You are reading this because you need a number, and the quotes you have already seen do not match. I get those emails every month. One person was quoted R299 a month. Another was quoted R500 once-off. Someone else tried an AI tool that was free this week. Then an agency came back at R100 000. All of those conversations used the same word: website. They are not the same job.
The prices are all over the place because the product is all over the place. What you pay moves on two things: what the site has to do, and who you hire to build it. Until those are written down, every quote is a guess, and the cheap one usually left half the work out.
This is the brief we wish every first email contained. Fill it in before you ask for a quote. You will get a straighter number, and you will be able to tell the difference between a designer who asked the right questions and someone who priced a template and hoped you would not notice.
What you should consider before getting a quote:
Write these answers down. Send them with the request. If a designer does not ask any of this, they are guessing, and you will pay for the guess later, either in extras or in a site that cannot do the one thing you needed.
What do you offer?
People brief “a website” and the designer prices a brochure. Then, two weeks in, you mention a shop, a booking calendar, or a tutor directory, and the number doubles. That is not the designer being greedy. That is a different build. Ace Tutors is a service business. Parents need to find a tutor and enquire. That is not the same work as a shop that has to take payment for stock, keep inventory straight, and send a confirmation email when someone pays.
Say whether people buy a thing, book a time, or ask for a quote. If they buy online, say roughly how many products. If they book, say whether you already have a calendar you want to keep. Our standard sites start at R12 000. A shop or a custom booking flow costs more, on purpose, because the extra pieces are where sites break if they are bolted on at the end.
How many pages?
“Just a few pages” becomes twelve service pages, a blog, and a venue hire form after the first workshop. I have sat in that meeting. Everyone nods at five pages. Then someone remembers the hire rates, the coworking page, and the about story, and the sitemap doubles. Pages take time. Each one needs a layout, copy, and a pass on mobile. That is why a page count in the brief saves an argument later.
Most service businesses can start with five: Home, About, Services, Blog, Contact. Northplace Centre needs more than that because the space itself is the product: coworking, events, tours. Draw the boxes on paper before you ask for a price. If you only need five pages while we are running Month of Web, that offer is R3 500. Do not stretch a five-page price over a twenty-page brief and then be surprised when the designer starts saying no.
Any special functionality?
The homepage can look simple until you add “and a booking system”. Booking, memberships, directories and payments are where quotes jump, because they are not a new colour on the button. They are extra software, extra testing, and extra ways for the site to fail on a Saturday when you are not at a computer. Northplace’s Book a Tour and Apply Now are not decoration. They are the reason the site exists. If those buttons do not work, the pretty homepage does not matter.
List the actions: book, pay, log in, filter a list. If you cannot name the action, you do not need the feature yet. Build the brochure. Add the tool when the first ten clients ask for it. A lot of businesses pay for a shop they never use, because it sounded like the grown-up option in the first meeting.
Do you have content?
This is the part that holds most projects up, and it rarely shows on the first quote. The designer waits on you, you wait on the designer, and three months later a heading still says “lorem”. Copy and photos are part of the cost even when they are not on the invoice. If we write them, that is extra time. If you write them, the build waits on you, and the launch date moves every time a photo is still on someone’s phone.
Lemon Sky is what “we have content” looks like. The homepage line is decided. The notebook matches the screen. You can still hire us to write. See content creation. Decide that up front, so the quote and the timeline are honest.
For each page, write one heading, one short paragraph, and pick one photo you actually own. If you cannot get that together, say so in the brief so the quote includes writing. Pretending you will “send content next week” is how sites sit half-built until everyone is tired of the project.
Hosting & maintenance?
The build is once. The site is ongoing. Plugins break. WordPress needs updates. Backups only matter on the day something dies, which is always a Friday afternoon. A quote that hides hosting is not cheaper. It is incomplete. You will pay someone later, usually in a rush, and you will pay more than if it had been on the first invoice.
