The hidden costs of cheap website development

A low cost website development may seem like a great deal at first! The price is clear, development time short and visually it may even seem good to go. For startups, small businesses or NGOs with a limited budget it may be difficult to justify paying more when another provider seems to offer something similar for a lower price. The problem is that 2 websites that look similar on the surface, can be very different underneath. There are serious issues invisible to users that can cause business owners long term headaches and further costs. 

Website development is not only about creating a few attractive pages. It also involves planning, user experience, performance, security, search visibility, maintainability and the ability to adapt as the business grows. When the initial quote is unusually low, some of these areas are often reduced, excluded or simply ignored.

That of course does not mean that every affordable website is bad. Simply that businesses should understand what they are actually paying for before choosing the cheapest option.

First step: strategy 

One of the first steps often overlooked with cheap websites is strategy. Instead of discussing the business goals, objectives and target audience, the client will select a template. Upon providing some texts, the pages are assembled quickly, yet they may not serve the business as a whole as user experience and user journey were not included in the website strategy. 

Depending on the business, the website should be structured accordingly. A professional services website should not be structured the same as an NGO or an Ecommerce website as users have different priorities and businesses have different conversion goals. 

Without proper planning, important questions may never be asked: What should visitors understand within the first few seconds? Which actions should be most visible? What information do potential clients need before contacting the company? Which pages are likely to generate leads? When these decisions are not made early, the website often has to be restructured later.

Second step: design 

When the design is selected from a template, it can look familiar to thousands of websites. Even if the colors and the logo have been adapted per business, the structure, spacing, icons and visual style of the website can remind users of other pages they visited. For businesses with high competition, standing out is crucial. As a website is often the first point of contact businesses have with clients, it is essential that a website reflects the business itself. 

Third: performance

A website may look and function well on the developer’s computer and still perform badly on the user’s side in real world conditions. On mobile devices or with slower internet connections, large images, unnecessary animations, badly configured plugins and low quality hosting can cause real issues with live websites. As we know, users rarely wait patiently for minutes until a website loads, instead they lose interest quickly and find another website thus business to satisfy their needs. 

Important website features may be missing from the original quote

 A cheap website package often only includes the visible parts of a website. Additional costs often occur later for functions such as:

• Multilingual functionality
• Contact forms
• Cookie consent 
• Analytics integration
• Search engine optimisation
• Content upload
• Mobile + tablet optimisation
• Security tools
• Training
• Maintenance 

While none of the above are considered unusual, initial lost cost offers often look much less inviting when these basics are added on. It is therefore important to compare the scope of each project as well as the price.

When starting a new web development project, ensure you are familiar with what the proposal includes, and not just how the website will be built but also what happens after launch. Contact us at Swiss Tomato if you need guidance or have questions to get started!