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How Much Does a Website Design Cost in South Africa? [2023]

ASWD Sep 1, 2023 14 Comments

When it comes to creating a website for your business, the cost can be a major consideration. With so many factors to consider, it can be difficult to determine the right budget for your website. In this article, we’ll take a deep dive into website design costs in South Africa to help you make an informed decision.

How much do website designers charge in South Africa?

Website design prices in South Africa varies based on a number of factors, including the size and complexity of the site, the design style and features you want, and the experience and expertise of the designer. Other factors that impact the cost of website design include the need for custom graphics, the use of specific software or tools, and the time required to complete the project.

A basic website design in South Africa typically costs between R2,000 and R10,000, while a custom, more complex design can cost from R20,000 to R50,000. It’s important to understand that these are just rough estimates, and the actual cost of your website design project may be more or less than these numbers depending on your specific needs and requirements.

When it comes to website design, there are a few different approaches you can take. You can hire a professional website designer to create a custom website for you, or you can use a website builder to create a site yourself. In general, custom website design is more expensive than using a website builder, but it also offers more control over the design and functionality of your site.

Choosing a Website Builder

If you choose to use a website builder, you can expect to pay anywhere from R50 to R200 per month, depending on the platform and the features you need. This can be a more cost-effective option for small businesses or personal websites, but it also means you’ll be limited in terms of design and functionality compared to a custom website design.

Choosing a Website Designer

When choosing a website designer, it’s important to consider not only the cost but also their experience and expertise. You’ll want to work with a designer who has a strong portfolio of previous work and a good understanding of your industry and target audience.

It’s also important to ensure that the designer you choose has a clear process for designing and building a website and that they’re able to communicate effectively with you throughout the project. Sure, you could pay a few bucks to a guy on Gumtree who will likely mess some things up, or you could actually invest some money into your new website and have everything go smoothly and look amazing when it’s finished.

Think of it this way… Would you hire a person walking past your house to fix a broken window or would you call someone that specializes in it?  Right, you would call the guys who have done this plenty of times instead of hiring someone off of the street.

Figuring out an exact quote is the same as asking someone how long a piece of string is.  You can’t figure it out with just a simple question of “How much does it cost to design a website?” when there are many variables included in the quote.

Don’t worry about asking for a quote, over 80% of jobs that come across a web designer’s desk have to go over quotes and explain how everything will work since most of the clients are doing this for the first time.  But, to get an exact quote, you will need to go over a few things that I’ve listed below.

How Much is a Basic Website?

A basic website typically includes a few pages, such as a home page, an about us page, and a contact us page. The cost of a basic website in South Africa can range from R2,000 and R10,000, depending on the design style and features you want. This cost will also depend on the experience and expertise of the designer you choose.

How Much is an eCommerce Website?

An eCommerce website typically includes more features and functionality than a basic website, such as a shopping cart, payment gateway, and product management tools. The cost of an eCommerce website in South Africa can range from R6,000 to R20,000, depending on the size and complexity of the site, as well as the design style and features you want.

How Much Do Web Designers Charge Per Hour in South Africa?

Web designers in South Africa typically charge by the hour, with rates ranging from R250 to R2,500 per hour. The cost of your website design project will depend on the number of hours required to complete the work, as well as the designer’s experience and expertise.

How much does a website cost per month in South Africa?

The cost of a website per month in South Africa can vary greatly depending on several factors such as the size and complexity of the site, and the features it includes. Website design companies sell monthly website packages which average from R250 per month to R800 per month.

What Does a 5-Page Website Mean?

A 5-page website refers to a website that includes five main pages. This typically includes a home page, about us page, services page, contact us page, and another page of your choice, such as a gallery page, portfolio page, or product page. The cost of a 5-page website in South Africa can range from R2,000 and R5,000, depending on the design style and features you want.

Have an Idea of What You Want

It wouldn’t surprise you how often a client comes across our desk asking for a website design, but they aren’t exactly sure what they want.  They know they want a design done, but they aren’t sure how they want anything to look or work, which makes the process of getting a quote much longer.

It’s OK if you don’t know what exactly you want on your website, just knowing what you want and giving an example of it on a competitor or random website will go a long way when we’re trying to figure everything out for you.

