The short answer
- At $5,000 you get the site that does the work: the pages, the part your customers actually use (ordering, a shop, booking or a live demo), and the animation and polish that make it feel finished.
- Some things are better with a bigger budget: accounts, an owner's dashboard, an assistant that answers customers. They're not impossible at $5,000, they just deserve more time than it leaves.
Where the money goes
- About 70% of the work is planning and design. Build and launch are the other 30%.
- That isn't padding. The better a site is planned and designed, the less there is to fix once building starts, so building and launching go quickly. Skimp on planning and you pay for it twice in the build.
A worked example
- Not a past client, just an idea to show the split: an invite site for a neighbourhood pool, at $5,000.
- Planning and design, about $3,500: who's invited, how people reply, what the page has to say on a phone in bright sun, and then the look, the type and the motion that make people want to come.
- Build and launch, about $1,500: the pages and the reply form, a list of who's coming that the organiser can read, the domain connected, and testing on real phones.
Four questions to ask any developer, me included
- If you can't build this to the level and scale I want, will you tell me, or will you quietly give up halfway?
- Which tools do you use, and what do you actually know?
- Can I see things you've built and shipped, not only websites you say you made?
- Do you use AI, and will you tell me where? A developer who uses it and hides it isn't being honest with you.
First published on abdulwasaylodhi.com.
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