How much does web design cost?
It’s impossible to answer this question
accurately until we have the opportunity to
gain a full understanding of the client’s wants
and depending on the
needs, functionality, and complexity of the
site. If we asked you how much a car cost, you
would need to know what kind of car we were
asking about, right? The same principle
applies to web design.

How Sites are Created and Structured:
Let’s start with an understanding of how web
sites are created. 99% of all web sites today
use what we call “styles”. A style is a visual
and eventually a coded representation of how
certain types of pages will look and function.
A home page, for example, will set the style
for how your header, menus, banner area,
content areas, interactive areas, footer, and
other page elements will appear. This includes
the font they’ll use, as well as the colors and
backgrounds. Your home page usually
represents your most complex and interactive
style.
Styles & Templates:
Here are the other popular styles that make
up most modern web sites:
Your subpage or interior page style
An alternate, maybe more visual subpage
style
Your blog style
Your form style
Cart styles as needed
Styles for interactive components such as
tabbed areas and carousels
Portfolio styles
Back end styles for database and third party
applications.
Once the design of all of these styles has been
completed and approved, each style is coded
and becomes a template which allows an
unlimited amount of pages to be created that
follow your style guidelines. Maintaining your
site’s style throughout your internal pages is
an important way to maintain brand
consistency and build trust with your visitors.
Themes & Content Management Systems
(CMS):
Once your templates are ready, they are
assembled into the CMS of your choice (we
use Drupal and WordPress primarily) which
then creates your own unique “Theme,” setting
forth all colors, styles, fonts, layouts, and
other elements in alignment with your brand
strategy and image. Custom web design is
NOT the same as using the pre designed
themes that allow you to change colors or
drop in text in a mass produced theme. In this
case, “theme” is just a technical term for how
a website looks, feels and functions.

Pre-designed website “themes”:
Pre-designed themes are ready-made
websites that have been designed without any
consideration for your unique brand’s image. They are created for the masses,
allowing small startups with small budgets to
quickly get a site online. The danger of using a
pre-designed theme is that your visitors’ brand
experience will be severely lacking. In
addition, the same style that is used on your
pre-made theme will be duplicated across the
web, preventing you from developing and
promoting your own unique brand identity.

Web Design / CMS Design costs:
Here are two good articles on web design
costs and setting an appropriate marketing
budget:
Budgeting for Custom Website Design
Setting Your Marketing Budget
Generally speaking, planning a website based
on a sound strategy and designed pixel by
pixel for your unique brand requires a proper
investment. After all, your site is your most
important brand asset and will affect your
perception more than any other media. We
recommend that customers who are planning
a full custom web site, with working
components such as blogs, forms, videos,
animations, copywriting, and other elements
plan to spend 2-5% of revenue in brand
building & rejuvenation and an additional 2-7
% in marketing and advertising your brand.