Three Questions to Answer to Help You Figure Out What You Want

1. What’s the Basic Purpose of Your Website?

Knowing the basic purpose of your website should be what drove you to want a website in the first place.  You might want a website designed to sell a service or you might need something designed to sell a product.  You could even need a website to just post content to, which would basically be a blog.

Figuring out the purpose of your website will cut out a lot of what we don’t need to do, so this will help us out a lot when generating a quote.

2. What Type of Functionality Do You Need Out of the Website?

You’ll need to figure out if you would like to have a responsive or static website design and what you want your visitors to do on your website in order to know the functionality.

Knowing the functionality of the website will help us a lot because we won’t be programming something that won’t be used, or even needed, which will help with your quote as well.

Will you need any of these?

Knowing what you need, or want, on your website goes a long way when it comes to an accurate quote.  If you were to just give us 10 different websites as examples, and say “I like these websites and I would like my own to be similar” it would cost much more than taking a little bit of time writing down what functionality you’d like on your own website.

It would be a higher quote because we would have to assume you wanted everything, from every website you gave as an example, on your own website.  This means you will have a lot of features you weren’t even thinking about, on your own website, and you may not have wanted them.

3. Roughly How Many Pages Do You Think You’ll Need to be Designed?

Every web design company can give you a rough estimate of a price based on how many pages you need to be done.

If the quote is simply based on how many pages you need to be done, it won’t be very accurate.  In fact, it will likely be much higher than what you expected since the variables from #1 and #2 weren’t figured out.

This is why we ask people about the purpose and functionality of their new website designs before we ask how many pages they think they’ll need to be done.

Think of it this way, you will need pages such as your home/index, about us, products, contact us, privacy policy, terms of service, blog, etc.  Each of these is considered 1 page and each blog post would not be added to the total unless you need someone to write up content for you in order to add it to your blog.

A lot of websites work well with under 10 pages, but if you aren’t sure how many pages you need, your quote won’t be spot on since there is a variable missing.

Don’t get worried, not knowing how many pages you need is a common problem that we deal with all the time and it’s not the end of the world.

Know Your Design and Programming Budget

If you know how much you want to spend, don’t be scared to tell a designer when they ask what your budget is.  They’re not trying to get the most money out of you as they can, they’re just trying to figure out a plan that will work best within your budget.

For example, if you had R10,000 to spend on a design and wanted something just like Facebook, it probably wouldn’t be the easiest thing to do since there is a mountain of programming that would need to be done.  Since the designer knows your budget and has an idea of what you want, they can put together a package that will work for you, but it might not have everything included since you want a clone of Facebook and that would cost much more than R10,000.

They can, however, put together a design and get some custom scripting done for you that would get you on your way to having a unique social network, which would get you on your way to having a finished product down the road.

We regularly ask people what their budgets are because we, just like the example above, are trying to figure out exactly how we can get as much done for you within your budget so you’re as happy as possible.

Some Extras That You Might Need

We all want a website designed for a reasonable price, and that’s exactly what we do!  But there are some additional add-ons that you might want to think about before you spend all your money on the design.

If your budget for everything is R3,000 and you spend all of that on your design, you will be upset when you can’t get the hosting you want or the fact you can’t spend any money on marketing to bring in traffic and sales.

This is why we always let people know about the additional charges, that are usually required if you want to start running a website.  These extras are:

1. Domains and Hosting

Every single website out there runs on a domain, which means you’ll need one as well.  You can purchase these through big domain registrars and most of the time you can purchase them when you set up a hosting plan for your website.  You’ll need to pay to renew your domain name each year and your hosting can be paid every month or on an annual basis, that’s up to you.

If you don’t know how to do any of this, that’s not a problem at all since we can walk you through the entire process.

How Much Does It Cost to Register a Domain in South Africa?

The cost of registering a domain name in South Africa varies depending on the domain extension you choose. On average, you can expect to pay between R100 and R300 ($7 to $21) per year for a basic domain name. This includes the cost of registering the domain name and renewing it each year.

When choosing a domain name, it’s important to consider the relevance of the name to your business and the ease of remembering and typing it. You’ll also want to ensure that the domain name is available and not already in use by another business.

