How To Do Web Development Cost Planning?
Are you interested in knowing how to do web development cost planning for your business website?
Website designing and development are relatively easy today due to the many website builders available in the market. According to statistics, the global market for website builders is expected to reach USD 2.62 billion by 2027 from USD 1.46 billion in 2019.
The question today is not how to build your own website but rather how to build it cost-effectively.
A robust, secure, and visually appealing website is necessary for all types of businesses and a reliable web development cost estimation helps in effectively planning the web development process, including the technical aspects and development team.
As with everything, web development cost planning is not straightforward too. There is no one-size-fits-all solution rather it depends on various factors. Let’s discuss how you can perform web development cost planning for your business.
Web Development Cost Planning Process
You will consider the following main factors for cost estimation of your website development:
Type of the Website you Want to Build
Multiple types of websites serve different purposes. You will likely be estimating the cost of development of any one of the following websites:
Landing Web Page
Small businesses usually invest in a landing web page or a brochure website to find customers and increase their sales. It has information about the businesses on the About Us page and provides a CTA (call to action) to encourage website visitors to avail services.
If you plan to build a brochure website, you will focus more on efficiency and less on functionality as you do not need to provide many.
Personal Blog Website
A blog website contains information about a specific niche. People also give it a personal touch to better connect with the viewers.
Corporate Website
A corporate website contains all the information on business goals and services to impart complete information to the customers through pages like Products, Career, Blog, etc. They also employ marketing techniques to exhibit their business effectively.
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Education Website
Education websites offer learning courses. These can be niche-specific or provide online education related to all fields like Udemy, Coursera, etc. Educational websites have a lot of functionalities related to students and teachers.
eCommerce Website
eCommerce websites allow businesses to sell their products online in exchange for money. There is an option of online payments or cash on delivery. The audience gets access to your services while sitting at home, and your businesses get access to a wider market.
Community Building Website
Community building websites can include discussion forums, social networking sites, etc. Consider Facebook, Reddit, and LinkedIn. They connect people who can then discuss and share media on their favorite topics with each other.
Web Portal
These are comprehensive websites that bring many information resources in one place. Consider Yahoo. It offers email services, search engines, news resources, discussion forums, etc., on its online portal.
Deciding your website type will help you decide on the relevant pages and functionalities and, ultimately, the cost of the overall website.
The Development Process
The website development process will also help you in figuring out the cost of your business website.
UI/UX Design
The UI/UX design process helps to create a user-friendly and interactive website. The UI/UX design process consists of procedures like wireframing, prototyping, etc. to create a website layout that meets all the requirements of a good user experience.
You will need UI/UX designers who are skilled in making design mockups that meet your business requirements and create a website design that best reflects your brand. This includes a color palette, visual theme, brand logo, etc.
Designers use design software like Adobe, InVision, etc. to create website wireframes and prototypes that will help web developers to build the website accordingly.
Development
The development phase consists of front-end and back-end development. Front-end developers work on the client-side of the web application and build web pages from static designs provided by the designers.
Front-end developers use web development technologies like CSS, HTML, and JavaScript. They also use frameworks like React, Vue.js, Django, etc., to create interactive websites efficiently.
The back-end developers work on the business logic and data storage. They work on the backend logic of what happens when users interact with the front-end elements like buttons, etc. Your back-end developers should be familiar with database management systems and API development.
Quality Assurance
Testing procedures are an important part of the web development process as they ensure that your website works fine on all devices for users. A quality assurance process is carried out by QA engineers who run various test routines, including security, performance, load testing, etc.
Developers also test their code through unit tests, integration tests, etc., to make sure there are no bugs and features run perfectly fine on browsers.
QA engineers use various tools like Selenium, Test Collab, etc., to test websites thoroughly.
Deployment
In the deployment phase, developers release the website code from the development environment to the live or production environment. Developers work on a deployment plan to smoothly push code changes from the local environment to the live website.
Your developers will also follow the market practices like DevOps to ensure automated deployment of tested features to the live website in a short time. They will use various DevOps tools to achieve DevOps practices such as continuous integration/continuous deployment, etc.
Our blog here discusses the top DevOps tools available in the market, including Docker, Jenkins, etc.
Maintenance
Website maintenance and monitoring are necessary to ensure the code changes are working fine on the live website. Developers monitor the load performance of the website in case of a surge in the website users
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The development technologies are ever-changing. Your developers will have to ensure that the tech stack of the website is up-to-date and the website works fine on the latest browser versions.
Moreover, You can also ask for feedback from website visitors and incorporate their suggestions into your website to give an excellent user experience.
Development Team
Your website development team is another important factor that contributes to your final website cost. There are various options to form your web development team.
In-house Web Development Team:
It does not seem like a smart decision to invest in an in-house web development team for a one-time web development project. You will go through a time-consuming hiring process and likely compromise on the skills while shortlisting candidates from a limited pool of candidates in a specific region.