Hosting is the server. Ours is annual, from R1 800, and it is a separate bill from care. A care plan is the person who updates, backs up, and answers when the form stops arriving. Care starts at R1 200 a month. If nobody owns those two jobs, you will pay emergency rates later, and you will be doing it while the site is down.
Who you will get a quote from
Once you know the brief, you still have to pick a person. The options below are what we see in Durban. The numbers are not a law. Read them as risk. The cheap ones in particular jump around: R299 a month here, R1 500 once-off there, an AI quote that changes when you refresh the tab. That is not a market finding a fair price. That is different products using the same word.
Websites for R299 a month:
This is usually a template with your logo dropped in. Five pages, a contact form, and a stock photo. The monthly fee is the point: you are renting the site. Cancel, and it often disappears, along with the emails that were sitting in that system. That is why the number looks small. You are not buying a site you can take to another host. You are paying rent on someone else’s template.
The problem is not that a template can never work. The problem is it looks like every other plumber, salon and tutor who bought the same pack. Google has no reason to prefer you. If the builder also writes the copy with a tool and never names your suburb or your actual service, you have paid for a brochure that will not rank, and you will still wonder why the phone is quiet.
Ask three things before you sign: who owns the domain, can you export the site, and what happens if you stop paying. If those answers are vague, you are hiring a rental, not a designer. That is fine if you know it. It is expensive if you find out a year later, when you want to leave.
AI website builders:
You can get a site out of an AI builder in an afternoon. I have watched people do it. The price might be free, R200, or a few thousand, depending on which tool and which person is driving it. That is why these quotes are all over. The output is fast. It is also often the same layout, the same headings, and the same thin paragraphs as a thousand other businesses who typed a similar prompt.
Google is not allergic to a tool. It is allergic to a site that does not help the searcher. If the pages are generic, the titles do not match what people type, the photos are stock, and every plumber in the province has the same “Welcome to our website” H1, you will struggle to rank. You can also pick up junk markup, slow images, and pages that say one thing in the heading and another in the body. That is how a cheap AI build costs you the searches that would have paid for a proper site.
If someone uses AI and then does the work — real photos, copy about your actual service and area, one H1 that matches the search, titles you wrote, a site you can log into — that can be a starting point. If they hand you the raw export and call it done, treat it like the R299 template: fine for having a URL, poor if you need to be found.
Ask to see three live sites they shipped, not a demo. Search those businesses for the words a customer would type. If they do not appear, do not buy the same process and hope it will be different for you.
Website for R500-R6499:
You are trying to solve “I just need something online”. What you often get is a site that looks unfinished, cannot be handed over, or sits on a free tool you do not control. A lot of this band is someone who learned last year and is building a portfolio on your business. That can work out. It can also leave you with a site nobody else wants to touch.
There are a few people in the R5 000 to R7 499 end who are good and cheap because they are new. Ask to see three live sites, ask who owns the hosting, and ask what happens after launch. If those answers are vague, keep walking. The saving on the build will come back as a rebuild.
Websites for R7500-R29 999:
This is freelancers and small studios. It is where we work. You should get a site that matches the brief, on a system you can log into, with the form going to an inbox you check. Lumilux is the kind of finish this band should look like, not a template with the logo swapped. The difference is time spent on the actual pages, not a slide deck about process.
Our standard work starts at R12 000. If a quote in this band is half of that and includes a shop, a booking engine, and “SEO included”, they left something out. Ask what is not included. A complete quote in this band will look more expensive than the rental and the AI export. It should. You are buying a site you can keep.
Websites for R30 000-R100 000:
This is mid to large agencies, account managers, and more meetings. You can get a good site here. You will also pay for the offices, the brand deck, and the process. For a lot of local service businesses, that is more than the job needs. The site is not better because twelve people touched the homepage. It is more expensive because twelve people touched the homepage.
If you have ten people who must sign off, and a legal team, this band can make sense. If you are one owner who needs a site that takes enquiries, you are usually better in the band above. Take the brief, pick the band that matches the risk you can live with, and ask for the quote in writing with hosting and care on their own lines. If you want that quote from us, start here.
