
Website development and design can cost anything from R500.00 to R100,000.00. The price of the website is primarily dependent on who you’re getting the service from and what you expect your website to do. Creative agencies typically charge more, and that’s because they have a team working on your project. Freelancers will typically charge less because they have lower overhead costs.
Freelancers vs Creative Agency for website development and design
Besides that fact the freelancers are cheaper, if you find an experienced individual, you can get high-quality work at a bargain, however, if due-diligence is not done, you can lose money from scams, bad quality work, and lack of diversity in creativity.
The Creative agencies, have a full team of creatives behind your project and are less likely to disappear with your money. However, they are typically more expensive.
So, if you’re looking for a basic business website that just gives information about your shop/business, then you’re probably looking at the lower end of the spending scale. If you’re looking for specialized website development and design, then expect to pay a bit more. Additionally, functionality means anything beyond a website that displays your business information, this can be anything from capturing and interpreting customer information to offer speedy results, e-commerce website with payment gateways, or creating profile functionality for your customers and establishing databases. To achieve this the developer would typically need more time and will charge more depending on your needs and the effort required to meet them.
Payment structures
Website developers will typically charge you in one of two ways:
- Once-off development fee’s
- Monthly payment plan
If you are looking for a basic information website that talks about your business and won’t need a lot of regular updates, then a once-off fee would be ideal.
If you are looking for a specialized website that you would like to roll out in stages, then the monthly payment plan would be the better option, it allows for a phased development approach which allows time for customer feedback on the website functionality and design.
Typical cost breakdown.
- Domain Administration (depends on the hosting service use by the developer)
- Website development and design (developers fees)
- Website maintenance for security-related reasons (can be inhouse or by the developer)
- Website backup – optional
Food for Thought
So before you find a developer or creative agency, spend some time thinking about the following
- What do you need your website to achieve?
- What is the minimal functionality you would need to achieve the goal of having your website?
- How many pages do you need to get the most out of your website?
- What are your budget for the website development and design?
- What is your deadline?
- Do you have a domain and hosting service?
- Do you have content for your website?
Typical Prices
The price for website development and design will differ depending on who you engage with. See the link to our price list to give you an idea of how much typical website development will cost you in South Africa, to get you started.