How Much Does a Non-Profit Website Cost?

It’s the first question everyone asks, and most websites about websites refuse to answer it. There’s no single number, but I can tell you what moves the price, what my own prices are, and how to avoid paying for things you don’t need.

What drives the cost

Three things, mostly.

• How many kinds of pages you need. A site with a home page, a services page, an about page and a contact page is a different project from one with a donation system, an events calendar and a member portal. Most small non-profits need the first kind.
• The state of your content. If your text and photos exist and need shaping, the project moves quickly. If everything has to be written from scratch, that’s more work and more cost, and it should be named in the quote.
• Whether the existing site can be repaired. Sometimes a site can be fixed for far less than the cost of starting over. A good designer will tell you which situation you’re in, with reasons.

Flat pricing versus the running meter

I price every project as a flat amount, agreed before anything starts. Hourly billing puts you and your designer on opposite sides of the table: every question costs you money, so you stop asking questions, and the project suffers for it. With a flat price you can call, ask, and change your mind about a photo without wondering what the meter says.

Since I’m asking other designers to publish their numbers, mine are these. A complete website is $750 to $2,500. Repairing a site you already have is $500 to $1,500. The monthly care plan afterward is $95, $149, or $249 depending on how busy the site is. All of it’s on the pricing page.

The cost nobody budgets for

The build isn’t the expensive part. The expensive part is the slow decay afterward: the plugin that never gets updated, the backup that never existed, the volunteer who knew the password and moved away.

So I pair websites with a monthly care plan: content updates, software updates, backups, and someone to call. It’s inexpensive, and it’s the reason my clients’ sites still look good years after launch.

Questions to ask any designer, including me

• Is the price flat, and what does it include?
• Will we own our domain, hosting, and content outright?
• Can our own team update the site without calling you?
• What happens after launch, and what does that cost?
• What happens if something breaks on a Saturday?

Any designer worth hiring will be glad to answer these. If you’d like my answers for your situation, tell me about your project and you’ll get a number in writing with no obligation.