A website cost estimate from a designer or an agency is a small number of assumptions multiplied together: how many pages, how long each takes, what an hour costs, what the content costs, what the features add and what the platform charges a month. When the estimate is one number, the assumptions are hidden and the buyer cannot tell whether the price is high because the work is large or because the rate is. This page explains how an estimate is built, what a good one shows, and how to build your own so that any quote can be checked against it in a few minutes.
The five assumptions inside every estimate
Page count: the number of pages a visitor can land on, including the contact and legal pages, which most rough estimates undercount. Hours per page: an hour or two for a templated page, most of a day for a bespoke one. Rate: the hourly cost of whoever builds it, zero if that is you. Content: what each page's words and images cost if somebody is paid to produce them. Features: booking, a shop, members, a quote form, each a one-off. A sixth, the monthly platform cost, decides the first-year total. A good estimate states all six; a poor one states the total.
What a good estimate itemises
The page list, so you can see what is being built and what is not. The hours per page or a per-page price, so you can see whether the pages are templated or bespoke. The content position, meaning who is writing and photographing each page and what that costs. The feature list with a price against each. The platform and hosting plan and what it costs a month. Anything excluded, such as photography, copywriting, domain and email, named as excluded. An estimate with those six parts can be compared with another; an estimate without them can only be believed or not.
Checking a quote in five minutes
Put the quote's page count, its stated or implied hours per page, its rate, its content cost, its feature total and its monthly plan into the website cost calculator. If the result matches the quote, the estimate is internally consistent and the only question is whether the assumptions are right for your site. If the result is well below the quote, something is not on the page list: photography, a retainer, project management or margin. Ask which. If the quote is below the calculator, ask what has been left out, because it is usually the content.
Questions people ask about website cost estimate
Why does the estimate not include content?
Because most designers assume the client supplies the words and the pictures, and most clients assume the designer does. Settle it in writing before the estimate is accepted.
Is a per-page price better than an hourly rate?
A per-page price is easier to compare and puts the risk of overruns on the designer. It only works when the pages are defined, so it depends on a page list existing first.
How accurate can a website cost estimate be?
As accurate as the page list and the feature list. With both fixed, an estimate should be within a few hundred dollars of the final cost on a small site; without them, no estimate is worth much.