How much does a website cost?

Even if you have a concrete idea of what your website should look like, es­ti­mat­ing website costs can be a challenge. We provide a realistic overview of how much it costs to make a website, depending on the type of website you plan to create and how much time and expertise you bring to the table.

How much does it cost to build a website and what other website costs are there?

There is no single answer to the question “How much does a website cost?”. The spectrum can range from $5 to $100,000. In this article, we’ll give you an idea of the budget you should plan and which technical solutions are suitable for your budget. Don’t forget there are also main­te­nance and marketing costs to consider for your website:

• Regular main­te­nance: Updates need to be installed, security gaps must be patched, and new legal re­quire­ments should be im­ple­ment­ed. If this service isn’t included in your modular system or CMS, you should factor in the costs of hiring a service provider.
• Search engine op­ti­miza­tion: You should promote your website so that your target group becomes aware of it.
• Ad­ver­tis­ing and marketing: Depending on your strategy, your website may incur costs for ad­ver­tis­ing (e.g. Google Ads and social media ads), newslet­ter marketing, etc.

When planning your finances, you should also take into account that other indirect website costs will arise if you want your website to be suc­cess­ful. For example, does your company have a pro­fes­sion­al corporate identity? If you do not want to design a logo yourself, you may have to pay for a designer.

What factors affect website costs?

The cost of a website depends on your re­quire­ments and what level of dynamic ca­pa­bil­i­ties your website requires. The more time and expertise you can con­tribute yourself, the lower your website creation costs will be.

What solutions are the right fit for which budget?

We briefly outlined the technical options for im­ple­ment­ing a website above:

• A modular system
• Content man­age­ment system (CMS)
• In­di­vid­ual pro­gram­ming
• Web design service

With the first two options, you can create a website without any special IT knowledge and at a low cost. With the last two options, you work with agencies or service providers and can even have your website created for you, although this comes with higher website costs.

Here is an overview of the strengths and weak­ness­es of each solution:

Modular website systems

For lots of simple websites (blogs, port­fo­lios, small company websites), a website builder such as the IONOS Website Builder is com­plete­ly suf­fi­cient. There are various offers available on the market, but the principle of a website builder is always the same. You can choose from various design templates, customize page elements and add your own content using a WYSIWYG editor. You can choose from various amounts of cus­tomiza­tion options depending on your plan. Search engine op­ti­miza­tion features are usually in­te­grat­ed or can be booked ad­di­tion­al­ly.

Many providers also take care of hosting and domain reg­is­tra­tion and provide you with an email address that matches your domain, so you don’t have to worry about these technical details. It makes sense to closely compare price and per­for­mance in advance. Depending on the provider, website builders can cost up to $40 per month. With other technical solutions, website costs are higher.

Content Man­age­ment System (CMS)

After a while, many people make the switch from modular systems to a CMS. You can find an overview of the major CMS providers in our CMS com­par­i­son. CMSs also offer a graphical interface with various templates but with more design freedom. There are plugins for nearly every ap­pli­ca­tion, so those without extensive IT skills can make do without needing to rely on external as­sis­tance. Even simple online stores can be launched without the need for ad­di­tion­al support. However, there is one major drawback: Plugins can incur high one-time costs or ongoing fees. They can sometimes also have a negative impact on website per­for­mance. Another advantage of using a CMS is that it is more suitable for projects that need to be scalable so they can respond to rapidly in­creas­ing re­quire­ments and traffic.

For larger ad­just­ments or an initial setup, it’s worth calling in pro­fes­sion­al support to write changes into the code, as in­di­vid­ual pro­gram­ming is not possible with website builders. You’ll also need to factor ad­di­tion­al website costs into your budget for main­te­nance and technical problems that commonly arise over time.

You will also need to take care of hosting and domain reg­is­tra­tion yourself. Monthly fees are usually required for this. For hosting a site with rel­a­tive­ly low traffic, you can expect to pay at least $40 a year, and for domain reg­is­tra­tion, you should plan on an ad­di­tion­al $20 a year. You won’t incur any ad­di­tion­al charges for the CMS itself if you use an open-source solution like WordPress or TYPO3. IONOS offers Hosting for WordPress, which has themes and plugins that run au­to­mat­i­cal­ly, ensuring that there are no security vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties.

Web design agencies & free­lancers

This is probably the most con­ve­nient solution. With this option, your website is developed by pro­fes­sion­als according to your spec­i­fi­ca­tions. However, this is also the most expensive choice. For complex online stores and web apps, it’s the only suitable pro­fes­sion­al approach.

If you want to create a website and save on costs, you can work with in­di­vid­ual service providers including a designer to create the user interface of your website and a pro­gram­mer to develop your website’s func­tion­al­i­ties. If you go this route, it’s helpful to have some ex­pe­ri­ence with project man­age­ment or knowledge of usability and user ex­pe­ri­ence yourself to ensure that your website is highly func­tion­al and enticing to visitors.

If you want more advice, you are better off using an agency. With an agency, designers, de­vel­op­ers and project managers usually work together to fulfill a client brief. After eval­u­at­ing the client’s re­quire­ments, they provide an overview of pos­si­bil­i­ties and func­tion­al­i­ties, and co­or­di­nate in­di­vid­ual project steps in ac­cor­dance with the brief.

