Understanding Website Development Costs

There  are many moving parts involved in the process of hosting, developing and designing a website, and all of them have certain costs associated with them. The following are the factors considered in website development costs.

3 Factors Determining Website Development Costs 

1.Custom made vs. Templates

There are many programs and websites that provide free templates for the building of websites. Since the templates have already been provided, a web developer only needs to customize them to come up with a website. On the other hand, there are sites that are custom made from scratch. These sites require developers to invest more time and energy to the development process than the ones that are made from templates. Therefore, the ones that require more effort would cost more.

2. Technical soundness

Templates are mainly about the appearance of the website. While appearance is an important way to attract and push visitors down the sales funnel, it is the technical soundness of a website that keeps them coming. A good website should provide impenetrable security for its visitor’s information. This is especially the case if the site requests visitors to provide their credit card and communication details. All the security features necessary for a site to keep information safe would not be required for a simple website that only allows visitors to read. Learn more about website security services. 

 3. Skill level of the developer 

Like in every other field, when a web developer works for some time, they develop a niche for themselves and start charging a certain amount of money. A web developer who has a good portfolio inspires confidence, and since there is a good number of people seeking their services, they are likely to have a free hand to determine how much they want to charge for their websites. This does not necessarily mean that they do a better job than everybody else. There is likely to be others who charge less and do the job just as well or better. Therefore, it’s imperative for a client to seek out the people who will do a good job at a lower cost. There is difficulty in making this discovery, and it is always better to get someone in whose skills the client is confident even if the cost is high.

Why are some Websites so Expensive?

Websites that involve tracking and time management are time-consuming, and require highly specialized skills to develop. A good example is www.timedoctor.com. This site helps employers track the times and location of employees in real time.

Government websites built for the purpose of disseminating information and receiving feedback take a lot of time and research to design. A good example is www.recovery.gov which was built by Smartronix Inc. at the cost of $9.5 million over a period of 7 months.

Lastly, we have media websites. These have to be carefully designed to help handle the high traffic. A good example of these is iTunes which now costs $1.3 billion to run annually. 

Conclusion

While the above information is accurate, it is important to note that there isn’t a one-size-fit-all cost for website development. Actual costs, therefore, have to be on a case by case basis.

Do you need a quote for website development? Talk to us 🙂 We are always happy to help.