How Much Does Website Development Cost In 2024?

In today’s digital age, an online presence is crucial for business success. With 75% of consumers shopping online at least monthly, websites have become essential for driving revenue and building brand reputation.

Websites are powerful marketing tools that leverage SEO, email, and direct-to-site traffic to attract and engage customers.

Although website development involves an upfront investment, a well-crafted site offers substantial ROI through increased visibility and customer interaction.

In the following sections, we’ll explore different website types, technologies, and key factors impacting website development costs in 2024.

  

Factors Affecting Website Development Cost

Average Website Development Cost

1. Based on the type of website

Organizations often get confused by the cost of a website, which varies greatly and is dependent on a variety of factors. The type of website is a crucial consideration. 

Below is a table depicting the cost of developing a website per type: 

Type of Website	Cost to develop, $	Time, hours
Landing page	5000	80
Portfolio website	6000	100
Blog website	7000	120
News website	7000	120
Corporate website	10,000	160
Directory website	17,000	300
eCommerce website	60,000	1000
Web portal	70,000	1200
Educational website	60,000	1000
SaaS website	75,000	1200
Entertainment website	60,000	1000
Marketplace website	73,000	1300
Social media website	120,000	2000

Surprise and Agora are some examples of custom landing pages.

Pixar, Apple, and BMW are some corporate websites.

Trello, Slack, Figma, and Dropbox, are some of the SaaS websites whereas, Farfetch and Shopify sites are e-commerce websites.  

a. Other Influential Factors

Some basic architecture and design aspects further have an impact on the overall website development cost such as:  

• High customization and complex design cost more than a minimalist design.   
• The more pages your website has, the higher the investment required to build it. It has to be ensured that no matter what page user explores, they find something that looks related and in harmony with other parts of the website.  
• Images and media should be factored in while calculating website-making costs. They take up considerable space in databases, resulting in higher hosting costs over time. Additionally, they require server resources during the uploading/downloading processes.
• SEO-friendly Design & Architecture: An SEO-friendly design and base ensure that your website shows up on search engine results pages (SERPs) when consumers look for relevant key phrases, increasing your chances at visibility and engagement.

While building an SEO-friendly site from scratch could cost anywhere between $242 to $484 or more depending on additional features and work needed, making an already existing website more SEO-friendly would generally cost between $60 to $180.  

2. Based on Key Development Factors

Businesses can build the same functional website for $200 to $200,000 depending on the technology stack and non-functional requirements, such as load time, page speed, performance, security, and so forth.  

A few development factors that are important for any website are mentioned below:  

a. UI/UX Design

Common tools: Adobe Creative Cloud, Zepplin, Sketch, Invision  

Any website succeeds if it catches a user’s attention within the first few seconds of a visit and keeps him/her engaged. A good UI/UX design helps with catching a user’s eye and retaining his/her attention, adding to a website’s beauty and comprehensiveness.   

Three main stages define custom web design service costs:    

Research: Market and competitive analysis; defining the target audience and their preferences thereafter.  

Wireframe: Wireframe is a layout showing how the final website version would look like.   

Prototype: Curating the end user interface to give out an idea about how the app will look on devices.   

This breakdown of design costs allows businesses to decide and finalize every project detail.     

The average website design costs vary from $750 to $4,000. Some deviations are common depending on the project requirements and time constraints.    

b. Front-end Development  

Technologies used: HTML, Javascript, CSS, Vue, React, JQuery, Swift, TypeScript, Angular  

Post UI/UX design process comes another important component of website development, the front end. It incorporates all features and functionalities a user sees and interacts with on a website.   

The main factors that influence the website’s front-end development cost are:  

• Website responsiveness: creating a website that responds or adapts to multiple devices and screens is known as creating a “responsive” website.   

Depending on the complexity of the project and the resources available, the cost of building a responsive website is higher and varies widely.  

• The complexity of animations   

Front-end costs range between $1,000 to $12,500.  

c. Back-end Development  

Common technologies: Ruby on Rails, Django, Laravel, Spring Boot, CakePHP, Node.js, Nest.js  

The powerhouse of a website and back-end facilities smooth the user journey and decide future maintenance costs. This results in the back end taking up considerable space in the costs sheet.   

The key factors influencing a website’s backend development are:  

• Integration with third-party services  
• Non-standard data processing  
• Comp0lex queries, etc.   

