A custom website is more like a building and people usually ask: to construct me a building, how much will it cost? This is a very open-ended question to which there could be a few different responses such as: What kind of building do you want? What are your budgets? What do you need to put in the building? What is the location? What are the construction materials? Do you already have plans?

These are the same main questions you need to answer when creating a website.

What type of building/website do you want?

There are so many types of buildings; is it going to be a shed, shopping mall, airport, house or tower? Is the website going to be a blog, news site, online brochure, store, booking system, customer portal, crowd funding, online learning site, classifieds site or healthcare site? There are so many options available and the term website is just as broad as a building.

What budget do you have?

A shopping mall or airport might reach the billions, a shed might cost a couple hundred and a house ranges from many thousands to millions. Office buildings are generally millions or more.

While there is yet to be seen a billion dollar website, healthcare.gov might be the closest at $319 million and could reach $677 million. There are many multi-million dollar websites such as government sites, large company websites and other organisational sites.

Any small to medium business will do fine with a website costing anywhere in the five figures, however, the more you want the website integrated into your business the more you can expect to pay. Successful businesses that primarily operate online reach six figures and that can grow to having their own development team which will also see the figures increase.

What to put in the website?

There are so many options to put in a building - yard tools, family, a small company, large company, an aeroplane - indicating the different features and kinds of buildings you can have as well as the type of security.

The online space also counts for the cost depending of what you want to do with your website - a news article, photos, sales pitch, videos, portfolio pieces, products, customer orders, customer contact information, vendor contact information, project management, client records, codes, credit card information, inspection reports, questionnaire results, newsletters, reports and many more! Any of these options can add complexity and price increases to the project.

Where are you building it?

What is the earth like to build on or is it a swamp? Refurbishments? Landfill? What is the temperature like outside? Does it require cooling or heating? How will you access it?

Luckily online there are fewer environmental considerations but some still do exist. Where do you plan on hosting the website? What is the domain name? Is it a shared web host? What server will it go on? How much traffic will there be?

Clients usually don’t care about these types of questions, however, where you build it and what type of environment you use directly relates to the capacity you can handle, which can affect the number of visitors it can handle. You don’t want to get these aspects wrong as it can turn into a disaster and become very costly. What construction materials do you want to use?

Buildings can be made out of a variety of materials, each serving different purposes: brick, glass, wood, concrete, mud, while online is all about the language, frameworks, operating systems and other associated technologies. Which database will be used? What language and other platforms will be required?

Is there a plan? 

Building construction is a lot different to website construction. Buildings need to be clear and well defined whereas websites don’t. The reason being is that you can’t erect a building without a plan, even a simple shed needs a plan to be built with the measurements and materials required.

A website needs to have plans in terms of the layout and the types of content that will be required. Websites are easier and less expensive to modify compared to buildings.