How much does a website designed by pro­fes­sion­als cost? The in­vest­ment can quickly rise into the five-figure range. That’s why it’s important to make sure that your website is being created based on precise market analysis and has a good chance of being suc­cess­ful

There are also ad­di­tion­al running costs for domain and hosting as well as website de­vel­op­ment. If you want to host a website using a virtual private server, you’ll need to plan for around $30 per month.

Web design service

In addition to web design agencies, some hosting providers may also offer a design service. In this instance, hosting providers work with experts to help achieve in­di­vid­ual client needs. The big advantage with this option is that the design and hosting (often including domain reg­is­tra­tion and SSL cer­tifi­cate) come from the same provider. This can be par­tic­u­lar­ly helpful when it comes to main­te­nance and support.

With a web design service, you can choose from a com­bi­na­tion of per­son­al­ized advice and a website building kit. You can count on expert as­sis­tance and achieve great results without having to invest a lot of time or money into the design concept. You simply choose your design from a variety of templates and have them adapted as needed. This makes it possible to get pro­fes­sion­al help, but still pay just a fraction of the price of a website design agency.

How does the type of website you have affect the cost of your website?

Websites can be cat­e­go­rized into different types. Website types differ not only in their structure, but also in the technical effort required for de­vel­op­ment and main­te­nance. And this in turn affects the budget you should plan for your project. Which website type is right for you depends on the objective of your company or project.

In the diagram below, you can see the re­spec­tive degree of dif­fi­cul­ty for the technical im­ple­men­ta­tion of each website type:

1. Landing page: Whether you are creating a basic sales page or an in­for­ma­tive landing page, the costs and technical re­quire­ments are minimal. With in­ter­faces to email marketing systems, you can collect email addresses and generate sales through redirects to shop systems.

2. Portfolio: If you want to provide in­for­ma­tion about yourself or your creative work on a portfolio page, you can use CMS systems such as WordPress or TYPO3. With CMSs , you can get pro­fes­sion­al results without too much cus­tomiza­tion, even if you’re a non-technical user.

3. Blog/magazine: If you want to pri­or­i­tize creative design and plan to regularly publish new content, collect email addresses from readers and po­ten­tial­ly sell in­di­vid­ual products, a CMS is an excellent choice. However, you may still have cus­tomiza­tion needs that require pro­gram­ming skills.

4. Microsite: For more creative and in­ter­ac­tive websites with dynamic responses, you need IT skills. Mi­crosites are usually custom-pro­grammed, either partially or com­plete­ly, which is why pro­fes­sion­al support may be required.

5. Corporate website: You can create a simple company website with a modular system without having to touch a line of code. However, if you have higher demands for your website, asking a developer or agency is a good idea. When it comes to mul­ti­lin­gual websites, pages with dynamic content and in­te­grat­ed ap­pli­ca­tions, the dif­fi­cul­ty of im­ple­men­ta­tion increases.

6. Online store: A simple online store can be im­ple­ment­ed using a modular system. Larger online stores are tech­ni­cal­ly demanding projects. In addition, you should consider the cost of payment solutions and shipping options.

7. Online apps. Depending on the range of functions, website costs for custom pro­gram­ming can run into the six-figure range. These projects can only be managed in col­lab­o­ra­tion with an agency or a competent team of free­lancers.

How do time con­straints affect website costs?

In addition to deciding on the type of website you want to build, there are three other factors that need to be con­sid­ered: time, money and know-how.

This in­fo­graph­ic shows that the more money you have at your disposal, the less know-how and time you will need to create your website. In other words, you can easily com­pen­sate knowledge deficits and time con­straints if you have the necessary financial resources.

However, if you want to develop a website and keep costs as low as possible, you have two other ways to go about this. Either you invest more time in the project and acquire the necessary skills so you can take on as many tasks as possible yourself or you already have a certain level of expertise and don’t need to rely as heavily on support from service providers.

FAQs

We’ve sum­ma­rized the most important questions and answers on this topic for you below.

What types of websites are there?

Websites can be cat­e­go­rized into seven different cat­e­gories:

1. Landing pages
2. Port­fo­lios
3. Blogs/Magazines
4. Mi­crosites
5. Corporate websites
6. Online shops
7. Online apps

What options are there for creating websites?

Technical options for im­ple­ment­ing a website project include:

• Modular systems
• Content man­age­ment systems (CMS)
• Custom pro­gram­ming
• Web design services

With the first two options, even IT beginners can set up a website online, while the last two options usually require working with agencies or service providers.

How can you create a website at an af­ford­able price?

With little or no pro­gram­ming knowledge, the cheapest way to create a website is with a website builder or a content man­age­ment system.

What are indirect website costs?

Indirect website costs include:

• Logo design
• Main­te­nance (in­stalling updates, closing security gaps, im­ple­ment­ing new legal re­quire­ments)
• Service provider costs (e.g., hosting)
• Marketing costs (e.g., ads in Google Ads)