By Artem Korsakov ·
In short: The cost of a business website consists of four parts: page types and templates, preparation of materials, the path an inquiry takes to reach an employee, and recurring costs after launch. Estimates can only be compared against the same description of the result. The article contains an illustrative calculation and a procedure for comparing proposals.
To understand how much a business website costs, compare the scope of work: pages, materials, content management and connected services. In one proposal the contractor assembles pages from ready-made materials; in another they help formulate the offer, prepare the structure and migrate the old catalog. Comparing only the total in this situation is awkward: first you need to understand what result you are getting for the money.
Pin down the website you intend to buy
Start with the visitor’s task. Should they submit a request for a single service, choose a suitable product, or find documents for procurement? The size of the site depends on the answer. One long page with an offer and a catalog with separate product cards require different preparation even if they look similar. How to choose between them is covered in the article “Landing page or multi-page website”.
Then describe the number of different page types. The home page, a service page, an article and a project card may have different content rules. At the same time, twenty services built on one page layout are not equal to twenty independently designed pages. It is useful to see both numbers in a proposal: how many templates are created and how many pieces of content are used to fill them.
What an illustrative budget looks like
To test the principle, let’s take an explicitly hypothetical budget (the figures are in Russian rubles, ₽):
- page build: 60,000 ₽;
- preparation of materials: 20,000 ₽;
- setting up inquiry delivery: 10,000 ₽.
That is 90,000 ₽ in total before recurring payments. This is a made-up arithmetic example. It does not reflect trike_dev’s price or the average market cost. If another proposal for 70,000 ₽ excludes materials and the connection, it is not necessarily cheaper for the same result. First request the cost of the missing work.
Separate development from content preparation
Texts, photographs, service descriptions and documents do not appear automatically along with the website. Clarify who collects the source data, who writes and who approves the final version. The phrase “content included” may mean only transferring your ready-made texts.
For a hypothetical service company you might agree on five service pages, ten photographs and one inquiry form. If it later turns out that each service needs an interview with a specialist, a photo shoot and its own diagram, the original scope will change. This is not a question of the number of screens: independent content work has been added.
Also check the old materials. Sometimes they can be transferred almost entirely; sometimes they need review and rework. The estimate should distinguish between automatic transfer, manual processing and creating new materials.
Check the path from the form to an employee
A working button does not yet mean that the inquiry will reach the person responsible. The order may include sending an email, notifying a manager or passing data into a sales system. These are different scenarios that need to be named explicitly.
If you need online payment, booking or a calculator, ask to see the boundaries of the connection. What data is transferred, what does the customer see when there is an error, who pays for the external service? A ready-made widget and your own calculation logic should not be hidden under one vague line item.
For each connection it is useful to agree on one normal case and one failure. For example, the inquiry is delivered to a manager; then the service is temporarily unavailable. Such a discussion helps you understand what the contractor considers a finished result.
Count the first-year costs
Besides building the website, you may need:
- a domain and hosting;
- licenses and subscriptions;
- updates;
- help with changes.
These costs are covered in detail in the article “Website costs after launch”.
Clarify the billing period and the owner of each account. The one-off launch cost does not show the business’s subsequent obligations.
Compare proposals against the same result
Send contractors the same description:
- audience;
- visitor action;
- pages;
- readiness of materials;
- connections and launch.
How to write such a description is explained in the article on briefing a website without a technical specification.
Ask them to list exclusions, additional payments and grounds for revising the budget separately. Then the difference in price can be discussed concretely.
Choose the proposal in which the result, responsibilities and further costs are clear. The current range of trike_dev options can be seen in the solutions catalog (in Russian), for example in the “Service landing page” solution. To get an estimate for your task, it is enough to describe your business, the action you want the visitor to take and what has already been prepared.
Частые вопросы ### Do you need a price and timeline before a detailed discussion?
For a preliminary decision, a range with assumptions is enough. To approve a budget, the scope of the result and the conditions for changing it should be fixed. Without this, even an exact figure remains an approximate promise.
Do you need to buy ongoing support right away?
If your staff rarely change the content and know how to use the editor, on-request help may be enough. If the site takes orders every day, decide in advance who responds to breakdowns and during which hours. The same name for support does not guarantee the same way of working.