, including every paid app or plugin?
- What happens after launch: how long is the support period, and what does ongoing care cost?
- What is the payment schedule, and what happens if the project is cancelled halfway?
Sources
I design and build websites, online stores and business systems for clients in the US, UK, Europe, Australia and Canada, from Colombo, Sri Lanka. When you work with iVishwa, you talk to me directly, from the first call to launch and after.
Want a straight answer for your own project?
Design your website in the Studio, tell me your budget if you like, and I will reply with one fixed, written quote.
