Website Development Cost Estimation in 2024: A Closer Analysis

Are you a budding entrepreneur looking forward to kickstarting your digital business or an enterprise looking to enhance its online presence through a well-performing website? If yes, you have landed at the right place.

Being one of the most powerful marketing channels, a website can drive higher sales and enhance customer retention. It can further fuel your business and earn you a good ROI.

Website development is invaluable for businesses, providing the foundation for a compelling online presence. Leveraging tailored design and functionality, companies harness their websites to captivate and convert customers, fueling robust growth and dominance in the digital arena.

In 2023, around 71% of global businesses had their own websites. Over 28% of these businesses carry out their activities online, and approximately 43% of small businesses are looking to invest in improving their website performance.

So, now the question here is no longer if your business needs a website, but how much does website development cost?

Well, evaluating the exact cost can be tricky as there are several factors influencing the final website development price, which we will further discuss in the blog. However, on average, the cost of website design and development can range from $12,000 to $150,000, or even more.

Whatever your budget is and wherever you might start from, this blog should give you a great idea of what you can expect about website development costs.

What Factors Impact the Cost of Website Development?

For calculating the website development cost, you need to consider several factors surrounding the development process. Let’s check them out:

UI/UX Design

The UI/UX design is one of the major aspects of website development that determines the success of your website. A good design captures the users’ attention and entices them to take action. Poor design, however, makes them leave the website, never to return.

The UI/UX design services are divided into 3 main stages through which the website design development cost can be analyzed:

Research: Analyzing the competition, defining the target audience and their preferences include the research part of the website design.

Wireframe: Wireframe gives you an idea of how your pages will look, what navigation should be in place, and how much space elements will take up. In a way, it’s a layout of what your final website version would look like.

Prototype: The website prototype is an interactive website demo with minimal features that are used for collecting feedback from the stakeholders in the early stages of the project lifecycle.

Based on this breakdown, you can settle every project detail with your development team. The cost of working on a website design can vary from $750 to $4,000. Again, this would depend on the time and your project requirements. Some common UI/UX design tools include Adobe Creative Cloud, Zepplin, Sketch, and Invision.

Frontend Development

Frontend is everything your visitors see and interact with on your website. The frontend development mainly begins once the UI/UX design process is done, and the cost for the same varies greatly depending on the skill and size of the team.

A senior frontend development expert has extensive experience and knowledge in developing complex products. S/he is also well adept in various frontend programming languages like HTML, Javascript, CSS, Vue, React, JQuery, Swift, TypeScript, Angular, etc. The main factors influencing the website’s front-end development cost are the complexity of animations and website responsiveness. The cost of frontend development can be around $1,000 to $12,500.

Backend Development

Backend is one of the most significant parts of the website development and maintenance cost. It is the heart of every website that powers all the features. The backend is the server side of a website or software that analyzes and stores data and ensures the smooth running of the website. Being a process that stays invisible to the users, backend development deals with sending and receiving information and communicating with the frontend.

The factors influencing a website’s backend development are non-standard data processing, integration with third-party services, complex queries, etc. The cost of backend development can vary from $4,000 to $12,500. Some of the top backend technologies include Ruby on Rails, Django, Laravel, Spring Boot, CakePHP, Node.js, and Nest.js.

Additional Factors that Add to the Website Development Cost

Before you hit the upload button at the backend of your website, you also need to consider a few additional factors that would influence the website development cost. Here are some of them:

Domain Purchase

Securing the right domain name is crucial, especially when you are looking for a priced top-level domain (TLD) or .com URL. To purchase a domain, you need to subscribe annually from a domain registrar that can range anywhere between $12 to $60 a year. The top time-tested domain names that have remained quite popular are Bluehost, Godaddy, Hostinger, Interserver, etc.

SSL Certification

Several small businesses do not realize how crucial it is to secure their website from unwanted attacks. You might have noticed a few websites which come with the message “this site might not be secure.” Although few visitors won’t be deterred from clicking through the site, most of them would prevent themselves from exploring the same.

A Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certification prevents unwanted threats and attacks on your website. A website with the SSL certification has an added ‘s’ after HTTP to ensure authenticity. All basic to advanced websites require top-notch security to secure their visitor’s details. The average cost of getting an SSL certification ranges between $10 to $300.

Website Hosting

Website hosting ensures the smooth functioning of your website 24*7. It also protects the website from crashing or facing downtime, as these issues can tremendously affect the customer experience. To ensure the smoother performance of your website, you need to consider a robust hosting service provider. The hosting cost depends on the kind of plan you choose from your hosting service provider.

If you have a lot of website traffic coming to your website, then it’s always better to invest in a dedicated server hosting plan. This ensures that your website doesn’t crash anytime. The website hosting expense could cost you around $100 to $500 annually.

Website Maintenance

The cost of resources required for ensuring the website’s uptime, speed, and protection incurs ongoing maintenance costs. The complexity of a website can also influence this maintenance cost.

