It is the first question everyone asks, and most websites about websites refuse to answer it. I will not pretend there is one number – but I can tell you what actually moves the price, and how to avoid paying for things you do not need.

What actually 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 very different project from one with a donation system, an events calendar, and a member portal. Most small non-profits genuinely need the first kind, not the second.
• The state of your content. If your text and photos exist and just need shaping, the project moves quickly. If everything needs to be written from scratch, that is real work and real cost – worth doing, but worth naming honestly.
• Whether it is a rescue or a rebuild. Sometimes an existing site can be saved for far less than the cost of starting over. A good designer will tell you which situation you are in, with reasons you can understand.

Flat pricing, or the meter is running

I price every project as a flat amount, agreed in plain language before anything starts. I do this because hourly billing puts you and your designer on opposite sides of the table: every question you ask costs you money, so you stop asking questions, and the project suffers for it.

A flat price means you can call, ask, change your mind about a photo, and never wonder what the meter says.

The cost nobody budgets for

Here is the part I wish more non-profits knew: the build is not the expensive part. The expensive part is the slow decay afterwards – the plugin that never gets updated, the backup that never existed, the volunteer who knew the password and moved to Ohio.

That is why I pair websites with an affordable monthly care plan: content updates, software updates, backups, and a real person to call. Boring, inexpensive, and the reason my clients’ sites still look good years after launch.

Questions to ask any designer (including me)

• Is the price flat, and what exactly 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 enjoy answering these. If you would like my answers for your specific situation, tell me about your project – you will get a real number, in plain language, with no obligation attached.