Website costs explained

The four categories

A domain name, renewed yearly, which is a small fixed cost and the one thing you should always control yourself rather than leaving in somebody else's account.

Hosting or a platform subscription, paid monthly or yearly, which on a modern platform includes the security, the certificate and the infrastructure you would otherwise manage alone.

The build, which is where quotes diverge. And then anything ongoing beyond hosting: content work, changes, support, or a retainer, which is the category that quietly becomes the largest over a few years.

Why build quotes vary so much

Mostly scope. A five-page site describing a business and a site with booking, payments and a customer area are different projects, and a quote for one tells you nothing about the other.

Then who is writing the content. A quote that assumes you supply finished words and photographs is far lower than one where somebody interviews you, writes the pages and arranges photography.

Our page on pricing claims covers describing this on your own site. The same clarity you want from a supplier is the clarity your customers want from you.

What is one-time and what recurs

The build is one-time. The domain, the platform and anything you pay somebody to maintain are recurring, and a three-year view frequently reverses which quote looked cheaper on the day.

Ask every supplier for the monthly figure alongside the build figure. A low build with a substantial retainer attached is a different proposition from a higher build with nothing ongoing.

Our page on maintenance covers what genuinely needs doing. Much of what is sold as ongoing work is either automatic or is not maintenance at all.

Where the money actually goes

The list below is every cost a small business website carries. Anything a quote contains that is not on this list deserves a question about what it is and what it produces.

• The domain name, yearly
• Hosting or a platform subscription
• The build, one time
• Photography, if you need it
• Writing, if you are not doing it
• Changes after launch
• Anything else, named and explained

The costs people forget

Photographs. Real pictures of your own work are the single biggest visible difference between a convincing site and a generic one, and they are almost never included in a build quote.

Writing is the other one. Most delays in a website project are the business not having written the content, and most disappointing sites are ones where the words were an afterthought.

And changes after launch. Every site needs adjustments in the first months, so agree beforehand what a small change costs rather than discovering it on the first invoice.

Own what you paid for

The domain should be registered in your name, in an account you control. Businesses lose sites and email because the domain sat in a former supplier's account and could not be recovered.

The same applies to the platform account, the photographs and the written content. Our page on backups and versions covers keeping the source material where you can reach it.

Ask this question before signing anything. It is a reasonable question, every good supplier answers it plainly, and the answer tells you a great deal about the ones who do not.

Judging a quote

Compare the three-year total rather than the build price. Add the build, the subscriptions and anything ongoing, and the quotes frequently rank differently from how they looked at first glance.

Ask what happens if you want to leave. A genuinely useful answer describes how you take your content and domain elsewhere; an evasive one is telling you the real cost of the arrangement.

And be specific about what you need. Half the variation between quotes is suppliers guessing at different scopes, and a clear brief removes most of that before anybody quotes.