Website maintenance is all about ensuring that it is working fine and users are flawlessly browsing the website without facing any bugs and glitches. The average cost to maintain a particular website annually can range from $500 to $12,000.

Cost Comparison Based on the Complexity Level of the Website

The professional website development cost is also determined considering the complexity level of the website. It can be a basic website with minimal functionalities or an advanced website with complex, multi-integrational features. Let’s delve deeper into the same.

Basic

A website is generally built around 15 pages with features like CMS integration, custom UI/UX design, and a simple backend database. For creating a basic website, the development team should consist of full-stack developer(s), a project manager, QA engineer, and UX/UI designer. The development time of building a basic website is about 2 months. With simple functionalities, a basic website would cost around $15,000 to $25,000.

Medium

A website with medium complexity includes up to 50 pages or more and engages up to 1.5 million visitors per month. These websites are complex in nature, as the content for the same needs to be optimized regularly. A medium-complexity website includes features like custom UI/UX design, third-party integrations, and a database.

This type of website requires a team of business analysts, a project manager, UI/UX designers, QA testers, frontend, and backend developers, and a marketing team. The development time for an average website is around 4 to 6 months, costing around $40,000 to $100,000.

Complex

Difficult or complex websites require multifunctional integrations, a robust design, and a cloud system. A complex website includes multiple databases, a top-notch UI/UX design, complex front-end interaction, and a large maintenance team.

A complex website requires the best and most skilled professionals to deliver value. Websites like Canva or LinkedIn are good examples of a complex website. The average cost of complex website development ranges from $80,000 to $200,000 and takes around 9-12 months to complete.

Average Website Development Cost: Based on Website Types

For estimating the website-making cost, the type of website plays a great role. Without defining your business website type, you might not be able to get a comprehensive answer to how much it costs to build a website.

E-commerce Website

E-commerce is a big industry, and it can be pretty hard to estimate the custom website development cost as there are several e-commerce verticals like fashion and apparel, beauty and personal care products, electronics, household goods, etc. Currently, all these industries either have their individual e-commerce site or operate as all-in-one e-commerce sites with thousands of pages and complicated functionalities.

The main components of any e-commerce website are security certificates, payment system integration, specific ad campaigns based on the target audience, custom template creation, product lists, and others.

Our experts at Appinventiv worked on various e-commerce brands like Adidas, Edamama, and 6th Street, helping them boost their user engagement rates with personalized recommendations and smoother navigational features.

Larger e-commerce websites have a great architecture for ranking well on search engines and sustaining higher loads. These are a few peculiarities that make e-commerce one of the most demanding industries for investments.

Bonus Read- How much does it cost to build an e-commerce app like Noon?

SaaS Website

The main components of a SaaS website include a multi-tenancy model, one-step sign-in, subscription-based model, application security, and elastic infrastructure. These websites require a strong cloud system and a powerful design, which is why SaaS website development costs comparatively higher than other website types. The cost of building a SaaS website falls under the range of $40,000 to $100,000.

Marketplace Website

An online marketplace is a kind of platform where all third-party sellers offer different types of products to end customers. Popular examples of marketplace websites include Amazon, eBay, Walmart, etc.

A marketplace website has components like robust product search, efficient product management, quick seller onboarding, faster order processing, hassle-free payment options, communication tools, and others. The cost of developing a marketplace website starts from $70,000 to $200,000. For instance, the cost of building an Amazon-like marketplace would range from $40,000 to $1,00,000.

Small Business Website

Forbes reports that 43% of small businesses are gearing up to invest in their website performance in 2023, emphasizing the escalating importance of establishing robust online presences across varying business scales.

Any business website usually includes pages like services, about the company, contacts, testimonials, blogs, or press pages. Every project is structured differently, and therefore each project is unique. So, the average cost of website development for small businesses is typically based on the number of pages, complexity level, and also the features you would like to integrate.

Some of the frequently requested features for a business website include onsite search, SSL certification, mobile-ready design, integration with live chat, contact back form, admin panel, and others. Business website development prices vary from $9,500 to $13,000.

Corporate Website

A corporate website has more than 50 web pages and has a lot of other things to cover. The common structure of a corporate website includes a set of products and services, a homepage, about us, company blogs, and contacts. Other than this, there would be an unlimited number of pages.

The hosting provider, database, and other maintenance and support systems must be even more sophisticated with the corporate websites. The web development price of a corporate website ranges from $15,000 to $20,000.

News Websites

These informational websites are quite simpler when compared to the other website types. It is more or less similar to a blog website but a bit complex in terms of development. For instance, a news website has more integrations like email marketing, CRM, and custom contact forms. The cost of building a news website ranges from $10,000 to $15,000.

Mobile Website

Mobile-based websites are crucial in today’s digital realm, accommodating the growing number of users accessing the internet via smartphones and tablets.

Around half of global web traffic is attributed to mobile devices, with mobile devices contributing to 58.67 percent of global website traffic in the final quarter of 2023.

