Running a business comes with numerous costs that help provide better services to the customers and stay ahead of the competition. As internet usage has increased over the past decade and continues to surge with each passing year, having a website for a business or a professional service is mandatory. Currently, before picking any business/company, customers typically visit vendor’s websites to determine whether they have the products and/or services they need. With that in mind, having a website is mandatory for a business if it wants to sustain itself in the industry. Having an effective website is often a long process that can come with high costs. Before you start building a website, you should at least have some idea of its “ballpark” price and the different factors that can influence it. This article will explain the general complete costs of building a website, maintenance, and marketing expenses in 2023.

The Average Cost of Building Website around the Globe

Among the different factors, the foremost consideration that influences the overall development cost of a website is the geographical location of its development team. The average cost of building a website can run anywhere between $8500 – $40,000.

Location	Cost per hour
USA	$200-$350
Canada	$100-$250
UK	$50-$200
Australia	$100-$200
Western Europe	$70-$150
Eastern Europe	$30-$150
Indonesia	$25-$100
India	$20-$80
Latin America	$30-$50

The most expensive region for website building is in the USA, followed by Canada and the UK as per the above information. Regions like Indonesia, India, and Latin America are much less expensive for website development. However, never confuse the quality of service with particular regions, as they can vary quite dramatically. The pricing of particular regions depends on several factors and the ongoing economy of that region. Even though you may prefer to build their website in the region where you reside, it may not be the best decision to make depending on your location. For instance, an organization looking to build a website may feel that the same level of service is expensive in the USA compared to offshore. Due to this reason, you might wish to consider having those tasks performed by a non-US engineering organization.

There are numerous perks of working with a partner for this service, but there are certain limitations as well. The foremost consideration is a communication gap that arises due to different nations and time zones. Though it might be something that can be managed, it is undoubtedly an additional challenge to meet. Apart from that, keeping an eye on the progress of the work is also another hurdle with overseas website development. Undeniably, there are a few challenges, but they normally are worth the effort as they will save budget and provide you with an excellent website.

Different Ways of Building a Website and Its Costs

There are three effective available options; Website Builder, WordPress, and a Professional Website Designer. The overall cost of building a website varies with your choice. Apart from the budget, one should consider the most suitable method of building your website. Below is a detailed explanation of these three methods so that you can analyze and choose the best one for your company.

1. Website Builder: Not every person is tech-savvy or has coding experience. Everybody is aware that building a website requires in-depth knowledge of coding. Anyone with no coding knowledge may believe that their only option to have a website is through hiring a developer. However, anyone can use a website builder, which will allow them to build a website despite having no coding knowledge. 
   
   There are two types of website builders; online and offline. An offline website builder is a software application that allows the website to be created on a computer. On the other hand, an online website builder is a web-based application that allows you to create a website on a server. Almost every website builder comes with features like drag and drop, media storage, multi-device compatibility, third-party integration, SEO analytics, etc. 
   
   Before we dig deeper into the costs involved in this method, you need to know that you need to pay approximately $150-$200 upfront for building a website. Website builders can either be free or paid, but keep in mind that you will get what you pay for. Free website builders will surely help you create a website, but they may lack essential features. As the website will have the utmost impact on your overall business, spending a few dollars on getting paid website builders should be your preferred decision. 
   
   The average monthly subscription of a website builder can be between $10-$50, including all high costs like hosting, security, features, and themes. Though it is entirely optional, you can integrate applications to enhance your website’s functionality. Paid applications can add nearly $20-$60 to your monthly website expense. When you build your website from a website builder, you do not need to spend any additional money on getting a web hosting service or professional help as the builder takes care of them. Furthermore, security features are also available, making this a preferred choice for small-scale organizations.
   
   Even though it varies with the features and applications that you integrate with the website, the approximate cost of building a website through a builder lies within $10-$100 a month. Wix, Weebly, and Squarespace are some of the best website builders present today. They offer great features and services. 
   
   However, it would be best to keep in mind that this method has certain limitations. The major limitation is a lack of personal control. You will only be limited to the features that the builder provides. Moreover, the created website may not look highly professional. If you plan to try out a website or have a limited budget, you can surely try this method. On the other hand, if you want a highly customized experience with great functionalities, you may have to spend the extra money and move to the other two methods.
2. WordPress: WordPress is the most popular way of building a website. Microsoft News, BBC America, and TED Blog are some of the biggest WordPress-based websites. WordPress is entirely free to use and does not charge any monthly fee, making it another affordable way of building a website. Apart from the cost-benefit, WordPress websites offer more control and customizations than a website builder. Due to several features and factors, getting the exact cost of building a WordPress website is difficult.
   
