How Much Does It Cost to Build a Website for a Small Business?
With the massive increase in the use of mobile internet and search engines like Google and Social media, it is now more than ever needed for South Africa small, medium or corporate businesses to have a strong active online presence in the form of a website.
Unlike traditional marketing such as social media marketing, email marketing, and cold calling, business websites are a new way for small business owners to present their business products, services, and information online easily and conveniently via business website designs.
The various functionalities and features that can be incorporated into websites allow businesses to create interactive and personalized websites for their clients. This may assist potential business clients to make purchases or better decisions regarding their service.
In addition, when clients or consumers are interested in a business’s offerings one of the first things they will do is go and look at their online presence, on their website.
See 10 reasons why having a business website is crucial. A recent study suggested that over 80% of users visit a website before entering a brick-and-mortar place of business. It is fair to say that investing in a professional web design company is a crucial part of your business marketing strategy.
With a multitude of small businesses looking to get online fast the obvious question that arises is how much does it cost to build a website for small businesses? This is not a question that is easily answered as websites come in all shapes and sizes with different functionality, support plans content management systems and the overall quality of the website design in terms of user experience programming language.
So first of all we will give you a ballpark figure of the different elements that involve web design and hosting and what they cost in South Africa.
The first thing that you will find when you start shopping around for a price for your awesome new website, is that there is a huge range of prices you will receive. You are going to find people offering “complete 5 page” website packages for R 2500 but if you speak to a big digital marketing agency, the same website will cost R 150 000. Or you can do it yourself, it costs nothing…more on that in a moment.
The Pitfall of 5 page website cost packages
The pitfall of R2500 website packages is that support is often non-existent web design companies behind the design and development are inexperienced, dealing with thousands of other small business website owners. That means no personal attention to your website which is needed in this day and age. For security and updates to the latest programming especially with content management systems like WordPress. You must understand for these companies the main objective s to get you to buy in on their hosting package, and that’s where it ends for them.
In reality, cheaper website designs aren’t always better. Bad hosting plans, outdated web servers, and a lack of website maintenance plans open websites up to hacking and a slow website with bad user experience and conversations. These reduce conversions and risk your website being defaced. When you count lost conversions for extra fees for repairing a hacked website you may find this R2500 package it’s not the cheapest long-term website design and support solution for your small business.
Establish a budget with your web design company.
When meeting with a web design agency ask about their website design costs. Ask them for examples of what a high-end website looks like and what a basic design looks like. Also for examples on the specific type of website you require such as e-commerce website, personal blogs, catalog websites, online forums, or a directory type website, this will give both you and the web design company a good way to set a realistic and accurate budget for your small business website.
While there is nothing wrong with outsourcing your website needs to a company abroad if you have a company that is locally based it’s almost always a safer bet. For example, if you were based in South Africa you be better of hiring a South African web design company, even though they may not be as cheap as other areas of the world, there should be much stronger accountability and easier communication, understanding of the local market which leads to faster and less costly design in the long run.
Additional web design costs for your small business you should consider:
Website Design Cost Factor 1: Pages ( R1000 – R 5000 )
Aside from functionality one of the biggest costs on websites is the number of pages. Websites range in size and while an e-commerce website may feature over 100 pages a service-based company may only have less than 10 pages. As expected it takes time to design and build pages even if some of the pages use the same layout. Even if all 50 product pages are the same design template. The design agency needs to upload and edit with graphic design tools, upload videos, and content to each one. This is why a website with more pages costs more. A base price range R1000 to R5000 for 1 to 50-page websites which is the average page number for most small businesses.
Website Design Cost Factor 2: Website Functionalities (R2000 – R25,000)
When it comes to web design, functionality encompasses a range of features, with most focusing on e-commerce capabilities. If your company wants to accept online payments or orders, plan for functionality expenses in your small business’s web design costs.
Even if you provide services, like landscaping, plumbing, or home maintenance, it’s worthwhile to offer online payments. For many shoppers, online payments deliver convenience. If your business’s site accepts online payments, it can serve as a unique selling point and help you earn more clients.
Web design costs for functionality features range from R2000 to R25,000.
As a smaller business, your functionality costs will likely range towards the lower end versus the higher end. That’s because smaller websites don’t require the robust payment systems that large sites like Amazon do.
Website Design Cost Factor 3: Website Hosting (R39 – R250 per month)
The first thing you need when you deploy a website is a web hosting package that usually comes with a domain name, web hosting and mail server. Depending on if it is shared hosting, dedicated hosting and ips cost will vary greatly. Middle-range website hosting servers cost from R200 up to R400 per month.
This cost will depend on the functionality is provided to you on the hosting server: SQL databases you are allowed, the number of email accounts permitted, the bandwidth allocated and the amount of storage space you are allocated. Some design companies also offer managed hosting which is maintenance alongside their hosting packages.
Website Design Cost Factor 4: domain name registration ( R100- R1500 per Annum)
Website domain name registration can cost anywhere from R100 to R1500 per annum depending on the top-level domain. Usually .co.za TLD’s are relatively cheap while TLD’s such as .org tend to have higher price tags. Domain name registration allows you to register your domain name for a year which means that no one else can register that domain name. This protects your brand and your website from being plagiarised by registering with another hosting company.
Website Design Cost Factor 5: R265 per annum
SSL certificates are a crucial part of website security. It allows end-to-end encryption by being served via HTTPS and not HTTP. These are crucial especially for e-commerce websites. SSL certificates are charged per annum. The price of used SSL certificates may vary depending on the providers. For example, Let’s encrypt offer free certificates and comodo offer certificates from about 260 per annum.
Website Design Cost Factor 6: Website Maintenance Plans
Give some serious thought to this. Website Maintenance Plans could seriously affect your running costs for your website design and for your business. Get a web design company that offers full support and website maintenance packages. This ensures that your plugins and themes are always up-to-date. Servers are running on the latest versions of PHP. That the website is secure and the website hosting is operating at optimal speed.
Does the web design company use tools such as Analytics? Google Analytics can provide valuable insight into the movement of users within your website identifying bottlenecks in the user experience of the website. These can be addressed leading to greater conversions and a greater return on investment in your website.
Websites are no longer static elements that can be put online and left there for years and expected to convert draw users and rainfall on Google. in fact there are now various types of websites.
Read more here on red flags when prospecting a web design company
So in summary the cast factors for a website design are:
Website Design Cost Factor 1: Pages ( R1000 – R 5000 )
Website Design Cost Factor 2: Website Functionalities (R2000 – R25,000)
Website Design Cost Factor 3: Website Hosting (R39 – R250 per month)
Website Design Cost Factor 4: domain name registration ( R100- R1500 per Annum)
Website Design Cost Factor 5: R265 per annum
Website Design Cost Factor 6: Website Maintenance Plans
