We tend to have two types of clients when it comes to web design – agencies who white label and resell our services, or direct clients, usually small to medium sized businesses. Not all of them ask the question, but I know plenty of them are thinking it it – why are custom web design services so expensive? That question becomes even more pertinent when they see cheap web services through their hosting provider or from a quick Google search.
Well, the answer to that question is both simple and complex. The simple answer is “you get what you pay for.” That’s a truism that’s holds true in this industry as well as it does anywhere else. But, there’s also some nuance to that answer that needs to be examined.
“You get what you pay for.”
I’ve posted links at the bottom of this post to two articles that touch on this subject in a lot of depth, far more than I could provide. I’ll leave them to handle the bulk of the explanation, but I wanted to get in a couple of my thoughts first, just to provide some extra dimension to this topic.
The problem with Themes
Typically, cheap web design comes in the form of WordPress themes. When a designer uses a theme, which is something we do when we can, he or she is essentially using a pre-built package of pages, art, and stylesheets that lays out as much of the site ahead of time as possible. There’s nothing wrong with this! Plenty of web designers do this to save time and effort. And it that makes it cheaper for the end user, then more power to all of us. However, the catch in this situation lies in the “square peg in a round hole” scenario.
A good web designer will create a web site that fits what your business or product or message needs. Your web site is your single greatest online marketing tool, and it needs to be treated as such. If your business can be adequately described by what the theme provides, then great! However, it’s far more typical for some customization to be involved. Sometimes a LOT of customization.
“Your web site is your single greatest online marketing tool, and it needs to be treated as such.”
This is where the disconnect typically lies. Consumers see a cheap theme, or cheap services that rely on using a theme, and think that’s all there is to getting a good web site. It looks good, therefore it is good. The truth is typically far more complex than that. And that truth comes in the form of user experience, SEO, marketing strategy, analytics, and more. That’s where custom web design really makes its mark, and why it can be expensive.
Additional Reading
I highly recommend the following articles, as they expand on this topic far better than I could. Custom web design can be cheap AND expensive, depending on your needs, and that’s fair. But I do want to stress that here at FileNotFound.Studio, we do everything we can to keep costs down. Especially for our small business customers. And a lot of those customers probably don’t need extensive customization or research, at least not initially. Those are the cases where a pre-built theme that can be ramped up into a business website in a few hours make sense. But the web design industry is rarely a one-size fits all kind of scenario. And I think it’s important to keep that in mind when shopping for your next web design firm.
(Unable to embed this second link)
https://jammydigital.com/why-so-expensive/
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