How much does a website cost?

What do you pay for when you pay for a website?

Every website has the same few costs. Some are paid once, and some every month or year for as long as the site is online.

Two costs are easy to forget: the words and the photographs. Our prices cover editing the copy you send, not writing it, and they don’t include photography.

What does it cost to have a website built?

It depends on who builds it and how much there is to build. Shopify’s own ecommerce cost guide puts custom-built website development at $2,000 to $20,000 or more, depending on complexity. Freelancers’ and agencies’ prices vary too much to average honestly, so here is ours: a fixed price in US dollars, the same in every country, printed before you agree to anything.

What the US$1,250 WordPress website includes, and what it doesn’t:

Payment is in two stages: half to start, half at launch. Larger projects, custom features and anything with logins for your customers are quoted after a call, in writing. See what a WordPress website includes, or every price on one page.

What does a website cost to run each month?

On WordPress, the software is free, so the running costs are hosting, the domain and any paid plugins. Hosting is paid to a host you choose, at that host’s price. WordPress.org’s hosting page lists the hosts it recommends, and its requirements page says what any host needs: PHP 8.3 or greater, MariaDB 10.11 or greater or MySQL 8.0 or greater, and HTTPS support.

When we build a WordPress website, hosting is set up in your name, on your card, so you pay the host directly and the account is yours.

On Shopify, you pay a monthly plan and hosting is included: Shopify says you don’t need to buy separate hosting, and every plan comes with unlimited bandwidth and a free SSL certificate. Card fees come off each sale, and apps and a paid theme can add more. Our Shopify cost guides for the US, the UK and Canada list every fee.

Does a website cost more in the US, the UK or Canada?

Not from us. Our prices don’t change by country: a WordPress website is US$1,250 in the US, the UK and Canada alike, and every other package keeps its one price too. They’re in US dollars, so if you pay from a pound or Canadian-dollar account, your bank or card provider may charge to convert the payment.

What changes is what the platforms charge you, because they price by country. Shopify’s plans, and the card fees on Shopify Payments and on WooPayments (WooCommerce’s own payment service), are set for each country:

Some rules differ by country too, and they can change what a website needs, and so what it costs to build. Three worth knowing about:

• UK, cookies. The ICO says you must tell people if you set cookies, explain what they do and why, and get their consent, unless a cookie is strictly necessary for a service they asked for. Non-essential cookies can’t be set before the visitor consents (ICO; the ICO is consulting on a revised version of this guidance).
• Canada, in Ontario: accessibility. Since 1 January 2021, Ontario’s accessibility law (the AODA) has required businesses and non-profits with 50 or more employees to make their public websites meet WCAG 2.0 Level AA, with some exceptions (Ontario.ca).
• US, accessibility. The Department of Justice says the ADA applies to businesses open to the public, which must make sure the goods and services they provide online are accessible to people with disabilities. It points to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) as helpful guidance (ADA.gov, guidance of 18 March 2022).

We don’t give legal advice, so check what applies to your business with an adviser.

What makes a website cost more?

• More pages. Our WordPress price covers 10 pages; pages beyond those are extra.
• More products. A shop’s price depends on how many products go in. Our WooCommerce shop covers up to 50 products, and our Shopify store up to 50 products.
• Custom features and logins. Anything built specially, and anything with accounts for your customers, takes longer. We quote these after a call, in writing.
• Writing and photography. Writing your copy from scratch and taking photographs are jobs of their own, and they aren’t in our prices.
• Paid plugins, apps and themes. Each one adds a one-off, monthly or yearly cost of its own.
• Work after launch. Our builds include thirty days of fixes; anything after that is extra.

Anything extra is priced before it’s done, never after.

How do I work out what my website will cost?

1. 01Decide what the site has to do: say who you are and how to reach you, take enquiries, or sell products online.
2. 02Count the pages, and the products if you’ll sell online.
3. 03Pick a platform: WordPress for a site you edit yourself, WooCommerce or Shopify for a shop.
4. 04Add the yearly running costs: the domain, hosting or the platform’s plan, and any paid plugins or apps.
5. 05Add the build: a fixed price if you can get one, with what’s included and what isn’t in writing.
6. 06If you’ll sell online, add card fees: your expected sales times the card rate in your country, plus the fixed fee on each order.

For example, a WordPress website of 10 pages built by us costs US$1,250 once, then your host’s price and your domain each year.

Questions