If you’re not Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg, you probably keep an eye on your spending. We want to feel that we are making the most of our resources and getting the most significant “return on investment.” When it comes to things intangible like a website, we are especially cautious. You can’t hold something tangible, so how much value can it indeed have?
We’ll attempt to figure out what a web designer costs and why they’re so costly in South Africa.
Website Design Prices in South Africa
The cost of a website design in South Africa can range from R500 to R50 000. The price of a website is ultimately determined by two factors: what you need and who you’re getting it from.
With the number of web design companies in South Africa increasing at an astounding rate during the previous ten years, there has been a surge in demand for websites, both professional and personal. You have a self-proclaimed web designer competing with a web design company and agencies at different prices.
A professional web designer knows what excellent design looks like. The novices that lack the needed skills and expertise, but provide template-based strategies, may not be able to deliver on or ensure the quality and functionality of a website.
For the unsophisticated business owner, the “cheaper” one-time price tag may appear to be a step in the wrong direction. It’s kind of like asking what your restaurant bill would be before you’ve had a look at the menu.
Several factors will influence the final cost of a website – you need to consider your EXACT needs.
Have an Idea of What You Want
It won’t surprise you to learn how frequently our clients approach us asking for a web design, but they aren’t exactly sure what they want. They know they need a new website but aren’t sure how they want it to look or operate, making receiving a quotation much more time-consuming.
It’s OK if you don’t know precisely what you want on your website; knowing what you want and providing an example of it on a competitor or random website will go a long way in helping us figure things out for you.
Questions to Answer to Help You Figure Out What You Want
What’s the Basic Purpose of Your Website?
Knowing what your website is supposed to do should be the main factor in determining whether or not you need a website. You might want a website built to sell a service, such as personal training, or you may need something designed to sell a product, such as an eCommerce website. A blog would count as this type of site for this example.
When you understand the goal of your website, you’ll be able to eliminate a lot of what we don’t need to do, so this will assist us in preparing a quotation.
What Type of Functionality Do You Need Out of the Website?
You’ll need to decide whether you want a responsive or static website design and what you want visitors to do on your site to understand the capabilities.
Knowing the website’s features will be vital since we won’t be creating anything that won’t be utilized or required, which will assist with your quote.
Will you need any of these?
- Service pages
- Product pages
- Online payments
- A Registration and login page
- A Blog on your website
- Newsletter signup
- Social media integration
- Search engine optimization services
- Online marketing services
- Responsive web design, etc.
Knowing what you want or need is a big help in obtaining a precise quotation. If you show us ten different websites and say, “I like these websites, and I’d want my own to be similar,” it will cost far more than spending a little time writing down the features you require on your website.
Because we would have to anticipate you wanted everything from every website you provided as an example on your website, it would be a steeper quote. This implies that you’ll have a lot of extra features on your site that you weren’t aware of and didn’t want.
Roughly How Many Pages Do You Think You’ll Need to be Designed?
Many people misinterpret what “quality” and “price” mean. It’s essential to understand how the phrases are used by different businesses to make sure you’re collecting all of the information that you need.
If the quotation is only based on the number of pages you need to be completed, it will be wildly off. In reality, since variables from #1 and #2 weren’t considered, it will most likely be much greater than anticipated.
Before we ask how many pages they think they’ll need to complete their new website, we inquire about the purpose and usefulness of their web designs.
Consider it this way: you’ll need pages like your home/index, about us, products, contact us, privacy policy, terms of service, and blog.
Many websites may be constructed with as few as ten pages, but if you’re not sure how many pages you’ll need, your estimate won’t be correct due to a variable.
Don’t worry if you don’t know how many pages you’ll need. This is a typical problem that we encounter all the time, and it isn’t the end of the world.
What are you paying a Web Designer for?
When it comes to web development or web design, you want a website built. So precisely, what are you paying for?
You are paying for knowledge and experience
A competent web designer has acquired a wide range of skills and knowledge through many years of experience. They will frequently have a degree in computer science or a technical/design school diploma. They will have completed numerous more courses and workshops in design, typography, graphic design, user experience, and more during their time with the companies. The list goes on and on.
They are also learning and enrolling in new courses (on platforms like Udemy) to stay up with the latest web trends, the most rapidly changing sector. Web designers must frequently violate many standards to stay ahead. Consider a surgeon who has a degree that is worthless five years later…
It’s a complex area to work in, and not everyone is capable of doing so. Web developers are one-of-a-kind, rare, and highly sought after.