Optimized for smaller screens, these sites ensure smooth navigation and user experience on mobile devices. Prioritizing mobile responsiveness enables businesses to engage their audience, boosting traffic and conversions effectively.

Mobile websites influence development costs significantly due to the need for responsive design, optimization for various screen sizes, and integration of mobile-specific features like touch navigation and fast loading times. Additionally, ensuring compatibility across different mobile platforms and devices adds complexity to the development process, potentially increasing expenses further.

Cost Comparison Based on the Choice of Website Development Partner

To find a reliable development partner for your website, you need to know some of the fundamental principles of choosing the right web development team. Here is the cost comparison based on the types of website development partners you can choose from.

Hire a Web Development Team

Hiring a web development team makes the process much easier as they are always accessible. A web development agency has great experience in handling complicated projects and is prompt in delivery. What sets a web development agency apart from freelance web designers is the strategy they put forward in building an effective and powerful lead-generating website for your business.

A typical web development firm will help your business build scalable and secure web portal applications and solutions. Also, professional web development companies will solely focus on creating a safe, robust and reliable website that would minimize the chances of your website getting hacked.

A website created by an amateur is more likely to face the risk of security breaches as they are not professionally experienced. Whether you need to develop a custom website from scratch or streamline your existing frontend and backend functionality, a professional web development team can accomplish it in an effective manner. A web development company charges $75,000 to $150,000 for the design and development of a website. The yearly maintenance charges can go up to $60,000.

Build an In-House Team

You can also hire an in-house team to build your website. However, the cost of bringing an in-house team together onboard would put a big hole in your pocket for maintaining your team’s salary, accounting costs, taxes, and other office maintenance expenses every year.

Hire a Freelancer

Hiring a freelance web developer is also an easy option, and you can get a website created for $10,000 to $15,000. Freelance developers are easy to source and have a flexible work routine. However, the most significant cons of hiring freelancers are a lack of expertise, gaps in communication, reliability issues, and no fixed deadlines.

Now that you have known why hiring a skilled web development team is an absolute necessity for ensuring a robust website, let’s move on to discuss how the team’s geographical location would impact the cost of your website development.

Website Development Cost Breakdown Based on the Agency’s Region

The nation or country where you choose to outsource your web development project also influences the website development pricing. Let’s check out how the website creation cost varies from one global region to another.

How to Choose the Right Team for Your Website Development Project?

73% of companies are now investing in website development to differentiate their brands from others. Therefore, a good development team is a necessity for ensuring the success of your project. A good team will understand your needs and goals and how those relate to your work process. Hiring a dedicated development team is not only cost-effective, but they ensure the timely delivery of the project.

Also, a good team maintains a good communication process during the entire development cycle and keeps the client in the loop with all the ongoing project development.

Appinventiv, being a reputed custom web application development company, has a bunch of dedicated development experts who are well adept in software and web development services. They have worked with various global clients, including IKEA, Dominos, Qatar Government, Adidas, and others, helping them achieve their ambitious website and software development goals.

How Appinventiv Redefined the Web Experiences for Qatar Government by Building a One-Stop Eportal, Hukoomi

Our experts built an intuitive web portal for the Qatar government called Hukoomi that acts as a single source of news or information for everyone who stays in the country or makes a visit. Our development team improvised the user engagement journey in the e-portal, meeting all the compliance and security standards, thus building a highly engaging website.

The initial results were 2.6 million actively engaging users, 997k traffic on the website, and 19000 + active services.

Want to build a similar portal like Hukoomi, or do you have any other web app ideas in mind? Get in touch with our experts and get the complete website development cost estimation and turn your dream project into reality.

FAQs

Q. How much does it cost to build a website?

A. The cost of a website can go anywhere from $12,000 to $150,000. It can even go more based on the requirements of your project. Also, it varies on the type of website you are planning to develop, the development team’s location, the complexity level of the website, and several other factors.

Q. How much does it cost to outsource website development?

A. Outsourcing website development offers outstanding value for money and is also cost-effective. Also, there is no scope for miscommunication as the web development team keeps the client in the loop during the entire web development project.

Hiring an outsourcing web development company has several benefits, including a rich experience, a stronger focus on core competencies, qualitative web development service, and unique tech solutions. Hiring an outsourcing agency for your website development needs would cost you around $15,000-$150,000 or more. However, the website development costs can differ depending on the project requirements.

Q. Are there any hidden costs of building a website?

A. If you hire a reputed web development team, then there would be no hidden web development cost as they would offer you the complete cost estimation as per your project requirements in the initial phase.

Q. How much time does it take to develop a website?

A. Custom web development takes around 2100 to 3650 hours to complete. Everything depends on the complexity of the project and the number of pages you are planning to integrate into your website.

Q. What is the team strength required for building a website?

A. Led by a project manager, your custom web development team should consist of frontend and backend developers, UI/UX designers, QA engineers, and a marketing team. The team’s strength can be anywhere between 7 to 10 members depending on the project scope, timeline, and complexity of the project.

THE AUTHOR

Apeksha Mehta

MANAGER TECHNOLOGY