How much does a website cost?

“There is hardly anything in the world that someone cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price alone are that person’s lawful prey. It is unwise to pay too much, but it is also unwise to pay too little. When you pay too much, you lose a little money, that is all. When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything because the thing you bought is incapable of doing the thing you bought it to do. The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot… It can’t be done. If you deal with the lowest bidder it is well to add something for the risk you run. And if you do that you will have enough to pay for something better.”

This is the ‘Law of Business’, written over 100 years ago by John Ruskin (1819 – 1900).

Ruskin’s ‘Law of Business’ is still highly relevant today in the Digital Age, and especially with business websites. With today’s technology and global labour pools, it's possible to pay a little and get a lot. It’s also possible to totally waste your money by paying too little – or get seriously ripped off by paying far too much. It’s tricky…

With sophisticated ecommerce websites costing anything from “Free” or a very low monthly fee right through to millions of dollars, it is easy to get confused when you compare different systems and solutions from different suppliers.

In the world of ecommerce, you are not guaranteed to get a better solution if you pay a lot more. And you can almost guarantee that the cheapest solution may not be the wisest for you now, let alone in the mid to long term. There are many ways you can save money, especially if you’re streetsmart - but being streetsmart is about getting GOOD VALUE, not cheap prices.

Now you can pay a little and get a lot. This may appear to contradict and defy John Ruskin’s Law of Business, but The Law is still true - it's just that prices have dropped dramatically as most business websites can now be made using pre-built software rather than needing individually custom-built software as was the case in the early days of the web. Now you can get the benefit of proven software at low prices delivered at little cost at huge global scale.

Whatever the price of the software systems (and some very good systems are actually FREE), if you're not fully DIY then you must expect to pay a reasonable price for ‘the services’ from humans who help you implement the software and related technology.

Paying for the 'human services' is where you find the biggest costs - and where you realise that Ruskin's Law is still alive and well.

Of course, you can find low cost humans, especially if you use off-shore humans located in low-cost countries. And this is where, as John Ruskin says, you must remember to add on something for the risks you run. Communication risks, project management risks, interpretation risks, re-working risks, time-delay risks…

There are plenty of risks associated with hiring remote humans online. They can quickly disappear if things go wrong, or they can move away from you if they get better offers even during your project development phase. They may not even tell you they don't want to continue to do your work. They just stop. Be careful! Low cost humans who provide bad services or no service at all can take your money and kill your business.

Paying too much isn’t smart either. It's easy to get ripped off, and sadly the web industry includes many web agencies who charge inflated prices and take advantage of naive customers. (In my experience, SEO providers are the worst at ripping-off unsuspecting customers, and knowingly sell expensive snake-oil that does little to help their customers. But that's another story for another day.)

If you're not getting the results you need, then sooner or later you won't be happy to pay expensive fees for high-priced humans, especially if you are locked into painful long-term contracts for a website that is not productive.

It’s about balance. You need to be able to rely on the help, guidance and advice from good, reliable and affordable suppliers you can trust. Price will always be one consideration, but for the sake of the future of your business, the streetsmart approach is to not let price be your main consideration when choosing your website provider. 

Don't pay too little - and don't pay too much. As John Ruskin has written, if you pay too little, it is possible that what you bought will not work for you at all. Pay a little more to make sure you get what you need. This is especially true when setting up your business for success on the Internet.

Do you know what is a fair price for the website and digital services you want or need?  If you're not sure, give me a call.

By Richard Keeves. Phone +61 413 755 468