How can I keep my website build in budget?

A lot of potential clients come to us and ask how much their website will cost to build. While we can provide general budget parameters, the truth is that the cost of your site is largely up to you.

We charge according to the time we spend working with you. It’s that simple. So, the cost of your site is based on how long it takes to implement the custom design and functionality that you choose.

We have seen many organizations struggle to get their site completed within budget. There are a lot of ways to save money on your website but, in our experience, the key to staying in budget is to focus on core functionality. Many companies waste money on features and details that ultimately don’t have an impact on their site visitors or objectives.

Here are our tips for making sure you achieve your site goals while maximizing your budget:

Identify Needs not Wants

Start by being brutally honest about which features are needs rather than wants. Which features can your website visitors not live without? Which are actually necessary to achieve your business goals?

These are your critical features.

Up to 80% of site features are rarely or never used. You want to focus your budget on the 20% that make a difference to your users and your mission.

Start with an MVP

Build the most critical features first. Start with an MVP - a minimum viable product - the absolute essentials that you need on your site. Develop these critical features to the point where you can see them, interact with them, show them to end users, and get real feedback on them. Once you have that hands-on experience with your core site, you can decide what other features are worth spending money on.

Build in Phases

Using an agile process, we can build your site in phases, allowing you to experience your site as it develops and prioritize future work to ensure that your budget stays focused on high value features.

Stay Focused on Value

You may have many stakeholders with opinions and suggestions for the new site, and it’s tempting to start expanding the scope of the project to try to please everyone. Stay focused on proven value. Even web design and user interface experts can’t predict exactly how people will use the site. They need data. So look at your current site usage - focus on the features that are meaningful to your users and your organization. Get that MVP built and see how real site visitors respond to your core features. Once you have the high-value features built exactly the way you want, then you can start adding in everyone’s wish list items.