There are also expenses of maintaining an office space, utilities, equipment, employee allowances, etc.
Working with out-of-station or remote developers is a reasonable option to opt for building a website.
Freelancers Web Developers:
You may get attracted by the vast freelance market available today through platforms like Upwork, etc., to work with a remote web development team. You can easily find web designers, developers, and testers, however, there is no guarantee of their web technology skills.
The freelance platforms do not take any responsibility for vetting the freelancer. You are responsible to screen them for their technical and soft skills.
Team management is another aspect to consider when hiring freelancers. You will have to maintain effective communication and coordination between freelance web developers and designers working on your website from different time zones.
Moreover, freelancers work on multiple projects at a time and there is a chance they do not give their maximum effort and time to your project. Also, they can leave your development project midway, and there is not much that you can do except deal with the loss alone.
Remote Web Development Agency:
A remote software development company that specializes in building websites saves you from all the pitfalls that come in the way of freelance web development. You get access to a global market of web developers and work with top-quality web developers and designers.
There are no auxiliary expenses of setting up an office, etc. The web development agency gives a guarantee of their developers’ skills. They are paid when the client is satisfied with their work.
Moreover, they are managed by senior developers who have experience in developing similar websites. They are able to devise a better development strategy and are able to guide them in case of any roadblocks.
Team communication and collaboration are also effectively managed. Although developers are working remotely, there are managers available to conduct daily and weekly meetings to ensure deadlines are met.
Communication tools like Zoom, Slack, etc., and project management tools like Asana, Trello, etc., help significantly in this regard.
One thing to note is that developer’s cost will also depend on the region. Developers in the USA and Western Europe come at a higher price than developers located in Eastern Europe and Asia.
A well-reputed website development agency will be able to provide you with a skilled and vetted web developer in your preferred price range.
Partnering with a website development agency may come at a higher cost but the accompanying benefits save you from many inconveniences that you face with low-cost development options.
Better skills come at a price and also give you a better return in the long run.
Some Other Factors
Some other points to keep in mind while estimating website creation costs include:
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Custom Website Development or Website Builders
Website builders or content management systems (CMS) are quite common today for building a website on a small scale in a short time. The cons include limited customization options.
Custom website development helps to build a website according to your own design and functionality requirements. You will require more skilled developers for custom website development and they will come at a higher cost.
You can also adopt a middle approach with a website builder that gives more flexibility with customization.
For example, WordPress offers multiple themes for different business types and plugins to add additional functionality to your website.
Developers familiar with PHP and other web technologies can also tweak the backend code and customize it according to the design and business requirements.
Visual Media
You may also want to include customized interactive media to add to your website. These can range from brand logos, and banners, to illustrations, videos, etc. You may have to hire a graphic designer to develop these media files.
Additional Website Expenses:
Apart from website design and development, you will spend on buying a domain name, website hosting plan, SSL certificate for website security, search engine optimization (SEO), social media marketing, etc.
Final Thoughts on Web Development Cost Planning
Your website is the first point of contact between your customers and business. There is no doubt that it should be well-developed and designed. You cannot take risks by cutting down development investment unnecessarily, however, you cannot also spend out of your means.
An effective website development cost plan will help you access efficiently how much to spend on your website development process.
In short, website development can cost between a few tens of thousands of dollars to a few hundreds of thousands of dollars. The final cost will depend on the type of website, the number of web pages, technology stack, maintenance plan, and the website development team.
You can get the right estimate according to your website functionalities by consulting with a software development company.
As discussed above, you will likely prefer partnering with a website development company, given the benefits of working with high-quality developers with better management and communication channels in place.
DevTeam.Space is such a community of software developers vetted for their development skills.
Moreover, the company follows an AI-powered agile process to keep track of project progress and enable effective communication between the client and developers working on their projects.
You can partner with these high-quality developers by sending us your initial project specifications via this quick form, and one of our account managers will get in touch with you for more details on onboarding, project planning, etc.
FAQs on How to do Web Development Cost Planning
To estimate website development, you will start by setting the expectation right by consulting the client, understanding the project requirements, deciding on the required development technologies, and planning the development process.
A front-end website development can cost tens of thousands of dollars depending on the functionality and design requirements.
Website development costs anywhere in the range of tens of thousands of dollars ($2,000 – $80,000). The cost goes up depending on your website development requirements. Custom website development costs more than a basic website built using a website builder.
Alexey Semeney
Founder of DevTeam.Space
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Alexey is the founder of DevTeam.Space. He is award nominee among TOP 26 mentors of FI's 'Global Startup Mentor Awards'.
Alexey is Expert Startup Review Panel member and advices the oldest angel investment group in Silicon Valley on products investment deals.
