How Much Does It Cost to Design A Website in 2024 (Full Breakdown)
- Updated on 2 Jan 2024
- 8 min
Yaroslav Krutiak
Solution Architect, Back-End
A website’s design dramatically impacts your business’s online success.
An attractive, user-friendly site engages visitors and helps you gain loyal customers.
However, creating a high-converting website design is tricky. You need to consider several perspectives.
This guide breaks down everything you need to know about website design costs. We’ll outline the factors influencing pricing, typical budgets, and tips for getting the best value for your business.
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What’s the Cost of a Website Design?
Whether you are designing a new website using a website builder or redesigning the previous one, you need to be careful with the features you add and how much they affect the website costs.
Apart from that, there are additional factors too that affect the overall cost of the website design. Here are some of them:
- The type of cooperation (whether you are working with a freelance web designer, an in-house team, or an overseas agency)
- The type of website (corporate or web app)
- The skillset of the design team
- Size and scope of the project (new website or redesign)
- The long-term work value
We at Spdload are loyal to our experience, with the help of which we provide you with state-of-the-art design services.
We, as a design and development agency provide you with a project manager, business analyst, and UX/UI designers when you opt for our services.
Here are some quick numbers about design costs based on the type of website:
| Type of Website | Estimated Time | Estimated Cost |
| Landing Page | 40 | $1,600 |
| Corporate Website | 60 | $1,850 |
| Simple Web App | 120 | $4,200 |
| Average Web App | 200 | $8,000 |
| Complex Web App | 300 | $12,000 |
We at Spdload are loyal to our experience, with the help of which we provide you with state-of-the-art design services.
We, as a design and development agency provide you with a project manager, business analyst, and UX/UI designers when you opt for our services.
Here are some quick numbers about design costs based on the type of website:
What Impacts Website Design Pricing?
As we have already listed the factors that affect the average price for website design, let us do a deeper analysis of each one of them!
1. Goal of the Website
| Website for Marketing | These types of sites commonly include a corporate or a small business website. Their primary motive is to market the business. These can be of various types, such as:
The redesign of the Spdload website is the perfect example. It took our team six months to redesign our own website at the cost of $55,000. |
| Web Apps | Web apps are a bit different from corporate websites. Web apps help the users to achieve a particular goal. Thus, they need more customer interaction, unlike websites. Hence, to enable customer interaction in these, you need to equip them with add-on features. Some of the best examples of web apps are:
And many more! On the one hand, designing a messaging web app like Slack can cost you around $10k. On the other hand, the UX-UI designing cost of an app like Salesforce may cost you around $15k due to the complexity and integrations like the ability to sync Snowflake to Salesforce. The designing cost of more complex web apps like Amazon and Facebook can even go over $20k as they have various complex features. Please note that the development costs are not included in this. |
2. Complexity of Business Needs
The second aspect that affects the average price for website design is the complexity of business logic. Here are some factors that form a part of it!
| Factor | Description |
| The industry you deal with | If a client is ready to pay you more, there are two reasons for that. Either you are highly experienced, or the website or web app niche is in high demand. Fortunately, if you have both of them, then it is a cherry on the cake. If you or your design agency is professional in designing eCommerce sites or web apps, then you can charge more. As the competition is high in this niche, clients will be willing to pay more to get a top-notch eCommerce site. So, if you deal in a booming industry, the average cost of website design will surely be high. |
| Number of roles | The website design cost is also impacted by the number of roles. For example, Hubspot is a website that offers free courses to learners apart from marketing its services. The number of roles in this is more than that in a simple corporate site that sells marketing solutions. Hence, the designers at Hubspot will have to design different screens for admins, viewers, and learners. Thus elevating cost. |
| Number of features | The number of features that a site or web app has decides how much it will cost. Design features like navigation, animations, CTAs, informational architectures, integrations, UX writing content, etc., highly affect the cost of the website or web app. The price range of a custom website is always higher because of the level of customization it provides to the business owners. Things like the number of pages, web development complexities, preferred website builders, and website maintenance services also play a crucial role in the cost. Let’s take the example of Trello. The key aspect that distinguishes Trello from other apps is its ingenious design. The design aspects of the web app are boards, lists, cards, teams, etc. One can use these design features to manage productivity and workflow. The web app also allows you to change the colors of the cards, lists, etc. Plus, you can modify various other aspects. In short, it is super interactive. All of these design features take their dedicated time and have defined costs. Here is the list of each of the design elements of the app:
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| The complexity of each feature | The presence of more features is not just the only aspect that elevates cost. The complexity of those features also plays its part. For instance, if you are designing an eCommerce site, you will be required to add eCommerce functionality. The cost of adding eCommerce functionality can go up to $15k. Moreover, you would like to garner more users with the site, right? For that, you will need a site that is responsive. User-friendly startups attract more customers. Responsiveness is a brilliant design feature that will amount up to $25k based on the site. UX copywriting greatly affects the user experience. One page of UX copywriting may cost you between $60-$300. More web pages mean more costs. The number of integrations like Maps, Payment gateways, shipping, and inventory may also affect the average price for website design. The overall UI design of the website can also affect its cost. For instance, a fast-loading and optimized WP theme will be a bit costly. But it will give you better output while consuming less data. |
3. Skill Level of the Team
This is one of the key factors that affect website design pricing. How?