How Much Does it Cost to Host a Website in South Africa?

The cost of hosting a website in South Africa depends on the hosting provider and the type of hosting plan you choose. On average, you can expect to pay between R50 and R200 ($3.50 to $14) per month for basic website hosting. More robust hosting plans, such as dedicated hosting or VPS hosting, can cost significantly more.

When choosing a hosting provider, it’s important to consider factors such as uptime, customer support, and security. You’ll also want to ensure that the provider you choose offers a plan that meets the specific needs of your website, such as the amount of storage and bandwidth you’ll need.

It’s also a good idea to choose a hosting provider that offers regular backups, so you can be sure your website and its data are protected in the event of a problem.

2. Online Marketing

Most new website owners think “If you build a website, the traffic will come” and that’s far from the truth.  In order to get plenty of traffic to your website, you will need a proper marketing campaign up and running for at least a few months before you start to see a positive ROI.

There is a small chance that you could be profitable relatively quickly, but I wouldn’t expect it since it tends to be competitive when you’re a new website fighting your experienced and older competitors in order to obtain clients.

Online marketing comes in many forms, such as:

• SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
• SEM (Search Engine Marketing)
• SMM (Social Media Marketing/Management)
• PPC Management (Pay Per Click Marketing/Management)

Each has it’s own strengths and takes a long time to learn, so we highly recommend working with a credible SEO company if you want to start doing any sort of online marketing.

3. Website Content

If you’re writing up all your own content, and even your own blog posts, this isn’t going to cut into your overall budget at all.

But, if you’re not the best writer and you need someone to write up your home/index, sales pages, product pages, blog posts, etc. it would be an additional charge because this takes a bit of time and effort in order to be done right.

If you want images within the content, they will likely have to be purchased from a stock image company in order to prevent a lawsuit from unlawfully using images you found online.

Check out our list of Royalty Free Stock Images and Photographs for Your Website or Blog.

4. Website Maintenance

Not every website will need us to go in and maintain it since a lot of clients don’t update much after they go live.  Adding blog posts is easy to do and can be done by yourself, or you can hire us to do it if you really want.

We charge a very low rate of R250 p/hour for website design and content updates, and we’ll always give you a quote before the updates are made so that you know exactly how much it will cost.

Checklist

Below is a quick checklist of what you will need to answer before you can get the most accurate quote possible.

• What is your reasonable deadline?
• Is your deadline a hard stop or can it be extended if needed?
• What is your budget for the website to be designed?
• How many pages will you need to be designed and what functions do they need to have within them?
• Do you need any animation done?  If so, what exactly is needed?
• Do you have your own domain and hosting set up already?
• Do you need online marketing for your website?
• Do you need content generation for your website?

You can use our easy-to-use web design quote builder to build a quote by selecting the features you need for your website, choosing a website design package, or you can contact us to discuss your exact requirements.

Conclusion

The cost of designing a website in South Africa can vary greatly depending on a number of factors, including the size and complexity of the site, the design style and features you want, and the experience and expertise of the designer. It’s important to have a clear understanding of your budget and requirements before you begin the process of designing your website, so you can ensure that you end up with a site that meets your needs and fits within your budget.

It’s important to remember that the cost of a website is an investment in your business. A well-designed website can help you reach new customers, build your brand, and increase your sales. While it may seem like a significant expense, the long-term benefits of a well-designed website can far outweigh the initial cost.

When choosing a web designer, it’s important to look for someone with experience and expertise in the industry. You’ll also want to choose a designer who is transparent about their pricing and willing to work with you to create a site that fits within your budget. It’s also a good idea to ask for references from past clients and to take a look at the designer’s portfolio to see examples of their work.

In addition to the cost of designing a website, there are also ongoing expenses to consider. These may include website hosting, domain registration, and website maintenance. It’s important to factor in these costs when creating your budget, so you have a complete understanding of the total cost of owning and operating a website.

AboutAdvertising Solutions Web Design

Advertising Solutions Web Design specializes in quality website design services at affordable prices in South Africa. Web Design & Hosting Packages from R3000. Website Design without Hosting from R1000.