PeakLeadsWeb design
How much does a website cost for a trade business in South Africa?
How much a website costs in South Africa depends on what it has to do, and nobody can give you an honest price before they know that. For a trade business, the price is worked out from how many services and areas need their own page, who writes the words and supplies the photos, what the site must do when a customer lands on it, and who owns it at the end. Ask for a quote that spells out each of those, and the quotes you collect start to make sense side by side.
If you have asked around, you will have heard prices that seem to have nothing to do with each other. Usually that is because the quotes are for different things wearing the same name. Once you know what moves the price and what keeps costing money after launch, those quotes are much easier to line up.
Why do website quotes vary so much?
"A website" can mean a template you rent by the month on somebody else's platform, or a site built around your trade and handed over to you. Both get called a website, and both can look fine on the day they go live. They are priced differently because they are different products. With the first you pay for access. With the second you pay for the work and keep what was made.
Quotes also vary because they leave different things out. Some include writing the words; some expect you to send them. Some give each service its own page; some put everything on the home page. A cheap quote and a dear quote can both be fair. You can only tell when you know what each of them covers.
What decides how much a trade website costs?
How many services and areas need a page
Every job you want the phone to ring for, and every area you will travel to for it, normally gets a page of its own. How many pages does a small business website need? explains why, and how the count changes from one trade to another.
More pages means more writing, more photos and more building, so it means a bigger quote. It is also why we only quote a website build when we know how many services and areas you need covered.
Who writes the words and supplies the photos
Every page needs words that say something true about your work. Somebody has to write them: you, your designer, or a writer they bring in. If you write them, the build costs less and takes up more of your evenings. If your designer writes them, ask whether they will interview you about the work, or fill the pages with general copy any business could use.
Google's guidance on helpful, people-first content asks whether a page provides "original information". A page about your work in your area, with your own photos of real jobs, has something original to say. Stock photos of smiling strangers in hard hats do not. Taking photos on the job, before and after, is the easiest way to give each page something nobody else can copy.
What the site has to do when a customer lands on it
A brochure that lists what you do is the simplest kind of site. A site meant to turn visitors into calls needs more: click to call on every page, a quote form that sends the details somewhere you will actually see them, and sometimes online booking. Each of those has to be built and tested, so each moves the price.
Google uses the mobile version of a site's content for indexing and ranking, according to its documentation on mobile-first indexing. Your customers are searching with a phone in their hand too, often standing next to the problem. Ask how the site will look and work on a phone, then open the designer's past work on yours and try to get a quote out of it.
A quote form collects personal information. The Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA) says that when you collect personal information you must take "reasonably practicable steps" to make sure the person knows things such as your name and address and why you are collecting it, before they hand it over. A privacy notice linked beside the form is one way to tell people those things, so check whether writing one is in the quote. Section 18 of the Act asks for more than this, and an attorney should read the notice before the site goes live.
Who owns it at the end
A rented site can look cheaper at the start because the cost is spread out. Ask what happens when you stop paying. If the site stays with the provider, you were paying for access all along, and leaving means starting again. Whose name the domain, the hosting account and the logins are in matters as much as the design. Who owns your website? lists what to get in writing.
What costs sit outside the build?
A build quote covers making the site. Keeping it online is a separate set of costs, and a fair quote says who pays each of them.
- The domain name. It has to be renewed through a registrar. The registry behind .co.za names explains in its registrant FAQ that a deleted domain becomes "available to be registered by another person". Make sure the domain is in your name and the renewal reminders go to an email address you read.
- Hosting. The site lives on a server somebody pays for. Ask whose account it is.
- Email on your own domain, if you want it.
- Changes after launch. Ask how a new service page or an updated phone number gets made, and what that costs.
- Getting found. A new site gives Google something to rank. Climbing past established competitors is ongoing SEO work, so find out whether a quote includes any of it or leaves it for later. Will my new website show up on Google? covers what has to happen before it appears at all.
What should you ask before you compare quotes?
Ask every designer the same questions and put the answers side by side:
- Which pages are included, by name?
- Who writes the words, and who supplies the photos?
- Will every page have click to call and a quote form, and where do enquiries go?
- Can I see sites you have built, on my own phone?
- Is a privacy notice included?
- Whose name will the domain and hosting be in, and who holds the logins?
- What do hosting, renewals and later changes cost, and who pays them?
- What happens to the site if I stop paying you?
- Is any search engine work included, and what exactly does it cover?
If a designer sends back a total and nothing else, ask again before you compare it with anyone else's.
How does Peak Leads work out a build price?
From the same things this post describes. On the call we ask which services you want more work in and which areas you cover. That decides how many pages the site needs, and we quote the build once we know. Not every site needs replacing, and if yours does not, we will say so. The web design page has a table you can check your current site against on your own phone before you talk to anyone.
Every page we build is made for phones first and carries click to call, a quote form and booking. Each service and area you work gets its own page, and technical SEO is in place from the day the site goes live. The finished site is yours outright. If you would rather start from a published price, our monthly packages and their prices are on the pricing page. The Lead Gen Launchpad includes a basic website build, or optimisation of the site you have, and web design is built into the LinkedIn Ads and Full Climb packages.
What can you sort out before you talk to a designer?
List the services you want calls for and the areas you cover, and decide whether you will write the words or pay someone to. Give every designer you approach that list and the questions above. The quotes that come back should then be for the same site, and you can compare them line by line instead of on the total.