   There is an upfront cost of somewhere between $40-$700 that has to be paid initially. Afterwards, it is all about building the website’s monthly or yearly expenses. WordPress doesn’t charge any amount for website building, but there are additional costs. The hosting and domain cost is foremost, which may be at least $40 per month depending on the services and the hosting provider. In most cases, the hosting charges are paid annually, but it all depends on the hosting provider. Investigate and determine the payment duration and method before picking a hosting service.
   
   While these startup charges were the only mandatory expenses regarding a WordPress website, several other costs can exist, depending on what additional capabilities you might want to add. The WordPress platform is widely popular for the plugins and themes that it offers. These plugins will add additional features to the website without seeking professional help. On the other hand, themes are more about the website’s visual appearance. Both free and paid plugins and themes are available.
   
   Paid plugins and themes may come with a monthly subscription or a one-time fee. Sometimes, the website owner may want to ensure that their website is secure. Every renowned hosting provider gives additional security with the plan. However, taking additional steps to improve the overall website’s security is recommended by the experts. The average cost of security enhancement is $100 a year. However, you can get free plugins that provide better security than the basic hosting plan.
   
   Without a doubt, WordPress is all about customizations that cannot be achieved just through apps and plugins. If you want to build an entirely customized website, you will need a professional developer. Though having a developer work on a WordPress website will be cheaper than getting a developer to build a website from scratch, they will still charge somewhere around $50-$200 per hour, depending on their location and quality of work.
   
   WordPress is an excellent option for someone who wants better control and customizations on a website but does not have in-depth coding knowledge. The extra features WordPress provides come with additional premiums compared to a website builder. The average cost of building a WordPress website comes to the upfront cost of $250 and a monthly expense of $5 without any plugins and themes.
3. Website Developer: When you have a vision for what you want your website to be, but do not know how to execute it, in that case, all you have to do is hire a website developer.
   
   The professional does all the work, including adding the visual elements and features. Even though they will do all the major work, you have to coordinate with them regarding your goals and expectations to get the website you want. Having a professional developer is excellent for all those organizations who wish to have a complex website or do not have any technical knowledge about website building.
   
   While hiring a website developer offers the most customized website, the cost is higher than the other two methods. The cost of getting a dedicated website developer depends on their experience and the project requirements. Furthermore, a dedicated website development agency can also help get the job done at the same or an even lesser cost. When getting a website developer from a dedicated agency, you may have to spend around $5000 to $30,000 for the website’s creation.
   
   The upfront cost can be nearly $400, which may vary with the number of pages on the website, the features you want to add, and the amount of work required by the developer. Apart from that, a monthly fee of $100 can be expected, which will cover other aspects like hosting, domain, support, and maintenance.
   
   When it comes to adding themes or plugins to your website, all these things will be added in the final quote by the developer. You do not have to pay any additional amount for the same. However, if you want to have any additional plugins or themes on your website, you can buy the theme and let the developer know. Always remember that getting a developer is not a one-time task. Your website can have issues occur at any time, and you should always have a professional ready to step in and solve any problem.
   
   There is no denying that getting a developer to build a website is costlier than the other two methods mentioned above. Sometimes, organizations try to find developers at cheaper rates to save additional expenses. However, the quote ‘you get what you pay for’ is highly applicable in this scenario. A more affordable developer may give you a poorly designed website that will ruin your project and the experience of the users. Always look for a developer with a justified price to ensure that you get what you are paying.  Like any professional service, get references and ask to see samples of their previous work.
   
   When it comes to the average cost of building a website through a developer can be somewhere around $6500 – $10,000, including setup, content creation, designing, and maintenance. However, the actual cost may be less or more depending on the complexity of the website, features, and the security added.
   

Factors Affecting Website Building Cost

Website building is not just about picking a preferred development mode; several other factors influence the overall cost. This section below will explain several of these factors to analyze the approximate impact on the website building cost.

1. Domain Name: A domain name is the unique address or name of your website’s URL. Many experts claim that a domain name should signify the business idea and be simple so that everybody remembers it easily. Having a unique yet significant domain name will give your website an online identity. When getting a domain name, you will need to pay around $10-$20 annually, and should renew the domain registration every year.
   
2. Website Hosting: Having a domain name is just the first step in getting a website, and you need a hosting service to let internet users gain access to your website. A hosting service provider will give you space on its servers, allowing users to visit your site. Picking the right hosting provider will influence the website’s performance as the loading speed, customer support, and other factors play a significant role in the user experience. A hosting service may cost around $50 a month, and akin to the domain name, hosting is also a recurring cost that you can expect to pay annually. To make things cheaper, several hosting service providers offer domain name services. Depending on the purpose and expected traffic on the website, you need to pick an exemplary hosting service for your website. Here are the different types of hosting services to choose from.
   
