Almost every enquiry starts with the same question: how much will it cost? The honest answer is that a custom website has no standard price, because the price follows the work. The good news is that the work is easy to describe, and once you can describe it you can budget for it.
Here is what actually moves the cost of a custom website, and how to give a studio enough to quote properly.
start with what the site has to do
A five page site that explains a service is a very different job from a site that sells forty products, takes bookings and pulls live listings from a ticketing system. List the jobs the site must do before you think about how it looks. Each job is a part of the cost.
the things that move the price
The number of unique page designs matters more than the number of pages, because a hundred product pages that share one design cost far less than ten pages that each need their own. After that, the biggest factors are custom design and motion, ecommerce, connections to other systems such as ticketing or newsletters, and how much content has to be written, photographed or moved across.
Training and handover count too. A site your team can update themselves takes more care to build than one that only a developer can touch, and it saves you money for years.
template, builder or custom
A template or page builder is the cheapest way in, and for a simple brochure site it can be the right call. Custom starts to pay off when the site is central to how you work: when it has to look unmistakably like you, load fast, handle a real shop or listings, or be accessible and low carbon from the start.
If you are weighing the two, our guide on custom websites versus page builders goes through the trade-offs.
the costs after launch
Budget for hosting, a domain, and any paid tools the site relies on. Then decide who looks after it. Some clients update everything themselves, others want ongoing support for search and small changes. Knowing which you want avoids a surprise later.
how to ask for a quote that is worth having
Send a short brief: who the site is for, what it has to do, the pages and features you know you need, examples you like, your deadline and a rough budget range. A range is not a trap. It lets a studio tell you what is realistic and where the trade-offs are.
Be wary of a quote with no detail. You want to see what is included, what is not, and what happens if the scope changes.
“After some reluctance to employ media and website help we are very pleased with the work Ace has done for us. Moreover his enthusiasm for our business and his obvious commitment to our success is heartening. He is forthcoming with ideas; a creative and communicative colleague who has the skills necessary to see projects through, and thank goodness, the work ethic too. Glad to have Ace on board.”
custom website quotes in plymouth
We are a creative studio in Plymouth building custom websites and online shops for clients in Devon, Cornwall and across the UK. If you would like a clear, itemised quote, send us your project details and we’ll get back to you within a few days.