What’s the initial cost of website design service in Singapore?
Is it SGD1000, SGD5000, SGD10000? Or heavens forbid … more?
Never mind the initial website design cost, do you even know the steps involved? We can only assume that you don’t know how to code, so setting up a custom website on your own is completely out of the question.
Trying to figure out the initial cost of setting up a website is not an easy process, one that you can solve by running a simple web search. We predict that things will become heavy on your point of focus, paralysing you from taking that first bold step towards designing the website.
Chances are also good that you’ll be so focused on your budget and money – and as a result, be blinded on the bigger picture.
The thing is the process of hiring a web designer and budgeting for it is a bumpy ride in itself. It’s conflicting at the core – you need the best web designer that you can find, and at the same time, you want to economise on your budget and make sure that you’re not overspending on the whole thing.
So you find yourself asking all manner of trivial questions in the lines of:
- Do I really need a designer, or should I skip the whole process and just go ahead and hire a web developer and let them put their creative license to work?
- It seems like hiring a web designer from a developed country is a bit expensive. Should I go on a limb here and hire someone from a developing country instead? Aren’t their rates affordable?
- Will the designer deliver what I Want after paying for it; or am I setting myself up for disappointment?
- What if I get ripped off … Will I even know?
- I don’t have a huge budget for this. I have to be extra cautious with how I use it; otherwise I’ll live my whole life regretting.
- Blah blah and all manner of frantic questions that solve nothing
If these are the type of question running through your head as we speak, then we’d like to ask you to STOP, please! You’re not doing yourself any favour, but creating a mountain out of a molehill.
It’s not that serious. Neither is it as complicated as you’re trying to make it appear. What you need is a good designer or web designing agency, and there’s possibly no limit as to what you can achieve.
Plus, the cost of setting up your own website can range anywhere from zero to thousands of dollars, depending on the type of site you’re creating and the hours pumped in. If you have the time and patience, there are free tools and canned themes that you can use to set up a site at zero cost, save for the hosting and domain charges.
The only difference is that the site you create might not be up to the required professional standards. Also, it might have loads of other issues, like not loading faster enough and having codes that affect your SEO effort, and so forth.
So yes, it pays to hire a professional to help you out with this.
The Cost of Designing a Website
Perhaps you’re an artist, architect, chef, or journalist and are looking to set up a simple website for your portfolio or to showcase some of your work. And if you are an architect you’ll need a website that clearly shows your architect design brief, if you are an artist, it must show your artwork. For this, you do not need a complex website, so your web designer might charge you less compared to someone who’s requesting a high functionality website for a startup or local company.
Basic websites have few functionalities, if any. They’re meant to fulfill the needs of a small company or a small professional.
So how much do they cost:
Free to about $50 if you’re designing it yourself
You’d be surprised by how easy it is for you to build your own website. You have all the resources, tools, and platforms at your disposal to get this done.
Top among the options you have is the WordPress.org platform. With this platform, you can create a simple website on your own with the help of a few online tutorials.
You don’t need to have any prior coding skills to use the platform. If anything, the platform has ready-made templates or page builders that you can use to set up an amazing site for your business without laying down a single line of code.
Other alternatives include Squarespace, Wix, Designly, and Joomla, all of which offer superb templates that allow you to whip up a stunning website in a matter of minutes.
The only upside with this option is that it allows you to save tons of money at the end of it all. That’s because you’ll not be paying for much, only the hosting charges and the cost of acquiring your domain name, and you’re good to go.
On the downside, there isn’t much you can do with the site you create other than setting up something basic. Your website will have limited functionality. And even if you were to compare, your site won’t hold a candle to a professionally designed one.
Also, don’t expect the site to be well-refined and to run smoothly unless you make some adjustments to it at the code level.
It’s your call to make at this point. You have the option of teaching yourself how to code or getting a professional web designer to help you out.
Hiring a Professional to Design You a Basic Website
After careful analysis and comparison, we’ve estimated that the cost of hiring a professional to help you design a basic website runs from $4000 to $20000 depending on the developer or agency or the number of hours pumped into the project.
