How much does a website cost?
Our (Transparent) Pricing
Cost, features, functionality – They all impact the price of your perfect digital face. What should you spend? And what can you expect from your investment?
our pricing tiers
There’s a few other factors that also influence pricing besides the size of the team involved.
IT ALL STARTS WITH A GOAL
- Reduce application paperwork
- Generate more revenue
- Sell more tickets
- Attract more customers
- Collect marketing data
- Eliminate wasteful ad spend
- Improve search traffic
- Launch a new product or service
- Communicate information more efficiently
- Learn more about existing customers
- Recruit new talent, retain your best employees
Our 3 pricing tiers
The Basics, The Small Team, And the Agency
The Basics
$0 – $5,000
- Cost-Effective, low-risk investment
- Fast to launch
- Pre-packaged options that work
- Easy Maintenance for most users
Tier One
Our core pricing model focuses your new customers on the Who, the What, the Where, the Why, and the How – no matter the device they’re using – to learn about you. You might not need a designer to use today’s standard website-building platforms, but these systems lock their users into unfamiliar ecosystems, without capabilities to grow with the unique needs you’ll encounter as your business grows. A relationship with a partner on the cutting edge gives you the attention you need when the time is right to move on.
$0 – $5,000 OR WHAT’S A BUDGET?
Benefits of the basics
- Efficient branding
- 1-5 pages of content
- Essential, actionable information front and center
Your goal is to provide clear lines of communication to potential customers – Because you’re a small business getting off the ground, offering products and services your community already knows. Pre-packaged templates have left you high (not the good kind) and dry: That’s why you need a designer to ensure photos are optimal, text is formatted properly for readability and search engine optimization, and branding is on-point. You want to look your best. We make sure you do.
Everyone – and we mean everyone
(…AND THEN THEY GROW)
We built our first website in 1998 – And it got the job done. But as page frames, spinning 3D Cross Bone Skulls and tags went the way of the dinosaur, its efficacy deteriorated. Digital marketing has evolved – but its most-effective elements haven’t. A few pages about your services, locations and products can take you far. But if you’re in a competitive industry, it’s probably not far enough.
Standard website building programs work for untested ideas.
But what if yours takes off?
Your website can work for you, or against you. A partner who knows your needs and your customers’ makes sure it’s the former. Everyone starts small – Few good ideas remain that way. You’re not thinking about content marketing, landing pages, paid ad spend, e-commerce, community management, or application and payment processing just yet… But you might be sooner than you think.
THE SMALL TEAM
$5,000 – $15,000
- Work with a dedicated designer
- Typical 4-5 year site lifespan
- Scalable feature set
- Enhanced design, layout and content control and adaptability
Tier Two
If your business requires a specific feature – like a store locator or a design facelift – you’re likely in need of a customized content management system designed by a talented developer.
You fall under the Small-Team Tier if you’ve had a site built for your business in the past, but need a key piece of custom functionality to bring a small idea with big potential to life – whether it involves selling a product, taking an application, or providing important resources to your customers.
Once you’re ready to invest in a content management system that works for you, you’re ready to streamline your business, generate more revenue, and reduce customer support requirements.
YOUR BUSINESS IS HOT, AND IT’S TIME TO MELT FACES.
$5,000 – $15,000 BUDGET
Benefits of the small team
- Translated basic branding + style guide
- Basic or existing site content
- Basic e-commerce functionality
- Code customization
The start of something great
YOU’RE GONNA END UP CHANGING YOUR MIND
Smaller, healthy companies often struggle with their websites’ ease of use: Standard development platforms don’t have the capabilities they need, but customization pulls focus away from their core businesses. Even worse, most web designers don’t stay in the industry long, folding to the rapid pace of new coding platforms (See: The Marketplace of $50 Websites That Break and Get Hacked) leaving their clients high and dry when they exit.
Just ask Ticketfly what happens if you leave an out-of-date plugin on a site. (Spoiler alert–it can literally sink your entire company.) See how quickly your foot traffic drops when you’re de-listed and penalized on Google search results pages. These are important details – And often, they go unnoticed by inexperienced developers.
We’ve stuck around. And we’ve focused our efforts on making good, safe digital marketing an easier reality for many, many clients.
Investment in a website is as much about security as it is looking cool. New ideas are always untested. So a little bit of dedication now can go a long way later, especially if the system you choose can be re-designed or grown when you re-brand.
