91% of online adults will use a search engine to find information on the web about anything, including businesses, according to Pew Research Center. 75% of those searchers never make it past the first page of the search results. That means that not only is it important that your business has a website, but that the website performs well on search engines.
There are four different ways you can develop a website for your business. To help you find the best way to build a website, we have put together an all-inclusive website development pricing guide to make sure you get the most bang for your buck.
Table of Contents
- Website Development Pricing for Agencies
- Website Development Pricing for Freelancers
- Website Development Pricing for Website Builders
- Website Development Pricing for Atavion
- The Best Way To Build A Website
1. Website Development Pricing for Agencies
A website development agency will code you a high-end website from scratch. They work with you for weeks to create a perfectly unique site that looks like and does whatever you want. In comparison to the rest of the website development options, they are usually known as the more “luxury” option.
With luxury comes high prices, but why?
What’s Involved in The Development Process?
The reason agencies are so expensive is not just because of the high-quality websites they produce. They are expensive because they need a lot of manpower to build your website from scratch.
When you sign up with an agency, you are assigned a dedicated project manager who plans and monitors your website’s development. They are the ones who stay in contact with you and answer all your questions as the process unfolds.
After you are assigned a project manager, they hand your website development over to professional designers who got to work using their vast knowledge of color schemes and graphic design to create a layout. Once you approve that, professional copywriters come in to create engaging content that best showcases your brand and helps your SEO ranking.
After that, expert developers go to work coding your website to ensure it runs smoothly for optimal user experience. When everything is completed and approved, the website is launched. That doesn’t mean the agency is done with it though. They then charge you for ongoing maintenance. Maintenance can be anything from updating business hours to adding content to different pages.
What You Are Paying for With Agencies
Every step of the process to build your website is going to cost you money with an agency. These professional and experienced people require payment for their time spent trying to create your dream site, and their time is not cheap.
Agency Website Development Pricing
| Aspects | Price (average) |
| Project Manager | $700 |
| Professional Designers | $3,000 |
| Professional Copywriters | $300 |
| Expert Developers | $5,000 |
| Ongoing Maintenance | $1,000 |
| Total | $10,000 |
Each aspect of the process to build your website costs hundreds of dollars. As a result, you pay on average about $10,000 for a website to be built in 8 weeks or more. The length of the project can vary depending on the agency you are having build your website.
2. Website Development Pricing for Freelancers
Many people see agency prices and decide to turn to freelancers instead to build their websites. They think that freelancers can build them a website just as well as an agency would. Few may be able to, but most will not be able to deliver you with the unique, high-performing website you are expecting.
Hiring a freelance website developer is a much riskier solution because your chances of finding one that can create a high-performing site are slim Also, it is not likely you will be able to find one that can complete every step of the development process, so you may need to hire more freelancers to help.
Development Process for Freelancers
Freelancers are not like agencies in the way that you have a whole team working on your project. Instead, it is usually just one person. So, their development process is a lot different than that of an agency.
Depending on the freelancer you have hired, they will have different skill sets. For the sake of this article, we are going to assume that they are a full-stack developer, meaning they work on both the front end and back end of your website. You give them a detailed description of what you want to be done and they go to work making it happen.
The development process can take anywhere from 2 weeks to above 14 weeks to launch. This can vary drastically based on your developer’s skills and the complexity of your website.
What Freelance Developers Don’t Do
Freelance developers are not an all-in-one solution. There are quite a few aspects of the website building process that they do not do for you.
You are going to have to provide them:
- Content
- Media
- Domain & Hosting
- Security Tools
Your developer is simply coding your website. They are not responsible for the content that goes inside it or even for the platform it is going to be hosted on. Once it’s built, they usually leave, meaning you are responsible for the maintenance of the site as well.
It is also important to keep in mind that not all full-stack developers can complete the design for your website. You may need to hire a separate website designer as well. For the sake of our article, we are going to assume your freelancer can design the website too.
If you want all these extra components taken care of, you are going to have to hire separate freelancers to do it for you. This will cause your costs to go up.
What You Are Paying for With Freelancers
Most freelancers are paid on a per-hour basis, meaning the total cost of your website can vary drastically from what you expect if the freelancer is a slow coder. Here is what the average freelance web developer charges on a per-hour basis according to the popular job board Upwork.
Freelancer Pricing
| Type of Website | Average Hourly Rate | Total Estimate for 2 Weeks |
| Basic One Page | $27.5 | $1,925 |
| CMS Code Customization | $52.5 | $3,675 |
| Full Custom Site Code | $112.5 | $7,875 |
Total estimates are based on the average 35-hour workweek. As you can see, freelancers tend to be less expensive than agencies, but they are also more work for you since they don’t provide content writing or maintenance. They also will not likely be able to code you the perfectly unique and well-performing website your business deserves.
3. Website Development Pricing for Website Builders
After looking at the cost of agencies and the fact that freelancers are not an all-in-one solution, many people turn their attention to website builders.
