How to Get an Accurate Website Project Cost from Your Vendor
Be clear about what is in scope
Requesting a quote? Sounds easy, right? Unfortunately, it’s very common to see requests for quote and project description docs loaded with subjective “requirements.” Telling the vendor, “We want our website to be the envy of every competitor in our industry,” is not helpful if you’re interested in getting an accurate cost. Be as clear as possible so both sides can work together to create a great website.
Key ideas:
Create a list of what’s in scope
Start a file with “The website will include:” at the top and list everything that should be a part of the site. You don’t have to have the architecture perfectly figured out. The vendor should use this list to ask you questions, and this will unearth capabilities you want that may exist already or may need to be built.
Clarify if existing branding is changing
Are you working with current branding, or is everything — identity, colors, hopes, dreams, aspirations, etc. — being changed? If you’re going to rebrand as part of a site redevelopment, your developer needs to know this. This is true even if you’re using a separate branding agency or consultant. A good question to ask yourself is, “What are we keeping?” This needs to be part of scope so that when management suggests “freshening the logo and colors just a little,” the appropriate time and budget needs can be communicated.
Make a plan for content
Are you migrating data from another system or loading it in page-by-page? It’s good to have a guesstimate of page count, but when a site has a content management system (CMS), it’s more important to know the number of page types. The list you have written out is going to help with this. The developer can look at your list and determine the number of page types that need to exist in the CMS.
Who is going to generate net new content, and do they know about it? What about images? All those placeholder squares will need to be replaced with something nice. One of the most common reasons deadlines get pushed out is because someone assumes ready content already exists when it’s time to load the CMS. When this happens, it almost always adds to cost, so be prepared.
Call out any site functionality
All websites can make pages display when you click on a link, but anything else may involve functionality that needs to be programmed. Identifying functionality and whether it exists is extremely helpful to a web vendor. Something could be working in a 3rd party app, and no work is needed within the new site, or the 3rd party app has to be integrated programmatically. You and your web partner should review every bit of functionality needed and document the services to incorporate each into the new site. Start with forms.
Don’t overlook web/IT infrastructure, security, or company policies
These are easy things to overlook because a lot of web projects are under the umbrella of Marketing, and these “technical” issues are often not top of mind. What we’re trying to avoid here is someone saying, “I thought the developer was going to handle this or that and the developer says they thought IT was going to do it.”
Write these things out:
- Where the site is going to be hosted
- Who configures the servers
- Who handles DNS switches
- Who audits the security
Don’t forget to note company policies that the site needs to support. Usual suspects include backup policies, storage of personally identifiable information “PII”, privacy policies, cookie consent, and newsletter opt-ins.
Maintenance
Websites require ongoing care and feeding, period. Document who is going to do what after the site goes live. A common approach is that content updates are made in-house and technical updates, fixes, and patches are made by the developer under a support program. If both sides are aligned on that, it still leaves important issues to clarify, like: will the developer edit templates or create new page types for marketing campaigns under support, or is that a separate charge? Will the developer just implement analytics, or will they handle customizations or help interpret them?
Professional websites need at least a base layer of proactive maintenance services even if nothing changes on the site. Budget for this early.
The common thread
Be clear about what’s in scope through discovery and documentation.
You don’t have to know all the answers. Your web developer can take the list you’ve written out and work with you to bring the website project, and after-launch maintenance, into view. This provides safety for both sides and puts the developer and the person or team hiring them on the same side of the table. Then when the VP of last-minute changes wants a cool thing they saw added, the response is clear, “Great idea, we can do that, it’s just not in scope so it will add time and budget. Do we want to do that or should we put that on the ‘1.1’ list for after launch?”
Get a WordPress site rescue audit
If your WordPress site is broken or not performing, or you’re concerned about overdue maintenance or security checks, here’s a three-step plan to move forward.
- Get access control to the site and to WordPress
- Do a code review of what exists and audit the site’s security
- Make a plan to fix what is needed to turn the site into a solid, supported asset
Contact us for help with any of these areas or to request a WordPress Site Rescue Audit.
About Presentek
Presentek has been helping businesses design and build better online experiences for more than 25 years. If this post raised questions about your own site, here are the services most relevant to what was covered.
Web and Application Development
Website development, modernization, security and performance, and AI-related services — including making AI-coded prototypes production-ready. If the technical gaps described in this post need hands-on fixing, this is the right starting point.
Solution Design & Consulting
If you are thinking about how AI could be incorporated into your website or application — not just accommodated by it — our AI Solution Design service takes you from concept to proof-of-concept to production-ready.
Marketing Services and Sales Enablement
Brand, go-to-market, content, and digital marketing deliverables, plus product launch kits and sales enablement tools. Useful context if your website work is tied to a broader marketing or product initiative.