Well, if you want to build a website and dedicate your design work to a professional in-house team, it will cost you the most but will yield the best results. Even though a professional web design agency will increase your website design cost, but it will help you in the long run.
Moreover, the experience level of the web designers will also matter.
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A freelance UX/UI designer will charge you less on an overall basis, but the quality of work is not promised. It depends on factors like the location of a designer, hourly rate, etc. Hiring full-time employees for a project is something more costly and time-consuming.
An average website designer or web developer will normally charge between $10-$20 per hour. Things might be different for back-end developers. Finding good freelance web designers online on platforms like Linkedin is in itself a challenging task.
Also, if your project is more than just a basic website, you must budget web design cost, search engines optimization costs, social media, and content marketing costs upfront.
Hiring an overseas design firm will be the best option for you. It will deliver the required quality at a reasonable price.
It is pretty obvious that a professional team will surely charge you more. The average rate of a designer on a per-hour basis is $40.
Moreover, when you opt for our services, we provide you a dedicated:
- Project Manager
- Business Analyst
- UX/UI Designer
- Layout developer
- QA tester
- And marketer (on-demand)
To wrap it up, we can say that the average cost of website design can lie anywhere between $5,,000 to $30,000 depending on features, type, complexity, additional services, and many other factors. Apart from website building, you’ll also have to pay for website hosting costs.
A domain name, SSL certificate, templates/plugins used, and everything else related to your website and marketing strategy will be the costs you should budget for beforehand.
4. Design Customization
Design customization significantly impacts the cost of website design.
Here’s a deeper dive into what it entails and why it affects website development costs:
Unique Visual Identity
Custom design ensures your website reflects your brand’s unique identity.
Unlike pre-made templates, which look generic, a custom design is tailored to your brand’s aesthetics, values, and goals.
For example, a professional website would require a sleek, elegant design with custom graphics and animations that convey your expertise and experience, which takes more time and effort to create.
User Experience (UX) Design
Customizing the user experience is crucial for retaining website visitors and encouraging them to engage with your site.
UX design involves creating intuitive navigation, ensuring fast load times, and making sure the site is mobile-friendly.
A website that needs to provide a seamless experience across various devices and platforms, like an online learning portal, will require extensive UX work to cater to different screen sizes and user interactions.
Responsive Design
A key aspect of design customization is ensuring that your website looks and functions well on all devices—desktops, tablets, and smartphones.
A responsive design adjusts the layout and elements dynamically based on the device being used. For instance, a restaurant website with online reservations needs to be easily navigable on both a desktop and a mobile phone, which requires additional design and development effort.
Interactive Features
Custom interactive features such as sliders, galleries, forms, and calculators can enhance user engagement but require more development work.
For example, a fitness website might include a custom-built workout plan generator, which allows users to input their fitness goals and receive a personalized plan, adding significant value to the site but also increasing the design and development time.
SEO-Friendly Design
Custom designs can be optimized for search engines from the ground up, ensuring that all design elements contribute positively to your SEO efforts.
This includes clean code, fast load times, and mobile optimization.
For example, a travel blog aiming to rank highly on search engines for destination guides would need a custom design that ensures quick load times, easy navigation, and SEO-friendly URL structures.
By investing in a custom design, you ensure that your website not only looks great but also provides an optimal user experience, aligns with your brand identity, and incorporates all the unique features your business needs. This investment can lead to better engagement, higher conversion rates, and ultimately, a stronger online presence.
What’s the Next Step?
Understanding what goes into website design pricing empowers you to plan and budget effectively and even save money.
While costs can vary widely, typical budgets range from $5,000 to $60,000+ for a custom, professional site.
At SpdLoad, our expert web developers have produced outstanding solutions for businesses across many industries.
Get in touch today to start planning your new website or redesign project.