The amount is much higher with some developers and a bit lower for some. However, we do not recommend that you go with anyone who charges lower than that, lest the quality of their work impacts negatively on the overall performance of your site.
Most of the websites that fall within the ‘basic’ category are meant to serve as your portfolio or to showcase what you do and a few other things. The sites created are basically virtual business cards, shop windows, or advertising brochures.
They’re meant to secure you an online presence, and nothing more. That way, when online users try to search for you online, they should be able to find you at least. However, there won’t be much to process or interact with on the website.
As far as functionality goes, here’s a list of things you can expect to find in a basic website:
- A blog section where you can post industry-related news or update your followers on what’s new.
- A link to your social media profiles for engaging your clients or prospects online
- A simple online store for making simple sales.
- An option to make minor edits to your pages in real time
Basic websites can be hardcoded in pure HTML or be integrated with a CMS program of your choice. They don’t come with complex custom CMS’s.
This saves you the cost of hiring a designer to build you a tailored CMS. But once your business starts to pick up, this is an option you’d want to consider for reasons that are pretty much obvious– including security and control.
Plus, you’re likely to find some of these CMS programs limiting when you want to grow your site and load it up with more functionalities.
Here are a few things to observe when hiring a developer to help you design a basic website for you:
- Make sure the developer didn’t use a canned theme that’s being used on hundreds of other websites.
- Make sure the developer installs Google Analytics at the end of it all to help you keep track of your website’s metrics.
- Make sure the developer or designer that you choose to work with understands SEO to the core and that they’re able to factor it into their designing process.
The Cost of Designing an Advanced Site
Most of the clients that request for advanced sites are mid-sized companies looking to set up websites with advanced functionalities.
Most of the sites that fall on this category pack their own CMS, and their cost can range anywhere from $10000 to $35000, depending on the site in question and the agency or designer you hired.
A custom CMS means you can update the site’s content, including the texts, videos, images, and interactive media directly from the site – without touching anything at the code level or involving a third party CMS programs such as WordPress or Joomla.
Read this keeping in mind that building a custom advanced website takes time, and most of the time, it may involve a group of coders working on the same project. Other than that, it may also involve:
- A series of prelaunch testing
- A customised design solutions
- Pre-written content
If you’re working with an agency on this, that means the agency will be involving other departments in the project.
So how do you select an agency or designer to help you set up an advanced website for you?
- Can the agency integrate directories or different e-commerce programs into the site they’re creating?
- Can they integrate the blogging functionality into the website?
- How well-versed are they with SEO and how do they plan to integrate it into their design process.
- Good with graphic design and custom visuals. Of course, the complexity of this will impact how much they’ll be charging you for the project. Compared to other design elements, Flash is generally more complex. So expect any agency or developer that promises to use Flash to charge you exorbitantly for the design.
- Full-proof coding in whatever language that floats their boat. No themes or something similar – you expect the designer or agency to hardcode everything from scratch and offer you something that’s completely off the wall.
Custom Management System – $30, 000 and Above
Advanced websites are built on custom management systems. However, they’re set apart from other SME websites because of the complexities of their CMS programs.
The cost of making a complex CMS can run up to $100, 000, and that’s because everything about it is diligently designed and hard-coded from scratch.
Plus, deploying such a mountain of a site takes time (think in terms of months and years). That’s because it comes with several complex CMS modules that expose it to all manner of vulnerabilities.
The Cost of Developing a WebApp or System such as Airbnb, Fiver, Yelp, Upwork and so forth
This is where web designing gets so complex. Read this, bearing in mind that not all web apps are the same. Meaning, the cost of developing one such app will always vary depending on the web app in question.
- A Marketplace Website: A classic example of a market place is platform such as Amazon. Essentially, this is an online shopping centre, marked with scores of buyers and sellers. A site of this kind will have multiple logging options, as well as options to upload and compare products. It costs roughly $50, 000 to $300, 000 to build a market place website from scratch.
- Listing Website: A listing website operates like a directory. It’s designed to list several items, with an option for users to log in, review, and rate them. Examples include yelp and glassdoor.