You are also paying for tangible items and operating costs.
A web designer, like any other professional, has expenses. They need equipment, such as computers and specialised hardware, software, and licences appropriate to their profession. For example:
- Office Rent: R10 000-30 000+ per month
- Laptop / Macbook Pro: R26000-65000
- Additional Hardware – R40000+
- Adobe Creative Collection: Photoshop, Illustrator, R25k+
- Email and internet Line, Data: R2000+ per month
- Servers and hosting: R4000+ per month
- Development tools + Software Licences: R4000-20000+ per month
- Stock content and asset libraries like stock image Company for images: R3000+ per month
Some Extras That You Might Need
We all want an inexpensive website to maintain, and we provide exactly what you need! However, before committing all of your money to the design, consider some additional features.
If you spend all of your money on a design and only have R3,000 left over, you will be dissatisfied when you can’t get the hosting you desire or when you find that you cannot spend any money on marketing to acquire visitors and sales.
We constantly inform customers about additional costs, which are generally necessary if you want to operate a website. These extras include:
Domains and Hosting packages
Every website, after all, runs on a domain, which necessitates the purchase of one. These are commonly purchased through large domain registrars and can usually be acquired when you set up a hosting plan for your website.
The fees for renewing your domain name and hosting every month or yearly are up to you. If you have no idea what to do, that’s not an issue; we can walk you through the process step by step.
Online Marketing
Small business website owners typically believe, “If you build a website, traffic will come,” far from reality. You’ll need a good marketing strategy for at least several months before you start to see a return on your investment.
There’s a little chance that you might be successful quickly, but I wouldn’t anticipate it since when you’re a new website competing against your more experienced and older rivals to gain clients, it’s competitive.
Online marketing comes in many forms, such as:
- SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
- SEM (Search Engine Marketing)
- SMM (Social Media Marketing/Management)
- PPC Management (Pay Per Click Marketing/Management)
Web design services have advantages and require a long time to grasp, so working with a reputable SEO firm if you want to get started with internet marketing is strongly advised.
Website Content
It won’t take away from your entire budget if you create all of your material and blog posts.
However, if you’re not the most excellent writer and need someone to write up your home/index, sales pages, product pages, blog postings, and so on, it would be an added cost because this needs a little bit of work effort to do correctly.
If you want to use photos in your material, you’ll have to buy them from a stock photo firm since it is unlawful to use images obtained online without permission.
Website Maintenance
Even if you have a simple website, we might still be required to go in and maintain it. Because many customers do not make significant changes after they go live, we may need to update the site. It is simple to produce blog articles on your own, or you can hire bloggers to do it if you want to.
Checklist
Here’s a short checklist of everything you’ll need to know before receiving the best possible quote.
- What is your reasonable deadline?
- Is your deadline a hard stop, or can it be extended if needed?
- What is your budget for the website to be designed?
- How many pages will you need to be designed, and what functions do they need to have within them?
- Do you need any animation done? If so, what exactly is required?
- Do you already have your domain and hosting?
- Do you need online marketing for your website?
- Do you need content generation for your website?
If you want a website design package or need assistance in determining your new site’s features, you may use our user-friendly web design quote builder to generate a quotation. Choose the elements you require for your website, pick a website design package, or contact us to discuss your unique demands.
However, Web Design is cheaper in South Africa
While a highly skilled web developer may charge R3000 an hour in the United States or the United Kingdom, you should expect to pay considerably less in South Africa. When working with US or UK clients, they would usually get those rates, but locally you can anticipate very talented developers to charge far less.
South Africa has a large pool of website designers, graphic designers, and hardcore coders, which is one of the reasons why it’s becoming more popular as an outsourcing destination.
You can also anticipate web designers charge per hour for project fees, as freelancers are ready to work for less per hour if they know how many hours they’ll be required to work.
Conclusion
There is no simple response to this question. A website is a highly underutilized online marketing instrument that has the potential to pay off handsomely over time. As a result, it’s critical to have a high-quality professional website. You should invest in the finest website possible for your budget
With Xploited Media, we’ve streamlined the process of developing content websites with WordPress.
We can get websites up and operating in one week (provided all the content is given upfront) and at an inexpensive price. This saves you time, but it also provides the most cost-effective website design while still looking fantastic.
Please visit our pricing plans page for more information on how to create a unique, functional website.
