Hidden Cost of Creating Your Own Websites Nobody Told You About
Yanesha Wickramasinghe
Manager & Entrepreneur Getting Things Done With Efficiency, Intelligence and Good Communication.
If you want to build a website, you have access to all the necessary tools around you. Web development has reached a point where even a child could create and launch a nice-looking website for a 6th-grade project. What if you aren’t in 6th grade or working on a hobby project? What if you are a serious business person or an entrepreneur?
It is natural for a business or an entrepreneur to try and save as much money as possible. It looks great when you see it for $12 — $16/month. Many companies offer great packages with a wide range of features. But you need to think about what you are paying with.
Time is The Real Currency
Everything you do in life takes time. After I learned to process the price tags in my life using time, it opened a whole new way of looking at the world. It was one of the most amazing financial lessons I learned in my life. In other words, what does this mean?
- Find out what an hour is worth
- Divide your annual salary by your estimated work hours
- Divide by 60 to know what a minute is worth
If you are paid by the hour, this should be a very straightforward calculation. There is no need to obsess over the exact numbers. A rough estimate will do.
You & Your Employees Pay with Time
Whenever you ask somebody to do something, they will take a little while to complete the task. Assume you are paying someone $40 per hour. During 1.5 hours, they complete the task you have given them. If you could complete the same task for under $60, you are spending your capital more efficiently.
This is the flip side of measuring price tags with time. When I go shopping and see a nice dress, I think how many hours did I worked on this. When a business looks at how long it will take to complete a task, it should ask how much it will cost.
How Long Does It Take to Build?
The top answer on this Quora gives 4 hours for a basic website with 5 pages.
Based on the research from Salary.com I know that most web designers make $28 to $35 with $32 being the median pay.
Since platforms like Wix and Squarespace make it easy to create a professional-looking website, you don’t have to hire a dedicated web developer. A company could simply ask one of their entry-level employees to do the job. If you are an enterpriser, you can decide to do it all by yourself.
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It Takes Time to Learn
Getting used to any tool requires time. It can take an hour or two to get a good hang of the software. Inexperienced developers are likely to take more time too. What you can save from not hiring a $32/hour professional may get lost in the extra time you or your employee take to finish the task.
Re-Allocating Time?
If it is possible to outsource website creation, you can allocate that time to another productive task within the company. This is where the arbitrage in the cost of living comes in.
- It costs different amounts to have the same standard of living in different geographies
- This could be experienced within the country as well as among different countries
- Websites can be developed remotely
If your company is in a highly urban setting or simply just a state/country with a high cost of living, you should seriously consider not using Wix, Squarespace or anything similar. Why ask a $25/hour employee to work on a 5-page website for 4–5 hours if you can get it done for $80.
The trap of Doing it All Yourself
This is a trap many entrepreneurs and budding start-ups often fall for. If you are a game dev making your next title, you have a great skill set. If you are developing the next killer app, you have a skill set that could easily earn you over $40 or even $50 per hour.
With all these awesome modern tools we’ve got, making a website can be a breeze. It’s simple. But easily takes a lot of time too. That’s time you could have spent coding or preparing your pitch to investors.
Quick Summary
Find the per hour pay of you/your employees
When spending dollars — convert it to hours & minutes
When you/your employees spend time on something — think how many dollars it is worth
If you can outsource for cheaper —?don’t lose $$$ by spending time on it.