The costs involved in designing a website vary
The principal costs of operating a website are as follows:
Buying your domain name
This is the name of your website – the ‘address’ – which you buy from a website registrar. The costs depend on the type of domain – .com, .co.uk, .biz etc – and on what other services are provided.
In general, .co.uk names cost around £3 a year, and .com names around £10 a year.
Web hosting
Your website will be hosted on a server which is permanently connected to the internet. Hosting costs depend to some extent on how big and complex your website is, but are rarely more than £100 a year.
Website design and development
This is the process of actually creating your website, and is likely to be the single most expensive element of having a website. The total cost will depend on variables such as:
- the number of pages
- the complexity of the design
- what content you provide, and what you have to buy in from subcontractors
- how much animation or streaming video is used
- what kind of interactive facilities you need – eg a shopping cart system
- whether you have a content management system
As a guide, many freelance web designers will produce a simple website, from copy/images provided, for under £300, although this can increase if the site becomes bigger and more complicated.
To create a more complex and dynamic site, you will probably use a full service website design company. You will benefit from their knowhow and technical expertise, and they will also have all the skills that you are unlikely to have in your business.
Costs are higher: a good agency will charge between £300 and £750 a day, and for a very complex website the cost will be several hundred, or even several thousand pounds. However, it’s important to see this as an investment in the future of your business.
Maintaining the site
You’ll need to keep your site up to date, to take account of changes to your business, to technology, and to design styles. If you have a very complex site, the design company is probably best placed to handle maintenance, although there are many independent website maintenance specialists. The cost of maintenance contracts depends on how complicated the site is.
