How Much Does a Website Redesign Cost? DIY vs. Freelance vs. Agency Pricing

There are many things to think about when you are considering a website redesign, but naturally, one of your primary concerns will likely be how much does a website redesign cost. Well, the good news here is that costs can vary so much that there’s something for every budget. You might pay a few hundred dollars to do the work yourself with some user-friendly software, or you might pay up to $40,000 to hire an agency to design a fully-customized, optimized site from the ground up. Because there is such a vast range of potential website redesign costs (and results), it’s worth talking about each of your options as well as the functionality you need to get out of your website. If you are designing a website for an ecommerce business, you might need a lot more integrated features and on-page optimization than an informational site for a non-profit organization, and it would make sense for you to dedicate a much larger website redesign budget in this case.

What to consider when you’re pricing out your website redesign

It’s clear that different businesses and organizations will have unique needs for their b2b website in terms of functionality and design, so there are some important questions to ask before you make a decision on how you will redesign your website. Answering the following questions will help you decide if the website redesign cost is worth it, especially if you’re considering going with an agency over other options.

• What’s the purpose of your website? – Your website is probably an essential component of your marketing strategy, but how does it fit in? It might generate leads or direct sales, or it may increase brand awareness or credibility. If it falls into the first category, then you need to put more resources and awareness into user experience. You will want your website to be informative so that customers get answers to their questions, but it should also visually wow users and offer a seamless experience from initial site view to sale (or another conversion point). With brand awareness or credibility building, you can rely more heavily on the quality of your content to drive the success of your website, rather than the design itself.
• What do you want your redesign to accomplish? – Once you’ve taken a step back to think about what your website does now, you should consider whether you want that to continue to be the purpose of your website. If so, then you will start focusing on how to plan your site redesign to better capture the goals of your existing site. If you want the site to serve a different purpose entirely, consider whether that purpose will require a more content-focused or design-heavy approach.
• How much of your time do you want to dedicate to site maintenance and analytics? – Some business owners prefer to be in the driver’s seat when it comes to the maintenance and analytics of their site, while others want someone to just do it for them. If the first option is more appealing, you might take the website redesign into your own hands with the DIY approach, or you can hire a freelancer for the initial design and take over with maintenance after launch. With an agency, you won’t have to do much beyond offer your input and goals, and the rest will be taken care of by professionals who know how to boost site metrics and continue making improvements that will cater to an exceptional user experience.

Now that you’ve gotten a better idea of your website redesign needs, let’s take a look at how your options differ in terms of price and benefits:

Do It Yourself

A DIY website redesign isn’t as scary or inaccessible as it sounds. You don’t have to know how to code to make or redesign a website. That said, you will be working with prefabricated templates that can limit your design customizability, so you might not be able to get your site exactly how you envisioned it. With this in mind, the DIY route is probably best for a very small business that’s just getting off the ground or for business blogs that are focused more on content than conversions.
Pros:

• Affordability. DIY offers the lowest website redesign cost, hands down.
• Ease of use. There is tons of website building software out there that’s designed for anyone to pick up and use to design a functional site.

Cons:

• Inability to fine-tune. You’ll be working with existing templates, and you will not be able to integrate custom features and unique functions.
• Time loss. Though the site itself will come with a low price tag, you’ll have to invest a lot of your time to get the site up and running.

Price:

• $100 – $3,000. It’s dependent on the software you choose, as well as the template and framework. If you go with the lowest end of the website redesign cost scale, you’ll probably be investing more of your own time to design the site.

Freelance

Hiring a freelance designer can give you more of the flexibility you might want in your website redesign. You can also feel more confident that you will have a functional, aesthetically-pleasing site that looks and feels the way you envisioned. When you work with a freelance designer, he or she may present a few mockups based on an initial discussion of your design vision, and then you will choose the one you like best to create your new website with a little more fine-tuning.
Pros:

• More sophisticated design. If you hire a good designer, you will get a website that offers much more than something you can build yourself without coding experience. That means you can expect more from the user experience of your site.
• Fewer risks on launch day. When a professional freelancer takes on your website redesign, you are minimizing the gamble of your site failing to deliver the right features and functional pages when it launches.

Cons:

• Potentially long development time. Freelance designers frequently work independently, so they may take a long time to get things done, which means that your launch date may get pushed back if there are any issues that come up.
• Involved hiring process. An unfortunate drawback of hiring a freelancer is that it is hard to guarantee what kind of work you’re getting. You’ll need to do some extra legwork to vet a potential freelancer and check their references.
• Limited expertise. When you hire a designer, that’s just what you get – an expert in web design. Though some designers have experience with SEO and web marketing and can apply that to their site designs and recommendations, this isn’t necessarily a given.

Price:

• $2,000 – $12,000. Pricing will vary depending on the experience of the designer as well as the complexity of the site design.

Agency

Hiring an agency is basically the premium option for website redesign projects. Agencies cater to their clients individually, and they will offer both an exceptional design for your site as well as support in analytics and maintenance that you won’t get with your other choices. Of course, these services come with a higher premium, so you will be making a much more significant investment by using an agency for your site redesign.
Pros:

• Best representation possible for your brand. Agencies work as designers, marketers, and consultants. They will offer insight on your site performance as well as more innovative solutions, such as growth-driven-design.
• Complete customizability. No feature is too out of the box to include on your site when you have the resources of an agency.
• Return on Investment. Good agencies will focus on return on investment from you website. How many leads are you generating? Are they closing? How can we increase them? 

Pro Tip: If you are interviewing an agency ask how they measure ROI from the website? 
Cons:

• Higher cost. You will have to spend big money to hire an agency. Even smaller agencies will charge much more than the average freelancers, though the costs can pay off with the increased conversions your site captures.

Price:

• $15,000 – $40,000. Similar to freelance costs, the agency website redesign cost varies depending on the experience and reputation of the agency as well as the scope of the project. When you reach the higher end of the price point, you should expect a website that can compete with some of the largest, most recognizable brands in your industry.

Considerations for post-launch

No matter how you go about facilitating your website redesign, there is one critical error to avoid: Launching the website and walking away. Many businesses make this mistake, and it’s a lot like throwing money down the drain. Sure, your website will likely be a huge improvement on what it was before, but it probably still needs work in some areas, and it definitely needs to be monitored for the activity it’s getting and the conversions it’s making. Here are some questions to ask post-launch:

• How are people using your website after launch? – Check your site analytics to see if people are interacting with your site in the way you intended. Are they visiting various pages and coming back multiple times, or are they mostly looking at one or two pages and leaving? If performance still isn’t where it should be, it might be time to A/B test some new solutions.
• Are you seeing a lift in search engine optimization since your launch? – Is your site ranking for any keywords it wasn’t before, or have your existing rankings improved? If not, you need to think about what’s missing from your site and how you can include it moving forward.
• Has your conversion rate increased? – Finally, is your site making conversions, and is it doing so more effectively than before? Even if tons of people are visiting your site and staying to look around, it won’t do much for you if they aren’t signing up for a newsletter, making purchases, or reaching out to contact your business in some way.

These post-site considerations highlight the most beneficial quality of an agency. Agencies will help in following up on your website redesign, allowing you to get more for your money over time. With a DIY redesign, you’re limited to your own Search Engine Marketing (SEM) knowledge moving forward, and with a freelancer, you may not have much SEM expertise to tap into. Only an agency can do the post-launch tinkering that will truly propel your success and help you see more results from your new site.

Are you ready to speak to an agency about your website redesign cost? Call us for a quote today from one of our specialists!