Get Educated » Understanding the Costs

Web Development encompasses many areas and there are many overlaps in services provided. Below are some basics costs that you should plan on when you are thinking about a budget for your site. 

• Domain Registration: This is the term used to reserve the right of the web address you would like users to enter to get to your web site. In our case, the domain name is “frontierwebdev.com” – You shouldn’t expect to pay more than $10 per year for this service. We can assist you in registering your domain or we suggest using a service such as godaddy.com or hostway.com.

• Web Hosting: This is a monthly fee that you will pay to have your site always be available online. It is the cost which covers renting the usage and bandwidth of a secure web server. This fee varies greatly depending on your needs, however most small businesses spend around $10 to $20 per month on web hosting. Most web hosting plans enable you to have email accounts and give you detailed reports on the usage of your site.

• Security Products: If you decide to take credit cards online, there are fees for encrypting the transfer of the secure information with an SSL and also for processing the cards if you would like to use an online account. Similar to web hosting, these fees vary based on your needs, the range is usually somewhere between $100 per year all the way to thousands of dollars per year. 

• Planning & Consulting: This cost is your most important cost and it will determine almost all of your other web development costs. Frontier gives away planning and consulting to new customers as a marketing effort to earn their business. Contact us now to let us help you.
  

• Design costs: Design costs can be minimized by completing a general web development plan prior to starting graphic design of the site. Again, the amount of design time needed will be directly related to the size and complexity of your project. Usually, about 15% – 20% of a total project budget should be put towards design and planning. This of course varies largely from depending on the type of project.
  

• Programming Costs: This is where the bulk of billable time comes from. Programming costs cover the amount of time that is needed for professionals to execute your web development and design plan. Programming costs will be related to the size and complexity of your project and a well planned project will usually include the ability for non-programmers to manage the content or procedures on the site which are most likely to need management or change. 

• External Marketing Efforts for Your Site: Depending on the scope of your project, you will want to consider how your web development projects fits into your business plan. If it is an E-store, you will likely want to plan for investments into search engine optimization heavily or other possible marketing avenues such as magazine, television, or radio advertisements.
  
• Search Engine Marketing: Click here for more information on this topic.
  

• Site Management Costs: Good sites have plans for evolving and ongoing development as a business grows. Consider your plans for keeping your site up-to-date with your business.

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Frontier Web Development provides consulting on all of the above services, but focuses on delivering the services related to the actual project development. Our flexible business model allows us to take on projects that have initial development budgets from $1,000 to $50,000 or more. It should also be noted that we finance projects as well. For more on how we operate, please visit our Company Structure, Policies & Operations page. 

To discuss your project ideas or questions about any of the costs discussed above, please contact us directly.