Budgets and Building Websites
by Andrew Grinaker
VP, Business Development & Strategy
Interactive Agencies get the question all the time. How much does a website cost?
And they ask the same question, in one form or another. How much budget do you have allocated for your website project?
Both answers are rarely answered with a direct, concise statement.
When the agency is asked how much a website cost, suddenly 10-15 questions run through their heads that they must prepare and ask the client in order to provide a well thought out estimated cost. A good agency must understand their client's marketing goals, their available technical and creative resources in-house, their current hosting environment and several other factors that determine the right solution for a particular client.
On the flip side, when the agency asks the client how much budget is allocated, (3) different responses are likely to occur. (a) We are not sure how much something like this cost, (b) We would rather not disclose that at this time to seek out the most competitive bids and (c) As stated in the RFP distributed, we have X amount of budget available for this project, Q2, fiscal year, etc.
While it is completely understandable to not disclose the budget available, a cost range is extremely beneficial to the Client/Agency selection process.
For starters, if an agency has access to a budget range; let's say $75,000-$150,000 or $10,000-$20,000, they can provide a proposal that provides a solution that can stay within that budget. If you have requested proposals from 6 firms, you will then receive (6) bids that will fall within your desired range but still give enough room for dissemination between the firms that have competitive bids and the ones that are the most comprehensive in their technical and creative responses.
Some will argue that disclosing budget could potentially reduce the quality of the project. However, a good agency will be clear in what they intend on delivering for the budget that is available.
Example: For X budget, we can deliver a website that includes (3) concepts, 30 pages of content, built in a PHP framework and content management system that will allow you to manager X, Y and Z areas of your website. These items should be line item for the client to understand where budget implications are most impacted.
It is food for thought when contacting an agency to begin the selection process.
Note: It is completely feasible to not have an idea of a cost range for a particular project that has unique technical, creative or marketing deliverables. This becomes the job of the agency to help educate the client and walk through the budgeting process to understand the impact financially and from a timeline standpoint.