   • Dedicated Server Hosting: Dedicated server hosting provides maximum control of the website on the server. That is, it isn’t shared with any other hosting customers.  It is solely reserved for you.  The server will store only your website, giving your website administrator full root access. Be it the operating system or the security; you will handle everything. Such server hosting is suited for organizations with high traffic and who want supreme control over the server. Before you pick this hosting service, you must remember that it is the most expensive server hosting type. Furthermore, the installation and management require additional skills, which may cost you extra.
   • Shared Hosting: If you are running a little tighter budget or want an entry-level website, getting shared hosting is a perfect choice. Unlike dedicated hosting, your website will be stored on a shared server with other websites. As the shared hosting will have the same server resources for all the websites, the overall cost of this hosting type is cheaper, making it highly suitable for small-scale businesses. With less premium, be prepared to get lesser features. The biggest disadvantage of shared hosting is that whenever the server hosting your website gets higher than expected traffic for all of its customers, it may affect the overall experience of your website, making it slower or even unresponsive. Due to this reason, shared hosting is only recommended for small-scale websites or websites with a limited number of users.
   • Virtual Private Server Hosting: Dedicated hosting offers excellent server control, but it is an expensive option, whereas shared hosting is cheaper but does not grant high authority on servers. If you want better control over your server without getting a dedicated server, you’ll want to get virtual private server hosting. It is a blend of shared as well as dedicated hosting. Your website will be stored in a distinctive virtual space on the server but still shares space on the physical server with other sites. VPS is great for anyone who wants to make customizations and have control over their server. Even though it may sound highly similar to a dedicated server hosting, it is still stored on a shared server and will struggle during high traffic periods.
     
3. SSL Certificate: There is a high probability that your website may have sensitive data of your users that you don’t wish to ever have compromised. A Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate safeguards the transfer of sensitive data. This certificate will give your users confidence that the data they are sharing is safe and will not be used maliciously. An SSL certificate will be displayed in the URL of your browser with a padlock icon adjacent to the URL. There is a chance that you may get an SSL certificate for free with your domain registration fee.
   
   On the other hand, paid SSL certificates can cost approximately $1000 a year. Now you must be wondering that if you can get a free certificate, why should you spend $1000 to get the same. The difference between a paid and a free SSL certificate is that the former comes with a higher warranty, better encryption, and other ways of providing additional protection.
   
4. Responsiveness: With the rising number of mobile and computer users, having a website just for a single device type limits the number of potential users. A responsive website will ensure that your website can provide the same experience to all the users despite the device they are using. Whether a tablet, mobile device, or desktop, your website will adapt to the device’s layout to provide the best browsing experience to the users. Having a responsive design will cost you a one-time expense of approximately $3000. The other option you have is getting a separate mobile website that may serve the same purpose but cost $5000+.
   
5. Interactive Media: Every website owner wants to give the best experience to their users, and they can enhance that experience by adding interactive media. Elements like visual elements, interactive games, videos, and images will keep the visitor engaged and reduce the website’s bounce rate (i.e. visitors leaving quickly). Also, media and visual elements tend to spread the desired message to the users more effectively, helping your website achieve your business goals. Adding interactive media to your website may cost around $300-$10,000, depending on the amount of media you want to add.
   
6. Ecommerce: Though you might not want to have an e-commerce website initially, it may still be in your pipeline for the future. With e-commerce functionality on your website, you can quickly sell products directly from your website. Remember that integrating this functionality is not a single task but a group of actions that make a regular website an e-commerce site. You have to add product launch pages, a shopping cart, shipping system, payment options, payment processing system, payment gateways, etc. Depending on the features you want to add, integrating e-commerce functionality into your website may cost approximately $2000 to $20,000.
   
7. Website Pages: The overall cost of building a website relates to the number of pages it will have. Whenever you approach a website building agency or a developer, the number of pages you want on your website will be the first question they will ask. Factors like the amount of information you want to convey, services you offer, and products you sell can impact the number of pages on your site. In most cases, a website with up to fifty pages can cost $3000, and as the number count increases, the cost of building the website rises.

Which Services Include the Maintenance Cost of Website?

Your website is your asset, and every asset requires frequent maintenance. The final maintenance cost of your website will depend on the features and functionalities that your website has. Domain registration, hosting fees, and the SSL certificate are the three key factors that should renew every year to ensure the best performance of your website. All these three things combined can cost you around $6000 annually. 

However, you want to implement new features on your website and want to fix existing issues. In that case, you will require professional support from either an agency or a developer. This website maintenance will cost you around $1000 per year. However, this is not a fixed amount and can increase or decrease depending on the issue’s complexity or the feature you want to add to your website.