Back-end costs can vary from $4,000 to $12,500.   

d. Admin panel development  

Many times, the content on a website needs some tweaking or reworking. This is where a Content Management System (CMS) comes to your rescue.   

While there are various ready-made CMS engines like Shopify6, WordPress, etc, they often have limited function and feature options and may not provide a lot of security.   

Therefore, a business can build a custom CMS with costs ranging from $3000-$9000 and above.   

3. Based upon essential factors  

Multiple essential or basic requirements need to be fulfilled while developing and rolling out a website.  

These requirements include registering a domain name, obtaining an SSL certificate, looking for a website hosting service provider, deciding upon your design needs, and opting for the most suitable options.   

The cost of these services largely depends upon the company’s goals and project requirements. Some of these basic costs include:  

a. Domain Name  

Top domain name services: Bluehost, Godaddy, Hostinger, Interserver, etc.  

A domain name is a crucial aspect of a website, especially if you seeking a top-level domain (TLD) or .com URL for your website. The former category is expensive as it allows you to have a desired prefix/name before the given .com.    

b. SSL Certificate  

 Some SSL services: Comodo, SSL.com, DigiCert, Sectigo, AlphaSSL  

A Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certification protects both the company, by preventing unwanted threats, and attacks on the website and the users by safeguarding the transfer of their sensitive information.   

An additional ‘s’ with HTTP indicates the presence of a valid SSL certificate and ensures authenticity to visitors/users. As a result, your website URL will be displayed with “https” as opposed to “HTTP” Moreover, a padlock to the right of the URL displays the information on the certificate when clicked.   

The average cost of an SSL certification varies between $10 to $300.  

c. Website Hosting  

Top website hosting services: MochaHost, Interserver, A2 Hosting, TMDHosting, DreamHost  

Web hosting is as important as getting a domain name. For visitors or users to view what your website has to offer, web hosting is a must as it ensures the smooth functioning of the website and protection against crashes or downtime.   

The hosting costs largely depend upon the plan you are choosing according to the website traffic. If the company has just started, baseline plans could be opted for with preparation to upgrade as the website gains more traction with users.  

In case of high-volume traffic i.e., more than 1lac visitors a month, then one must go with a robust web hosting plan and a reliable hosting service provider.   

With websites offering ‘drag-and-drop’ building options, website hosting is generally included in their yearly subscription fee. Whereas, if you are creating the pages yourself or instead using WordPress, a subscription to a website hosting service provider is required.  

These subscription fees or website hosting expenses could range between $100 – $500 per annum.  

d. Website Design  

There are three ways to build a website: a website builder, hiring a website designer, or WordPress. If you are going for the first two options, then there are costs involved.   

In the case of a website builder, you are choosing the DIY website design route. These builder platforms are easy to use and usually, technical skills are not required. One just needs to drag and drop. The platform and plan you choose would decide the costs for website builders. These costs can usually run between $100 and $500 a year, but most average around $200 per annum.  

However, since customizations may be limited in website builders in comparison to WordPress or custom-built websites, a company may need to hire graphic designs with HTML know-how for some added unique design aesthetics or elements. Or in case you decide to hire a professional designer to design the complete website, you may be charged per hour or a flat rate for the allotted project. These costs are usually between $30 and $100-plus an hour, depending upon the experience gathered and project requirements.   

e. Website Maintenance  

To ensure a website is up and running without any bugs, errors, or technical glitches, a company has to invest its time and resources into website maintenance. This leads to enhanced user experience throughout the life of a website.   

The maintenance tasks may include updating competition on CMS, looking after customer support tickets, etc.   

The average cost to be paid for website maintenance lies between $200 to $1250 per year. However, in some situations, this cost might go up. One such case may be the time when your website needs support on very short notice, during after-work hours, then you may be charged higher fees.  

4. Based upon the complexity of a website  

The complexity of a website also plays an important role in determining website development costs. Here are the basic categorizations based on complexity:    

a. Basic   

A simple website with 15 pages stacked with features like CMS integration, UI/UX design from scratch, CMS Integration, and a basic backend database would cost between $15,000 to $25,000.  

The development team for such kind of a website is small and would include a full-stack developer(s), a project manager, a QA engineer, and a UX/UI designer.   

b. Medium/Average 

With pages including up to 50 and engagement of 1.5 million visitors per month, complex websites are built with regular content optimization.   