Start with a good foundation you can manage on your own and add to as you grow: That’s the ideal solution. Your site will likely pay for itself long before it stops paying dividends. Like a home, it’s all yours. Unlike a home, it also collects marketing data, which you own too. (You have your analytics set up, right?)
THe agency
$15,000 and higher budgets
- Full agency support for multi-phase projects
- Added security and redundancy to mitigate risk of hacking, DDoS, and spikes in web traffic
- Enterprise-level marketing data and analytics
- Complete control of design, layout, and custom functionality
Tier Three
If your business requires a specific feature – like a store locator or a design facelift – you’re likely in need of a customized content management system designed by a talented developer.
For established brands, our company can provide full-ship support for those in need of an entire agency to complete site overhauls. If you find yourself in these waters, you require more than just a developer to make your site work: You require a team to help not only with web design/development, but also copywriting, content management and migration, user persona development, and refined strategy for how your website will play with your overall digital marketing plan.
If you’re still reading, you’re probably on the third or fourth iteration of your site. You need a large team of developers, designers, analysts, copywriters, and digital strategists to help you craft a website that speaks to each of your customer segments. You need a partner who can work with legacy content and design to craft a new look and website experience for visitors that feels both familiar and exciting.
Or maybe you’re growing a cutting edge microsite that’s won an award or two.
Regardless, you require the same treatment, care, time, and financial commitment of an old-school ad campaign, with the added complexity of a few thousand lines of code.
$15,000 and higher budgets
Benefits of the agency
- Established brand identity, translated to fluid web design
- Site content mapping and repair
- Customer engagement tools
- Custom coding and training for in-house marketing teams
- Payment processing and increased security
WHy so serious business?
Complicated is where we thrive
Integrating with legacy systems, tracking ad spend and revenue, integrating API with popular social networks, and essential business tools like Salesforce, OpenTable, PCI compliance, and ticketing processors are all important factors when your business is thriving. But it’s no different than when you started with Un-Basic Basics: Your website needs to streamline information and digital engagement across every part of your company, generate revenue, or at the very least gather valuable marketing data about your customers.
These projects require the time and energy of multiple departments, multiple levels of approvals, and buy-in from a wide-range of team members. That makes yours a challenge. It also means getting what you want – Not what technology wants.
All-hands-on-deck attention from our agency means we sit with you to formulate strategy. We ensure all your key stakeholders buy in before writing a line of code. And we work with your team to represent the best ideas – all of them – in a secure, stable, and fast online environment.
After we help build consensus, we hone in on website goals, and determine how the website fits into the larger marketing plan. We plan the overall architecture and determine how your website will be used by your ideal user personas. We keep you focused on what matters, while keeping an eye on your budget.
If you’ve established brand guidelines with internal designers and employ a developer or two (or five or seven) as well, our team can work with yours, whether you’re setting up a music festival, or continuing the legacy of a cutting-edge payment processor or bank. We LOVE working with companies of all kinds with products and services they care about.
You need help solving difficult problems. We have the experience and the drive to get you there.
Budget Smart – WHAT FACTORS MATTER
BRAND + CONTENT + EXPERIENCE + GOALS
Most Importantly
You’re not ready to invest in a website platform if you haven’t set an underlying, specific goal for it. Ask yourself: “What does my website need to do?” Weak goals make for inefficient development. Think about what you want before you pay for it.
IS THERE AN EXISTING BRAND GUIDE?
A strong brand takes time to develop – But don’t start on the wrong foot. Consider a cohesive style guide and voice: It pays dividends in the long run.
USER EXPERIENCE + USER INTERACTION DESIGN
Compile and organize your content ahead of time – Because it’s a major challenge when it comes to web design. A variety of people with varying levels of experience with different needs will all demand the same value, and your success depends on their satisfaction.
HAVE YOU MANAGED CONTENT BEFORE?
The web is a beautifully complex challenge: Unlike mobile apps, websites today must display an infinite combination of screen sizes and be kept up-to-date by many different people with different backgrounds. Take the time to learn the basic concepts yourself, ahead of time, or carefully select someone with the experience you need.
WEB DESIGN IN NEW YORK CITY VS. BIRMINGHAM ALABAMA
If you’re in New York City, San Francisco, Chicago, or Washington DC, there’s a good chance you’ll be paying more for web design services simply because of the cost of living and demand for services. We’re located in Chicago – coated in Midwestern grit – where we can afford to keep our prices low due to lower costs of living.
If you’ve made it this far, then there’s a good chance you’re either ripping off our pricing scheme, (please do!) or you probably need a little more help. In that case, you should get in touch with us.