A website design project for a listing site runs from $20, 000 to $50, 000.
- Custom Software: Where you’re working on a SaaS project and are looking for something that’s super-complex such as Basecamp, then you need to hire a company that specialises in software solutions. The cost of building customer software runs from $250, 000, and beyond.
Hiring an Agency vs. Hiring a Team
A single web designer and web developer can’t bring an advanced site up alone. Where you wish to hire a developer instead of an agency, then you should be thinking about hiring a team instead, unless you’re setting up a basic website with basic functionalities.
There are several reasons any well-funded company may decide to go with the idea of hiring a team and not a web agency. The first one is because hiring a team means you’ll end up with someone who understands your website better.
That’s the mental picture it creates. However, the reality could be a little different when you take a few factors into account.
First, the process of consolidating a team is not easy. If you’ve ever hired anyone, then you don’t need to be reminded how taxing it can be. And this is no ordinary job where you can request for a resume and choose the best.
For designers and developers, you have to be dedicated to the process. You’re not just looking for a developer or designer; you’re interested in someone with real experience and the required skillset.
So in a way, you’ll still be spending on the process of hiring the team. Here’s a simple break down of the cost that you’re likely to incur:
- The cost of promoting the job post on LinkedIn
- The cost of subscribing to relevant job sites
- The amount you’ll be spending on the hiring teams unless you plan to do it yourself.
- The time spent interviewing the candidates
There’s a huge possibility that the cost of hiring a team of designers and developers may run up to thousands of dollars. It’s a well-stated rule, that to make a good hire, you have to interview at least six candidates.
Meaning, if you’re planning to create a team of five, you must interview at least 30 candidates.
To create a solid team for your project, here are the people that should never miss in your team:
- A developer: the cost of hiring a developer runs from $3000 to $10, 000 per month. If the project is super-complex, then you’ll be required to hire more than two developers. You need at least a front end developer and back-end developer for the project.
- A web designer: The cost of hiring a designer runs from $2500 to $10, 000 per month.
- A project manager: You need someone who’ll oversee the whole project. This is the person to test out every aspect of the website and ensure that it’s working properly. This person must be good in, well, everything. He must understand designing, development, and good copywriting.
The cost of hiring a project manager can run from $3000 to $15,000 per month.
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A copywriter
You need good copies to make money with your website. In this case, you need someone with experience and a knack for writing.
The cost of hiring a good copywriter can run from $2000 to $5000 per month but this is not much considering he or she will ensure you get maximum ROI from the website design service.
So on average, the payscale of setting up your own team is $25, 000 per month.
At this point, you do not know how long the project will take before it’s complete.
The Cost of Hiring an Agency
Agencies have fixed rates, as we’ve already covered above. They can also work with milestones and tight schedules.
They do not impose the cost of hiring to you. You simply assign them the job, lay down the ground rules, and simply wait for the final product.
The agency, not you, shoulders any cost resulting from delays. So basically, the agency does everything for you. It’s their job to find the best talent in the industry and ensure that they’re able to deliver the site exactly as you specified.
They fail when they do not meet your expectations.
Table Comparison
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Approach/Type of Site
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Basic
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Advanced
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Custom Management System
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Web App
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Advantages
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Do it Yourself (DIY)
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Free to about $50.
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Not possible as you have to be good with coding to pull this off. You’ll also need a team.
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Not Applicable
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Not Applicable here
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Low cost, almost free
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Hiring an Agency
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From $4000 to $10, 000
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From $10, 000 to $35, 0000
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From $30, 000 and above
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From $50, 000 to 300, 000 depending on the complexity of your project
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They do everything for you.
They handle the hiring process.
They take the stress of setting up the project away from you
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Creating a Team
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You don’t need a team for this. But you could hire a developer to help you out as a starting cost of $500
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$25, 000 per month depending on the duration of the project
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$25, 000 time the number of months it will take them to complete the project. Remember to add the cost of the recruiting process.
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$25, 000 time the number of months it will take them to complete the project. Remember to add the cost of the recruiting process.
