How much does a website cost in Australia in 2024?
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Why you should have a website
If you are running a business, having a website is essential. Think of a website like a business card. Having a good one is perfect, but even if you just have one and follow certain guidelines it will boost your business exponentially in today’s digital world.
There are so many ways that having a business website can help you. From creating an online presence to helping you enhance your marketing, sales, and more.
A website can also be a lot more than just a placeholder site. You can carry out most of your branding, marketing, and sales on your website. The benefits of having a website today are simply hard to ignore. Like most things, you do need to put a little investment into it, but the benefits outweigh the costs.
With that let’s look at the costs of having a website in Australia in 2024.
What are the costs of having a website
Here we will list down all the steps you need to take to have an up-and-running website and roughly how much they could cost you. Note that some steps (such as buying a domain and a hosting platform) are essential, and you can’t have a website without them. However, you may want to try designing your website yourself instead of leaving it to an agency or web designer. This is an option you have, but it all depends on your level of experience and your budget.
If you are looking for services such as web design and development by a professional, you can expect at least A$2,500 overall. Note that this is an estimation and it could cost you less or more than this.
At Honeycomb Web Design, we provide an affordable plan for small and medium-sized businesses to set up their website and enjoy a variety of services. Ask us for a quote here and find out more.
Another thing to note here is that just like most digital services, there are one-time costs and subscription-type costs. Most of the continuing costs are payable annually.
Here is a breakdown of all the costs.
Domains
A domain is the name of a website that you can type into your web browser to access it (for example, ours is “honeycombwebdesign.com.au”.
Some Content Management Systems (CMS) such as Squarespace and Shopify sell domains as well to make things easier. You can also buy domains from a separate registrar and connect them to your hosting platforms.
Connecting your domain to your CMS is an easy task, so if you find an affordable (and reliable) domain register, go for it. Try to get your domain from reputable companies to stay safe.
Buying a domain in 2024 can cost you approximately A$30 a year.
We can help you with registering your domain and setting up your account on any hosting platform if you need any help with that.
Hosting
A web host is a place where people store their websites and the files that go with them. Hosting makes accessing and editing the website easy and possible. Ultimately, this is where you do all the stuff you need to do to get things going.
There are tons of hosting platforms, from simple and basic ones to well-known names such as Shopify, WordPress, and Squarespace. Each of them offers different features and has strengths and weaknesses of its own.
Likewise, their prices also vary. They also provide various types of plans for users with different needs.
For instance, Squarespace hosting starts at $16 per month ($192 per year) when billed annually while Shopify hosting starts at approx. $43 per month ($519) when billed annually.
Find a hosting provider that works for you and it is suited to your needs. Here is an article we did about WordPress and Squarespace (with a little bit of Shopify).
Integrations
Other ongoing costs include integrations such as booking systems, e-commerce, or membership areas.
You may not need these integrations. It depends on the functionality of your website.
Your hosting platform provides you with a set of tools and functions you have. These are snippets of code written to make editing your website easier, but they are limited.
Let’s say you want to add a booking system to your website which is a barbershop. You will need to subscribe to a plugin for booking that allows you to add that snippet of code to your website so users can book their visit to the barbershop.
Now there are free plugins but you will find that the more complicated plugins come at a cost. The cost is also for support and maintenance, so if you have any issues with the plugin you can contact the developers for assistance.
This is a completely different domain from your hosting provider, so WordPress or Shopify won’t be able to help you if things go wrong with a plugin. You will need to contact the plugin developers.
Hosting platforms often have a plugin (or app) shop where you can purchase these integrations. There you can see reviews and ratings of each one before making a purchase.
You will find that often they come in an annual subscription plan with a free trial, but not always.
Web Design and Development
The most you might spend on creating a website is the development phase. This is about getting a professional with design and web experience to design a functional website.
Web development includes creating colour palettes based on your brand colours, designing different elements and features of your website as well as designing each page. This part is often coupled with UX/UI work to ensure that the design delivers the best user experience and the interface is optimised to deliver all objectives.
At Honeycomb Web Design, we specialise in delivering an affordable package for your small and medium-sized businesses with a focus on user experience and accessibility.
After you have a website design you need to implement everything. This is where you have web development.
These two stages are often interconnected, and more often done by the same team (or even the same person). A web developer’s work is about getting the website and all its functions to work properly.
Having a great design is nice, but everything you design needs to be practical and optimised for your goals.
The cost for web development and web design may vary depending on the website that you are looking for and the service provider.
For a decent website design and development work you will need to spend at least A$1,500 for a simple placeholder website and up to A$10,000 for e-commerce websites.
E-commerce websites are much more complicated than business websites that just work as online presence (often referred to as placeholders). They require more back-end development and data management. These projects are often worked on by a team of developers whereas placeholder websites can be done by one or two web designers and developers.
Conclusion
Overall, to get a professional and reliable website up and running in 2024 in Australia you are looking at spending between at least A$2,000 to A$4,000. The final cost of your website depends on the size of your project and the functions that you require on your website.
If you want to find out more about how much your website could cost you drop us a message here.