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How much does a website really cost in Australia?

By February 5, 2014February 11th, 2017No Comments

It’s one of the most popular questions we get asked, so in this post I’ll show you how we go about answering “How much does a website cost?”.

You’re probably very busy and just want a quick guide to costs before you contact a few web design agencies.  So we created a short infographic (below) to show you very clearly how much a website costs.

You’ll see there are 4 main areas that drive cost, so when you start asking designers for quotes, make sure they price accordingly, otherwise you’ll end up comparing apples and oranges.

Please note: we are currently only taking on projects with budgets of $50,000+.  So if you are simply looking for an affordable and fast way to create your own website, we strongly recommend Weebly (for normal websites) and Shopify (for ecommerce websites).  And that’s because with these two services you can DIY build a beautiful website in a couple of hours and with no prior experience.  Plus probably best of all, it will only cost you around $75-$150 to build (cost of their nice templates) and around $30-$50 a month to host the website and your emails. 

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4 things drive the cost of your website project

Website Cost Calculator for Australia

Want a more detailed explanation?  Let’s take a look at how much your site will cost piece by piece.

So the first thing to know is, you pay for what you get.

If you just want a basic website it’s not going to cost a lot.  Something around the $1000-$1500 mark sounds about right.

But this sort of website setup is also not going to really do much for you.

People probably won’t find the site, since it hasn’t been promoted online and those that do find it, probably won’t be too impressed by it since it hasn’t been designed from top to bottom to resonate with your target customers.

By contrast if you are after a really well thought out and designed site, coupled with online marketing like SEO and social media for example – the kind of setup that would not only attract lots of new visitors, but would also persuade them to do business with you – well, that of course is going to come with a higher price tag.

This type of smartly designed site could be anywhere from $2500 to $5000 depending on functionality, and the online marketing work would be a $1000 and up, depending on how much you want to promote your business and website.

Whilst, the underlying strategy work – all the research and planning it takes to develop a smart site and traffic setup – would be $750+ depending on the complexity of your business and market.

When we tell prospective clients these prices, they often wonder which approach they should go with, and whether it’s really worth investing $1000s into a website.

Well, the easiest way to answer this, is to simply think about what you are getting for your money.

If you just go with the basic website, you’ll pay around $1000 for a website that will pretty much just sit there in cyberspace, not doing that much.

And if it doesn’t bring you too many new customers, you could say you are pretty much getting nothing in return for your $1000.  In that sense, it is an expense, or to be honest, maybe even a waste of money.

Meanwhile, if you go with the smartly designed website and pair it with some online marketing, then you get two things;

  1. a marketing setup that brings you lots of new potential customers and
  2. a persuasive website that convinces these potential customers to become paying customers.

So although you are spending a couple thousand dollars in this case, you are now actually making money from it – all those new customers are what you get in return for your investment.

And so in this case, you earn back the cost of the website setup after a couple of months, and from then on you continue to get more customers, but without ongoing costs.

Far from an expense, this setup is a smart investment in your business.

It’s probably easy to see now that investing in your website is worth it, but to make it even clearer, let’s think about what happens if you don’t.

If you do try to save a few dollars with a basic website, the real cost is not the $1000 you waste, but rather the $1000s in new customers you miss out on, by not investing in a proper website and online marketing setup.

The real cost is missing out on a really cool opportunity to promote your business and get more customers.

To work out the specific cost of your website project, what we can do is talk 1-1 with you to find out what your goals are and what type of website and marketing will work best for your business and your customer.

Once we find out all of that, we can shortlist the services we think will have the biggest impact on your goals and your business.

Importantly, when we present this shortlist, we will break all the services apart, price them separately and then let you pick and choose what interests you most and what fits within your budget.

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Please note: we are currently only taking on projects with budgets of $50,000+.  So if you are simply looking for an affordable and fast way to create your own website, we strongly recommend Weebly (for normal websites) and Shopify (for ecommerce websites).  And that’s because with these two services you can DIY build a beautiful website in a couple of hours and with no prior experience.  Plus probably best of all, it will only cost you around $75-$150 to build (cost of their nice templates) and around $30-$50 a month to host the website and your emails

 

Affiliate Disclosure: we partner with other great companies to bring you the best products, so please note some links may  be affiliate links.