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You’ll have a team that understands your website better.
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10 Credible Reasons Why Not to Buy a Website Template
A corporate website design agency is what you need to actualise your dream of owning and running a successful business online. More often than not, price hinders most people from hiring the best website design agency, such as MediaOne Marketing. They opt to use the pre-made website templates to save money and create the website quickly.
Unfortunately, that is not recommendable, and even though it makes economic sense at the start of the journey, you will be forced to spend thousands of dollars on web redesign services down the road. As the saying goes, things don’t go wrong they start wrong. Investing in the right website is the surest way of breathing life into your online business aspirations.
Today, we will look at credible reasons why you should not spend even a dollar on a pre-made website template.
1. Poor Representation of your Business
The website is the first thing that potential customers will see when they land on your website from either the search engines or paid ads. The wrong impression will chase them away regardless of the content and the money spent on ads.
One of the downsides of website templates is that they poorly represent businesses because they were not crafted from scratch for that specific enterprise. You cannot change the template without affecting other elements that support its functionalism. Some of the providers don’t allow users to make any changes to it.
By hiring a corporate website design, you will get a custom design that 100% matches your business and personal preferences. The designer will consider the nature of your business and come up with a template that truly matches your business. Savvy customers can also tell if you took time to design the website or hurriedly used a template to go live.
2. Substandard Coding
Coding tells the search engine bots what the website is all about. It helps them to crawl and index the various pages correctly. The website templates available online have a poor code, so search engines are unable to index and rank the website accordingly.
Some of them have outdated codes, and it’s impossible to update them without compromising certain elements. Concisely, trusting a template with such a code to catapult your business to success is like shooting in the dark. The chances of the website getting even ranked are low, and you will end up wasting thousands of dollars on SEO and get no return on investment.
The hired corporate website design will create a custom template with a clean code to help you get a firm footing regardless of how competitive your niche is. The designer often works with programmers who help them create the original code and implement updates regularly. These experts will do everything possible to ensure that your website conforms to all the search engines algorithms.
3. Use of Flash Website
Many of the website templates available online for free or at a price rely on flash websites to function. Many studies have proved that flash websites are not SEO friendly as the search engine bots cannot interpret the information presented in them. Like poor code, the flash website will waste valuable resources on the best search engine marketing practices, but the results will be low.
4. Use of Duplicate Content
Plagiarism will affect your ranking on search engine results pages as well as ruin your reputation. Can you imagine pitching a product to a customer who recently came across the same type of content or website with the same features?
Savvy customers gravitate towards a website that is unique and provides personalised experiences. You cannot achieve that goal with a website template. Even though you can delete or edit some of the content, the primary features will remain untouched.
Even if you delete the content, the source code will remain the same, and search engines are keen on scanning the content within the HTML, not just the HTML. It gets even worse if the developer does not grant you the ability to customise or change the metadata.
Avoid such challenges by having your custom website. As mentioned earlier, corporate website designers are professionals who are committed and determined to ensure that your business succeeds. They will ensure that the source code used to create the website template is unique and SEO-friendly. You will never have to worry about other websites ever using your template without your consent.
5. Design Perspective
The design directly impacts not only how search engines interpret and rank your website but also how prospects interact with the various elements on the pages. When designing a website, you should strive to create pages that offer a stellar user experience to prospects.
Website templates offer limited customisation opportunities, and so you will end up with a website that you cannot make your own. That is, you may not be able to add special elements such as animations, custom shopping buttons and carts, and many other elements that would make it resonate with your brand and stand out from the crowd.
There are plugins that you can use to customise the template, but still, their capabilities are limited by the code. Having a custom template will cushion you from such problems and give you full control over your website. You will be able to carry out A/B tests on multiple pages, shopping carts, Call-to-Action buttons, and many other elements that govern how customers navigate the website and complete the desired action.
6. Does Not Support Business Growth
Growth is guaranteed if you apply the right digital marketing strategies, focus on satisfying customers’ needs amicably, using best SEO practices, and connecting with other industry leaders. The website is one of your business assets needs to support growth. It should be able to accommodate the influx of traffic and shopping sessions.
