420 Design Blog
Asking for General Pricing
15 Aug 2006 | Angie H
All too often those of us in this in the web design business get asked a far too general question (or some derivative): Please send us your pricing information.
It's an innocent question really, but it's too broad in scope and chances are, it won't get you the right answer. Would you ask a home builder to just send you pricing information without giving them details? Thought not. Website design/development is no different.
Unless you're looking for a quick, non-custom website from some run of the mill template provider, there are a lot of variables that determine the price of designing and developing a site. For starters, how large is the site going to be? Will it be a few static pages, or a large site that needs to be run on a database? The larger the site, the more there is to plan and organize, let alone design.
And what about maintenance? Will you or someone on your staff be updating the site? More than one person? What roles will they play? Or will you only be needing minor updates? The more maintenance required will often lead to implementing a content management system. That will certainly increase the cost of development even for smaller sites.
Don't forget features! Features such as custom photography, copywriting or copyediting, Flash animation of any kind, search, the list goes on. Any of these and others will likely increase the price of your site.
The point is, to get an accurate bid (in other words, to get your money's worth) be sure you know what you want. Not in terms of look and feel or the technicalities (that's the developer's job), but in terms of features, how you want the site to work, and how you want it to be perceived. Getting this information across at the beginning will help you in the long run.