Marketing Cost of Website:

Though marketing does not come under the building cost, a website cannot perform effectively without proper marketing. If you are not marketing your website, then you are not just losing potential visitors but putting your investment at risk. When it comes to marketing your website, you need to keep in mind that there are several services you need to have. Here are the different marketing services for a website and their associated costs.

• Search Engine Optimization: Search Engine Optimization is probably the most crucial marketing technique for a website. It is referred to as making changes in the website metadata and content or optimizing it to rank it higher on search engine result pages (SERPs) – think Google, Bing, Duck-Duck-Go, et al. The internet is a highly competitive area where most users only consider buying or visiting sites in the search results with the website rankings nearest the top, i.e. the first few pages of results, if not just the first page only. A highly ranked website will psychologically generate a sense of trust among the visitors. With that in mind, if you are not using SEO for your website, you will indeed be giving up the most considerable method of having potential users find you. An SEO service costs around $2000 per month, but this amount may be exceeded depending on the work required on the website.
  
• Pay-Per-Click: Getting an SEO service is undoubtedly effective, but it takes time to reach the top spot on the SERPs. If you want faster results, you can opt for a Pay-Per-Click advertising service, where your website will be showcased on the top of SERPs as an advertisement, and you will only pay whenever a user clicks on the ad’s link. Not only is PPC highly effective, but cost-effective as well. When you pay for PPC, you are guaranteed that your website will have visitors. Getting this service could easily cost  $10,000 every month, or whatever you budget; it is discretionary. However, once you have sufficient traffic from organic optimization, you can reduce or terminate this service to lower this expense.
  
• Social Media Marketing: These days, online popularity is all about Social Media, and organizations are using such platforms to promote their websites. By branding your website on social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, social media marketing simultaneously targets all types of users. Even though social media marketing is subjective for business, it helps expand your website’s overall digital reach and brand. The average cost of this marketing technique is $5000 and may go further if other elements like influencer marketing are added. 
  
• Email Marketing: Many people believe that people no longer use emails. However, the truth is that email marketing has proven to give the best results of all marketing techniques. Emails are sent to your target prospects directly regarding your website or your business, helping to make users visit your website more frequently. Email marketing is not just practical but cheaper than other marketing methods. Its cost starts as low as $10 and may go up to $1000 depending on your target audience.

Total Cost of Building Website

Building a website is all about picking the correct method and taking the right decisions. Creating a website will be different if you have deep technical knowledge, whereas the same will not apply if you are running short on time. Considering all the factors and determining the most suitable method of building a website is essential.

Among the three methods discussed above, the cheapest website building is using a website builder. The average cost of using a website builder is approximately $150, with a $20 expense every month. This method is highly suitable for a tight budget who lacks technical knowledge, are running short on time, and do not want to deal with any third-party developer.

The second method discussed here was the WordPress method which costs approximately $250 and $5 monthly. However, it will only give you an essential website with free themes and plugins. You need to spend a little more to use more advanced themes and plugins for a website. Building a website through WordPress is excellent for you if you want to have a little control over your website, customize your website, have some technical knowledge, and have a lot of time managing your website.

The last method is getting a full-fledged website developer or development team who will build your website from scratch. A developer will undoubtedly charge a premium for the service they provide, but you will have the utmost control over your website. This method is highly suitable for you if you have an ample budget, want complete control over your site, need a complex design and functionality, do not have a lot of technical knowledge, or are running short on time. The cost of getting a developer is approximately $6000 for a medium-sized website.

The above information is the approximate cost of building a website through different mediums. Depending on hosting, domain, SSL certificate, security enhancement, plugins, themes, media, and other functionalities, the actual cost will surely vary.

How ThinkSys Helps in Building Website?

ThinkSys is one of the leading agencies in website development globally. With over a decade of experience, ThinkSys caters to its clients with top-notch website development services. At ThinkSys, we use the best tools, practices, and strategies for effective website development to ensure smooth website performance, a better user experience, and excellent collaborative engagement.

From concept planning to final delivery and testing, ThinkSys will manage all the tasks regarding building your website. Our process begins with planning, where our professionals will analyze your requirements and create a blueprint of your new website. Next, our designers and system architects will begin designing, and upon approval of our designs, our experienced developers will start coding.

Once all the desired features and elements are added, the website is deployed and tested to eradicate any underlying bugs and issues to provide a world-class user experience. Furthermore, beyond just building the website, ThinkSys also offers 24X7 support for the website so that your website remains functional every time.

Frequently Asked Questions(Cost Of Website 2023)

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