What actually drives the cost
of a business website?

Price is not a page count

When someone asks what a business website costs, they usually want a single figure. That figure does not exist apart from what the site has to do. Two websites with the same number of pages can still be completely different projects: one may use a handful of content pages built from the same template, while the other may require several distinct page types, forms and integrations with systems you already use.

It is more useful to name what drives the scope, and only then talk about price. The factors below are what actually move it. There is no single universal price — the cost depends on the actual scope of work.

How many distinct page types, not just how many pages

A home page, a service page, an article, a contact page and a thank-you page are not the same thing. Each type has its own layout, fields and rules. Ten articles on one template are not ten designs. Ten different page types are.

So the question is not how many pages you want. It is how many distinct templates need to be built. That is the first number to agree before any quote.

Content

Copy, photographs, downloadable files and legal text are often not ready when the build starts. If we write them, that is a separate job. If you write them, they still need length, headings and a decision about what belongs on which page.

An empty page marked “copy to follow” is not a finished page. Content is part of the build, not an add-on at the end.

Design

Adapting an existing visual direction and inventing a new one are not the same task. If you already have a mark, colours and rules, the design leans on them. If you do not, someone has to set them — or the site will look like a pile of unrelated decisions.

The same applies to special layouts: comparison tables, configurators, maps, galleries. Each of those blocks is a new page type, even when it lives at one address.

A content management system

A site you can edit yourselves and a site only the builder can change are not the same product. A CMS means someone has to set up content types, access rights and a handover so the next change does not need a developer.

If you change content rarely, a simpler system may be enough. If you change it often, or several people change it, say so at the start — it is hard to add cleanly later.

Forms

A contact form is not the same job as an event registration, a document upload or an enquiry that has to land in a system you already run. You have to decide where it arrives, who sees it, what is required, and what happens if a programme submits it rather than a person.

Each extra form with different fields and rules is a new piece of work, not a copy of the first.

Connections to existing systems

If a form has to write a quote into a CRM, if prices are read from your business software, or if sign-ins are checked against your directory, this is no longer a site with text on it. An integration depends on whether the other system has a usable interface, who runs it, and what happens when it does not answer.

This is often the largest unknown at the start. It has to be named before a quote, not discovered halfway through the build.

Moving an existing site

A new site at a new address is one job. Replacing an existing one, with its addresses, redirects and old documents, is another. If people still open the old address, that address has to lead to the new one. Skip that, and part of the traffic you already have disappears overnight.

A move also includes the content you want to keep and the content you are leaving behind. That has to be decided, not assumed.

Languages

A second language is not a duplicated template. It needs translation, a language switch, its own addresses, and an agreement about who maintains which language when content changes. A neglected language is visible — and it reads as if the company does not stand behind that version.

Each extra language multiplies content and upkeep, not only the first translation.

Search foundations

Titles, descriptions, a readable structure, addresses that can be shared, a sitemap, and HTML that can be read without a special programme — those are foundations. They are not a ranking promise, and they are not a separate package bolted on at the end.

If they are not built in, they are hard to recover later without reworking what has already gone live.

Maintenance

A site does not finish at launch. Components go stale, forms break when an outside service changes, content needs updating. A build price with no agreement on maintenance leaves open who does that next month.

Maintenance can be yours, ours, or shared. What matters is that it is agreed, otherwise every change becomes an emergency project.

How to talk about it

Before a conversation about price, write down: which page types you need, who writes the content, whether editing must work without a developer, which forms exist, what the site must connect to, whether an old site is being moved, how many languages, and who maintains it after launch.

That list is the starting point for website development. How long the work takes is driven by similar factors, but it is a different question — we cover it in what affects business website timelines.