What does a website cost?

So many of my clients have started their website journey with a chat with mates and was told “ring Rach, she will explain it all in normal language”. Yep, just call me your marketing interpreter 😉

Without further ado, here is a bit of reading to get you thinking about websites and what they cost to run annually, so you can better plan and budget for starting your first website.

Disclaimer: These are only my recommendations based on personal or suppliers friends have used.

Annual Costs to owning a website:

– domain name AU$15-20 maximum. If you want to know if your business name is still available, go check out Go Daddy or Crazy Domains., Domain NZ, or Free Parking NZ. You can type your domain name into any of these sites and see if it’s still available.

– SSL certificate – $50 max (this certificate is to encrypt data and provide customer security if you want to ever have PayPal or sell products/services on your site)

What does website hosting cost:

Hosting varies ALOT., and as you see some website hosting includes a domain and SSL certificate, saving you some of the costs above.

A) Crazy Domains $10 mth (if paid annually, more expensive if paid mthly)

B) Go Daddy $16 mth (includes Free domain name & company email address) – they have a sale 45% off (only off your first year)

C) Blue Host (never used them myself, but they come highly recommended) $7.30 mth is great (includes SSL cert, free domain) * NOTE; I read their small print and it seems their great monthly hosting prices may only be for your first ‘term/year’ with them. Once your term rolls over, you may have to pay their standard price (almost double their ‘sale’ price).

D) Local hosting providers. There are dozens of Australian or New Zealand providers out there, personally I think they are more expensive, but you may prefer to go with someone you have been recommended.

Website booking systems:

– ScheduleOnce booking system – $15 mth

Website Build & Design costs:

I build WordPress websites, where the build costs are dependent on how many pages and if all the text is supplied and already proof read.., but roughly from $900-$1,800.

If you want to read more about starting your own website, check out my article on Your website building checklist.

Hope this helped you a little in preparing a budget for your website.