Your website is probably your most important marketing asset and is one of the biggest drivers of leads for your business. It’s where people form first impressions and it can mean the difference between someone contacting you and your competitor.
Because the website is so important, it’s critical that it’s done right and no corners are cut. But how much does a website redesign cost and what factors go into the cost? Let’s explore.
Asking how much a website redesign costs is a bit like asking, “How much is it to build a house from scratch?” There are many different items that get factored into the overall price. Let’s break these down some of the most common factors that affect a website redesign price.
1) The Team Building It
One of the most influential pieces to a successful web redesign is the people behind the design. Although you will likely pay more, working with an experienced team with in-depth web design knowledge is key and can make or break the success of a project.
There are a lot of parts of a website redesign less experience teams may overlook. For example, an experience website marketer will know how to leverage psychological triggers in the copywriting and images to increase performance.
It would also be advantageous to find a team that specializes in the vertical or niche your business operates in. If you are an software as a service (SaaS) product, it would make sense to work with a web design agency that specializes in building websites for SasS companies. Finding a specialty agency can also sometimes come with a bit of a price, but it’s an investment well worth the cost.
2) Process Behind It
As critical as it is to have a rockstar team to build your website, it’s equally critical that they have a developed and tested process to follow. To have a successful website, It’s a much more complicated process than simply having a kickoff meeting to discuss the project and then jumping into work.
Experienced agencies will have a very well thought out process that includes goal setting, persona creation, discovery, brainstorming, strategy, designs, UI/UX testing, development, user testing and much more. Each of these stages will require their own brainstorming, meetings, implementation, revisions and feedback.
Assuming you’re working with an expert team, the more thought and process that goes into a website the better the end product and the more likely you are to achieve your goals. However, investing more time, energy and thought into the process will increase the overall cost. As stated earlier, this is definitely an investment worth making.
3) Functionality or Integrations
If your website requires more advanced functionality such as a registration system, forum or in-depth calendar there’s a good chance this will increase the price. This will also affect the different tools you may chose to use for your website.
I would suggest making a list of all the required functionality you need and the functionality you’d like. This will be very helpful for the web agency to more accurately determine the scope of the project and the associated costs.
Additionally, if your website requires an integration into your CRM, ERP, eCommerce or any other 3rd party system, this will be additional costs. Integration costs will vary depending on how the two systems you are trying to connect are setup to interact. It could be as simple as installing a pre-built connector or may be as complex as building a connection from scratch.
4) Who’s Developing Content
Content creation is probably one of the most time consuming and important parts of a website. This is where you build powerful connections with users to drive action and build your brand. Content includes not only the text of the website, but also the photos and videos being used.
Copywriting for a website is an art. It’s a tricky balance of effectively conveying a your message while keeping it inspirational, actionable, incorporating psychological triggers, and making sure it’s short and easy to read. We typically budget 2-4 hours per page (with revisions) for more important site pages. You can see how time can quickly add up on larger sites with dozens of important pages.
The days of buying a handful of stock photos and throwing them into the site is gone. For an effective website, you will need to schedule both photo and video shoots and have everything planned out, scripted and ready to go in advance. This not only requires a great deal of time to prepare, but also additional costs for photography and videographer.
From my years in the web design industry, I have one word of caution. In order to save costs, it’s very common for the organization to produce their own content for their website. However, the client almost always underestimates the time and effort required for quality content. This leads to big delays in the project or poor quality end results.
If you're planning on creating your own content, start creating it as early as possible, get training from the agency in advance and plan plenty of time for editing and revisions. Do not underestimate how much time and effort you will need to put into content creation.
Other Factors
Of course there are many other smaller factors that can influence price. These include content migrations, specific SEO tasks such as URL mapping and which platform/tools you use for the site. Many of these factors will be flushed out when you have a consultation with your web agency.
So How Much Does a Web Redesign Cost?
Now that you have a better understanding of some of the factors that affect price, let’s get more specific and start talking numbers. I’ve created this helpful chart to guide you to a ballpark estimate of what to expect with your website redesign.
Now that you have a general range to work from, the next step will be to contact a web design agency so they can learn more about your goals, requirements and website needs. From here they will be able to more accurately determine the costs for your specific website.
Have questions or something to add to this topic? Please comment below and I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Originally published Apr 2, 2014 4:00:00 PM, updated January 18 2023