A website builder essentially provides you with the tools to build your own website. However, they provide the same tools to thousands of other people, causing your website to be generic, and often underperforming.
Development Process for Website Builders
Every step of your website’s creation is up to you when you use a website builder. Your first decision is whether you want to pay for the building services or not.
When using a free website builder plan, you are given a domain name hooked to the builder. As a result, your website becomes less trusted by search engines and customers who see it.
If you choose a paid plan, then you are given a unique domain name. However, from there you choose a pre-designed template that allows you to drag and drop different aspects of your site into predetermined areas. Since everything is predetermined and there are thousands of people using the same website builder, your site will end up looking like hundreds of other websites.
After your site is built, it is up to you to add all the content and continually maintain it. If you are not technologically savvy, building and maintaining the website can take up a lot of your time that should be spent focusing on your business’s growth.
What You Are Paying for with Website Builders
Not all website builders are created equal. Some offer more features than others. As a result, some are much more expensive, while some are free. For the sake of our article, we are going to use one of the top website builders available, Wix, to base our prices off. Wix tends to fall in the average price zone for the builder industry.
Website Builder Pricing
| Plan | Price per month |
| Free | Advertisements |
| Business Basic | $23 |
| Business Unlimited | $27 |
| Business VIP | $49 |
The Business Basic plan provides you with the necessities you need to have like unlimited product space and a custom domain name. However, you need to upgrade to a Business Unlimited plan to be able to accept multiple currencies, receive product reviews, and subscriptions. The Business VIP allows you to create a loyalty program and receive customized reports about your business.
No matter what plan you are on though, your website will not leverage your brand the way a website built by an agency, or possibly even a freelancer, can. You need a unique, high-performing website that search engines love to reach your target audience effectively.
4. Website Development Pricing for Atavion
Many people are not aware that there indeed is a fourth option to have their website developed. An option that takes the best aspects of agencies and website builders to create the ultimate website development solution. The option to use Atavion for your website development needs.
Atavion offers premium websites at affordable prices. When using our services, you get an agency-level, custom-coded website at prices small businesses can afford. In terms of website development pricing, it is the most affordable option for quality coding.
Atavions Website Development Process
Our website development process is remarkably similar to that of an agency. You subscribe to us and are then assigned a dedicated project manager who is there to guide you throughout the entirety of the process. If you have any questions or concerns, they can address them.
When you are ready, they will send your website requirements to our team of award-winning designers. They will design your website and then send it to you for approval. Once the design is approved, our team of professional copywriters takes the time to create engaging content for your website. Our expert developers also go to work custom coding your unique and SEO-optimized site to ensure it performs at its best.
Once we have completed your website and you have approved it, we launch it! We don’t just walk away after that though. After your site launches, we provide local SEO services and continue to update and maintain it. Essentially, we take care of every single step of building and maintaining a website so that you can focus your attention on what is important: running your business.
What You Are Paying for With Atavion
Atavion’s development process involves the same aspects as that of an agency. However, Atavion charges on a per monthly basis and allows you to cancel your subscription at any time. Due to this, you are not getting charged one big lump sum for each aspect.
Atavion Pricing
| Aspects | Price |
| Project Manager | Included |
| Professional Designers | Included |
| Professional Copywriters | Included |
| Expert Developers | Included |
| Ongoing Maintenance | Included |
| Local SEO | Included |
| Total | $149/month |
As you can see, our web development services cost you only $149/month for a single-page website that will be ready to launch in about 10 days. That is a much quicker turnaround time than agencies or freelancers. Plus, all changes you want made throughout the process are included in the total price, so you don’t have to worry about having to pay any hidden fees.
Why do we do this? Easy, because we are not looking to steal your money. Our goal is to help grow your business by building you a premium website that best leverages your brand. We feel no need to lock you in with long contracts or trick you with hidden fees. The price you see is the price you pay.
How Does Atavion Build Premium Sites at Affordable Prices?
How come agencies cost so much money but Atavion provides the same services and does not? Well, to answer this question we are first going to address why Atavion does this.
We started as an agency that charged high prices for premium websites. As time went on, we realized our high prices were not allowing smaller businesses to use our services. As believers that all businesses should have the chance to thrive, we decided to make a change.
Through lots of time and research, we discovered a way to automate our development process by creating a proprietary solution. The solution allows us to cut down on our costs associated with creating high-quality websites, thus making them more affordable for all businesses.
The Best Way To Build A Website
When you assess all the ways to build a website, there is a clear winner. If you are a large business, an agency is a great option that you can likely afford. However, if you don’t want to pour all your money into your site, you should consider Atavion since we provide the same level of quality at lower prices.
If you are a small business, you may be tempted by website builders, but it is important to remember that a poorly designed website will not perform as you need it to. You need a high-quality website that consumers will trust and can easily find to help your business grow.
Therefore, no matter what size your business is, the best way to build a website based on website development pricing, is with Atavion.
