You probably came here in the process of doing research. Are you a small business looking to build a website? Or maybe you’re a non-profit, looking to redesign your website in order to more effectively communicate your mission? Or, are you the marketing director for a multi-million dollar organization looking to improve customer relations and increase revenues?
LemonTreeSites (LTS) has worked with all of the above
Helping to build websites and implementing online marketing plans for organizations of all sizes. We’ve been professionally developing websites for a approximately 8 years and we’d love to educate businesses, consumers and the market at large about what it takes to build a website and, perhaps most importantly determine if you need a website.
Like the businesses they represent, websites are not all created equal. Websites serve various purposes, feature different technology and therefore they can vary greatly in cost as the level of design and functionality increases and becomes more complex to suit your company’s needs. At LTS our hourly rate is $150. We offer special discounts for partner companies, non-profits, and in select cases partner projects. All of our pricing is based on this hourly rate, our overall costs (wages + overhead) and the long-term costs of properly communicating and supporting our clientelle.
This post is also written for web developers
considering branching out on your own. We’ve found that the web community at large REALLY wants to know the going rate for website developments costs. Regardless of who you are, having a baseline to work with is always a good idea. LTS is always up front about pricing and we believe everyone needs to be too (although honestly many in the Internet marketing field are not – charging clients different amount based on their situation and income). Before we get to the pricing, I want to ask you… do you think you need a website?
This is important… and let’s just get this out of the way… you need a website. Period.
Medium Size BusinessAdvanced Website | $7,500 – $30,000
For Medium Sized Businesses
Previously our pricing was in the $3,000- $8,500 – for this line item (previously called Content Management System). We’ve since increased our pricing. We’ve gotten very good at tracking the total money needed for a project– throughout the lifetime of our relationship with clients. And this means we have to cover costs for phone calls, the sales process, meeting space, the actual work (OF COURSE!), and then after launch support.
Depending on the level of aesthetic design that is requested as well as additional features Content Management System (CMS) websites will run at a on average around $7,500. These websites are created with both functionality and design in mind, as you will receive both custom art design and the ability to manage and update all content, images, and text contained within the pages of your site (infinite number of pages possible) with your staff and or employees. With a CMS capable website, your site will have endless possibilities.
These websites are built with the idea that you will have a significant number of changes, additions or updates to be made to your site in the near future. Instead of being charged hourly rates to make such changes, a CMS system enables you to do a majority of the basic additions without prior coding or web designing knowledge. Social interactivity with your site visitors is possible with a site of this caliber, as a BLOG will be present within your site enabling you to place posts of content that you believe is relevant and desired by your audience. Your audience can choose to respond to your blog posts and each others comments allowing for 2 dimensional interaction between you, your audience, and within your audience.
Some ecommerce and real state listing sites can be created within this price range depending upon level of functionality and design. Also, sites of this caliber have varying prices with regard to design elements. These sites do have custom design work, but more expensive elements like Flash Art creation will affect pricing. Again, with our firm, these sites will be CSS and XHTML Coded to allow your site to look the same on nearly every computer and will also be Search Engine Optimized (SEO) for greater natural search engine ranking success. But not all firms code the same and have SEO as a top priority. Also, web analytics are provided with every site we build to track and ensure your web success.
