# cost of website design.



## RAV7 (Jul 13, 2011)

how does a web designer determine the cost of designing a website? what would be a reasonable hourly charge? i have received quotes of 80-200/hr. what can i expect to pay for a well designed e commerce site. any and all feedback will be appreciated. thanks


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## ritaabc (Oct 18, 2011)

Maybe it depends on your products qty and pics, space,domain name ,multi-language and other special request and so on


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## ritaabc (Oct 18, 2011)

No, i have ever asked a guy to design for me and i know little for that


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## alstephen (Jul 21, 2011)

As others have written, it all depends on what ou are trying to do. Some e-commerce sites have templates in place to pick from, some do not.

The first thing you will need is a hosting place. You can find cheap places where they may include the domain name (varies between different companies). Some companies like Big Cartel offer all in one solution. Go Daddy has a e-commerce site with defined templates you can pick from. 

If you contract a designer you can do some research in your area to see what the going rate may be. We are in California and rates may differ here than where you may be.


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## Rodney (Nov 3, 2004)

RAV7 said:


> how does a web designer determine the cost of designing a website? what would be a reasonable hourly charge? i have received quotes of 80-200/hr. what can i expect to pay for a well designed e commerce site. any and all feedback will be appreciated. thanks


Pricing depends on the designers talents, cost of living, motivation, skill set, demand for that designer, their understanding of what you need, how well you communicate with the designer, etc.

You could pay $5 an hour and you could pay $100's of dollars per hour.

What you have to do is find the balance of someone that can do what you need at a price you can afford.

But just like you could get 5 different quotes for the same screen printing job, you could get 20 different quotes for the same website design.


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## alstephen (Jul 21, 2011)

Rodney said:


> Pricing depends on the designers talents, cost of living, motivation, skill set, demand for that designer, their understanding of what you need, how well you communicate with the designer, etc.
> 
> You could pay $5 an hour and you could pay $100's of dollars per hour.
> 
> ...


Perfectly stated Rodney.


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## spankthafunk (Apr 9, 2007)

Make sure when looking into getting a site design you ask about updating the site, if that's included in the price or how much extra it will be. A lot of people forget this question but realize down the road that they want to make a change or add product and that wasn't negotiated in the original price. Good luck!


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## TeeBug (Sep 27, 2011)

It's kind of hard to tell you what you should pay, but my advice is to avoid odesk or elance. I've had websites created from service providers on these sites and I always found it annoying that I couldn't just pick up the phone and talk through my design... all were communicated with email... which can be frustrating.

I would suggest paying a little bit more for someone in your home town, or that you feel confident he/she will communicate on a regular basis. Granted this is based only on my experience, but I find that web designers are good at what they do, but terrible with customer service. (at least the ones I have dealt with).


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## headfirst (Jun 29, 2011)

You can get a really good ecommerce site for $5k -$10k.


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## wattsk3 (Jun 30, 2009)

A decent website in our area runs a couple thousand dollars; depending on the detail that is involved.


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## bangtees (Oct 26, 2011)

headfirst said:


> You can get a really good ecommerce site for $5k -$10k.


 For most, an ecommerce site should cost under $1k, easily, if you are using one of the well-known open source platforms like Magento, Open Cart, osCommerce, etc. I'm working on our site now and it has cost me $36 ($11 for the domain name and $25 for the template). But, it helps that I have done this before.


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## headfirst (Jun 29, 2011)

bangtees said:


> For most, an ecommerce site should cost under $1k, easily, if you are using one of the well-known open source platforms like Magento, Open Cart, osCommerce, etc. I'm working on our site now and it has cost me $36 ($11 for the domain name and $25 for the template). But, it helps that I have done this before.


From design to coding to configuration you're not getting an ecommerce site done for you for $1k unless you want it done by kids.

Spend the money when it comes to Ecommerce, get someone with a good E&O policy in case they screw things up and a Cyber Liability policy in case your server gets hacked and you end up looking at a PCI compliance fine.

A pro might seem expensive at first, but its a whole lot less expensive than being cheap.

Good luck!


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## CourtyardInk247 (Oct 27, 2011)

I would say you can expect a good website for around $2k, but the most important thing will be the optimization done to your site, to help you move up in ranking. Make sure that is your priority; otherwise, you can have an awesome site that no one will see. 

Happy Hunting!


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## TRMMarketing (Nov 22, 2011)

It depends on the complexity and design. For a most general design firms you will be looking at $85 an hour. Generally the difference between utilizing a design/marketing firm is you get a custom design that is conducive to a shopping experience and a site that is locked down and PCI compliant. PCI compliance is an independent certification that the payment card industry requires for you to processes credit cards through a site. Without this compliance you are relegated to third party payment processors such as Paypal which have drastically higher processing fees.


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## dannsalik (Jul 18, 2011)

Hi, depend on the company if its famous charge well, if its not then charge less..


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## tomagucci (Feb 24, 2009)

i would actually recommend guru.com, i had a few different sites built by people from there but they actually all turned out unsatisfactory until i basically did the whole thing myself. make sure you talk to them about security features, whether or not you want to store credit card information, user input santization. All of these aspects I had to learn on my own and basically wrote a new website after learning php and everything that is involved (like a 2 year process) and it wasnt very fun. Try not to cut corners in the beginning and do it right. look for someone with lots of experience building ecommerce sites.


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