If you’re wondering how much does it cost to redesign a website, you’re in the right place. I’m going to go over:
- How you know when it’s time to redesign your website
- What factors affect how much a website redesign costs
- How to redesign your Shopify or Squarespace website in WordPress
- and how much should a website redesign cost for your small business
Why Would I Need to Redesign my Website?
The average website has a lifespan of about 2 ½ years, according to forbes.com. How long has it been since your website was updated?
Websites need to be redesigned from time to time in part because of changes in the underlying technology, including the devices we use. More of your customers are using their phones to access your website than ever before. Your website might not look good if it’s designed for desktop devices but most people use their phone.
You might need to redesign your website because web browsers are constantly being updated, which sometimes changes the way that your website is rendered. This can cause superficial problems or even break the layout and make your website unusable.
If you’re wondering how to know if you need to redesign your website, consider these questions:
- Do you feel reluctant to share your website with anyone?
- Do you feel like your website doesn’t present your business as well as you could in person?
- Is your website slow or hard to use, especially on mobile phones (where a ton of your traffic comes from)?
- Has it been so long since you built your website that no one knows how to edit it anymore?
If you answered yes to any of those questions, it might be time to look into a website redesign.
Even if you feel like your website is okay, it doesn’t hurt to see what you can improve. An underperforming website can cost you more in lost business than it would cost to redesign it.
To calculate your website redesign cost, let’s look at the factors involved.
Your website redesign cost depends on which of the following four categories it’s in.
There’s a few general categories or archetypes that your website probably fits into. The difference between each of the following types of websites is mostly in the complexity and functionality involved.
- One-page/Brochure site: 1-5 pages, little to no custom design. Has your contact info and some description of your products or services.
- General purpose website: usually 5-10 pages with unique layouts. Might include more pages that follow the same template. Usually has a contact form and a mailing list opt-in to collect leads, plus a blog for inbound marketing.
- Simple eCommerce: One, or a few, simple products, whether they are digital or physical.
- Custom eCommerce: Some stores have products that come in different colors, materials, or sizes. Others have a large number of products. Some need different delivery or shipping options based on the time of day, or type of product. Or you might sell something like tennis lessons or kayak rentals– so you’ll need more than a shopping cart. This is all possible with custom eCommerce at a higher investment tier.
Once you’ve determined what kind of website you need, you have a reasonable range of prices to work with.
You may get a very different website redesign quote depending on who you ask.
You should know: Elsewhere, you might see website redesign quotes ranging from $200 to $20,000 or more. You might even see estimates for some websites in the hundreds of thousands 😱. Why such a huge range?
Partly, it depends on who you hire. Here’s the 3 players in the web design market you might meet:
- Dirt cheap range: Probably a student who is building their portfolio and hasn’t done many websites. Sometimes, a professional who lives in a low-cost-of-living part of the world. You might strike gold, or they might ghost you mid-project. Many in this category won’t be in business next year.
- Several thousand dollars and up (even for simple websites): Big agencies. You won’t meet the person who actually makes your website, and you will be a number in a spreadsheet to them. There is a much better chance that you’ll be happy with the resulting website. But agencies have a lot of overhead and must churn out a lot of sites– so you don’t always get what you pay for.
- A solo seasoned pro who focuses on one build at a time. That’s me, right in the sweet spot. I call on contractors I trust for things outside my area of expertise– but you’ll always be able to deal with me. And my focus is always on building you a successful website.
What if I built my website with Shopify, Squarespace, Weebly, or Wix?
Real talk: for some situations, Shopify and Squarespace are great options.
I can’t say the same for Wix or Weebly– I do not recommend either of those platforms– but all the following comments apply in a general way to all DIY web builders.
I’m a WordPress developer because I value freedom and autonomy, and WordPress provides that for me and my clients. But I want to be transparent that there are other options. This is a good thing for everyone: competition from other platforms helps the WordPress ecosystem thrive.
But sometimes, as businesses change and grow, what you need in a website changes and you might need to migrate your Shopify or Squarespace website to another platform. If that’s the case, it’s very likely that WordPress could be a good choice. You might wonder how this migration will affect your website redesign price.
Migrating away from an all-in-one-platform can be tricky. But sometimes redesigning a website becomes necessary, especially for eCommerce store owners. There could be a few reasons:
If you decide to redesign your Squarespace or Shopify website in another platform, it will need to be rebuilt.
- You feel you can’t compete in the search engine results and want more freedom
- You want to use a different payment gateway for ecommerce
- You want to lower monthly costs
- You want a larger, more competitive pool of experts to hire from
- You want to customize your website in a way that’s not possible on that platform
- The platform has banned your product or service
- You want to expand into a region of the world that platform doesn’t serve
If you use an all-in-one platform, you should know that these platforms don’t provide a way to easily export your website or your data and have the same website on a different platform. If you decide to redesign your Squarespace or Shopify website in another platform, it will need to be rebuilt, possibly with a lot of manual work.
Platforms like Shopify or Squarespace are kind of like hotel rooms. Everything you need is there, but you can’t take it with you when you leave.
But WordPress is like buying a plot of land and building what you want. (Please note: I’m referring to WordPress from wordpress.org, not the hosted platform WordPress.com.)
WordPress is open-source, free software that you can use to build any type of website that you can imagine. There’s still ongoing costs, just like other website platforms. You need to buy a domain name, which runs about $15 per year. You need to pay a web host to make your website available on the internet, which you can get for $10-$20 per month. And you need to build the website itself.
So the time and money to redesign your website might be the same as when you first built it.
But if you rebuild in WordPress, you will have the advantage of knowing that:
- You fully own and control your online store and your data
- You can choose your own web host based on their performance, price, and customer service
- You have a large, thriving community of experts to learn from or hire to make your website exactly like you want it
Website redesign cost table
As mentioned above, there’s a huge variation in website pricing. And many web design companies hide their prices until they learn more about your project.
This is often because they use a form of strategic pricing called “value-based pricing.” Some would call this “taking two customers and overcharging the one with the bigger bank account.” I don’t always agree– sometimes there’s good reasons why a bigger company means a bigger project and a higher price tag.
But because I am flying solo in my web design business, I get to pick who I work with, and I choose small businesses with more predictable needs and controllable costs. So I will share my prices with you.
That doesn’t mean that it’s easy to see exactly what your project involves before we even talk, so I’ll give ranges. But at least you’ll have a soft number to work with.
Just find your website type in the table below, using the same four categories I gave above:
| Website type | Cost |
|---|---|
| Landing Page | $1,250-1,850 |
| General Purpose Website | $2,300–3,500 |
| eCommerce website (basic) | $3,500–5,500 |
| Custom Ecommerce | $4,500 and up* |
If you’re still wondering whether it’s time to redesign your website and want to learn more before getting started, feel free to request my free checklist.
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