These kinds of websites consist of features like custom UI/UX design, SEO optimization, third-party integrations, and a robust database.   

Websites of medium complexity require an average time of 4-6 months to be built and the costs involved are around $30,000 to $80,000.   

The development team consists of a business analyst (BA), a project manager, UI/UX designers, QA testers, front-end, and back-end developers, along a marketing team.   

c. Complex   

Complex websites make use of multifunctional integrations, a strong design, and a reliable cloud system.   

These websites include various databases, a high-quality UI/UX design, sophisticated front-end interaction, and a huge and highly skilled development and maintenance team.   

The average cost of building a complex website varies from $80,000 to $300,000 and takes up to 9-12 months to be developed.   

Also Read: AI revolutionizing the world of web development

Canva and LinkedIn are some examples of complex websites.  

5. Based on Regions  

A company can hire an in-house team a freelancer or a web development company to build its website. Prices of the first two options depend upon the company salary bands and the current freelance rates.  

However, suppose a business hire a web developer to assist the former achieve its technical business goals. In that case, costs largely depend upon the region in which the web development service providers operate.   

Following is the graphic representation of the costs of web development according to the region of the web development company:   

Also Read: How Much Does It Cost To Create An App?

Additional Costs To Bear In Mind  

There are some extra or additional costs involved in web development. These extra costs comprise the additional features and functionalities added to the website or looking after the maintenance of large websites.   

Some of these additional costs:  

1. Plugins  

Plugins are used to add functions to your website. Whether you have subscribed to a website-building platform or are using WordPress, add-ons known as plugins are a must. These plugs enable functionalities such as contact forms, on-page testimonials, newsletter subscriptions, etc.   

Plugins are most commonly used to add e-commerce or multilingual functionality to your WordPress website.  

There are loads of free versions as well as paid plugins. Therefore, the cost of plugins can be $0 to $100+ per year, depending upon the company’s needs.   

2. Themes  

Similar to plugins, themes can also be chosen from the WordPress theme directory. Some basic themes are free and the stylist/premium ones chosen from the directory come with a cost.   

Premium theme costs vary from $50-$200. However, this charge is paid initially as a one-time cost and the theme can be customized, edited, and used at discretion in the future.   

3. Hiring a Webmaster  

A large website needs constant attention and management. Hence, a webmaster and content manager can be hired in case of a large, high-functional website to manage, edit, and update the content.   

These positions can be full-time, part-time, or on a contractual basis. Accordingly, costs may vary. In some instances, the costs could involve some hours spent on work per month, or a full-time employee could cost around $6,500 per month.  

Therefore, a website development process involves multiple developments, essential as well as additional costs. It entirely depends upon the business to choose what design and features best suit its project requirements. Furthermore, the mode of development should be chosen clearly. While in-house hiring could be an expensive and elaborate endeavor, freelancing has its shortcomings like fleet threats, high costs, and security gaps. Know more about the engagement models to make the right choice! 

Hiring a web development company seems to be the best bet when it comes to web development. With years of industry experience and domain expertise, a web development company can complete the job with proficiency and optimization.   

Looking for a reliable web development company? Big Oh’s industry experience of more than 15 years and highly skilled and analytical development team can help a business achieve its goals in a faster time.   

Free consultation session today!  

FAQs:   

Q1. How much should a website development cost?

Website development could cost between $200 – $200,000. The costs largely depend upon the technology stack and non-functional requirements.

Q2. What are custom websites and their advantages?

Custom websites are websites that are programmed and built from scratch. Some benefits of custom websites are:  

1. They are tailored to a business’s needs and branding  
2. Optimal designs and user experience  
3. SEO benefits  
4. Scaling and hosting flexibility  

Q3. Why custom websites are more costly than normal websites? 

Custom websites are built from scratch and require a lot of technical expertise and skills. They have additional features and functionalities tailored to business and project needs and thus involve higher costs.   

Q4. How much time does it take to make a custom website?

The time taken to develop a custom website depends upon the complexity of the website. A basic website takes around 2 months, medium websites take 4-6 months whereas complex websites take 9-12 months to be built. 

Q5. What are some trending technologies to make a website in 2024?

Some trending website technologies to look out for in 20213 are RWAs, Serverless Architecture, enhanced native Cybersecurity, etc.