There is no guarantee that the website will support your business with a pre-made template as it grows. Most of the websites are meant to help the business start but not scale up. Such of the limitations that you may encounter when you buy a template include;
- Little or no agility
- Limited or no space to insert navigation links
- The content management system that cannot be tweaked to enhance SEO
- No control over some of the elements
These limitations will hamper your business growth. As mentioned at the start of the article, you will end up changing your budget to afford a whole new website development project. You are better off spending the same amount of money before launching the website instead of inconveniencing customers who will not shop as the new site is being developed.
7. Not Compatible with Some Technologies
If the source code is old or unconventional, it will limit the number of new technologies that you can use to supercharge the website. Your competitors will have a field day netting your customers because you cannot connect with them well. Consequently, you will lose revenue and spend more money to try and install the system, and it might not work as expected even if you succeed in installing it in the template.
For instance, as the business grows, you will need an integrated search engine-friendly system to work with the content management system. That won’t be possible if the source code is not compatible with the system, so your SEO efforts will take a beating. Most of the templates have inbuilt features that are no longer viable and SEO-friendly.
8. Generic Logos
The logo is one of the elements that define your business. It is a critical and important part of the website as it will help customers know that they are in the right place, especially the new customers. The website templates come with generic logos that are not unique and are easy to spot.
Also, the logo placement and design are fixed to the website template. You will not fit in your preferred logo without resizing the space and changing the colours. Such changes will affect the other elements of the templates that are linked to space.
9. Rental vs. Ownership
When starting a business, you need to accrue assets to rise to the desired cruising altitude. You cannot achieve that goal if you only own the assets partly. The website is one of the invaluable assets to your online business. Even if you have a brick-and-mortar store, you still need the website for branding and sales.
If you hire a corporate website design agency to create a site for you, it will be yours 100% after the final payment. If you are not satisfied with the web host’s service, such as load speed and hosting fee, you can transfer it to another credible host.
By buying a ready website template, you will deny yourself such privileges. You will always be walking on eggshells not to annoy the developer or owner of the website lest you are locked out, or the content is deleted without your consent.
As an online business owner, you will continuously monitor the pages’ performance to know if they are working optimally. With a template, you cannot delete any of the elements or delete the pages without informing the developer. Not to mention, you may be required to pay more money to enjoy more customisation freedom.
Such drawbacks will have huge negative ramifications on your business. Make the right decision today to hire a corporate website designer in Singapore – cheap is expensive.
10. No Custom Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO)
Conversion rate optimisation (CRO) refers to processes done on the website to increase the number of people who visit and convert. It entails search engine marketing, fresh content, removal of friction points in the buyer’s journey, landing page redesign, and many more.
The corporate website design agency will not only create the website but also optimise it to generate sales. They will hire professional copywriters to write the content and carry out A/B tests to ensure that the final website is ready to fire up your business.
Navigation will be tested and customised to match the movements of the ideal customer on the website. Custom call-to-action buttons and customer-oriented inquiry forms are added to help you get sales and gather valuable information about the customers, such as email addresses for email marketing and remarketing purposes.
The layout limitations make it impossible to carry out CRO. You will end up with a website that you are not sure convinces prospects to convert. The contact forms are generic and used by many other businesses, so standing out from the crowd will be a major challenge. Customers will not be getting personalised shopping experiences, and so they will be less interested in marketing your brand through word of mouth or leaving feedback.
Final Thoughts
This pretty much sums up the cost of web designing and web development in Singapore. However, you have to read the post bearing in mind that none of these website design costs is written in stone. Make a point to consult with the web designing or development agency that you wish to hire before making any major decision. Communicate the business idea, personal preferences, goals, and budget with the agency team to ensure the website development project goes smoothly. Agree on the timeframes and come up with a blueprint consisting of several milestones to track the project’s progress.
For more inquiries or if you’re looking for a web designing or development agency that will listen to you and adjust to your budget, then we encourage you to talk to our Web development consultants at MediaOne Marketing for the best way forward.
