How I price a project

Every project is quoted as a single fixed price after one short call, never by the hour. What the number depends on is the page count, the integrations the site has to carry, how much of the design is built from scratch, and the deadline. What it always includes is design, code, the technical SEO groundwork, deployment and full handover of every access.

What moves the price

Page count

Every additional page carries its own copy, its own structure and its own pass on mobile. The gap between a single landing page and a five page site is wider than it looks. The count is agreed up front and written into the quote, so nothing is billed after the fact.

Integrations

A booking system, card payments, a link to the tool you already run or to a courier are separate work, because each of those connections has to be tested and has to behave when something upstream fails. One integration rarely moves the number much. Four of them do.

Copy and photography

If your text and images are ready, the price stays where it started. If they have to be written or sourced, that is additional work and it is quoted separately. Honestly, this is the most common reason a project runs long, more often than anything technical.

How custom the design is

If you already have an identity, colours and a logo, the design is built around them and moves faster. Building the look from nothing takes more rounds of agreement. Either way I do not buy a theme, so the difference is in time, not in the quality of what gets built.

The deadline

A normal timeline is already in the starting price. A rush that displaces other projects in the queue carries a surcharge. That is not a penalty, it is the arithmetic of one person doing all of the work, and you are better off knowing it at the start.

New build or someone else's code

A new build is predictable work. Taking over a site somebody else wrote is not, because the true state of the code only shows once you are inside it. For those projects I run a short paid assessment first, then quote.

What is not included

Not included in a quote: writing your copy, licensing photography, paid advertising, monthly maintenance, and the annual cost of a domain and hosting. Each of those is agreed separately so you never pay for something you do not need.

The domain and hosting are a modest yearly cost paid straight to the provider, not to me. I register them in your name and hand you the logins, so you are never dependent on me to keep your own site.

A developer, an agency, or a bought theme

A theme is the cheapest and fastest option. For that money you get a site that works, but you inherit code you do not control, plugins that conflict with each other, and a subscription that runs for as long as the site does. When the theme stops being maintained, you stop with it.

An agency gives you a team and a process. You pay for a project manager, a designer and a developer, and you mostly speak to the first, so every change passes through several hands before it reaches the code.

Working directly with the developer removes that relay. A shorter timeline, less back and forth, and a lower price for the same result, because there is no layer between you and the person writing the code. The tradeoff is worth saying out loud: one person has finite capacity, there is a queue, and I cannot start everything at once.

How payment works

Payment is in two parts. Half at the start, once scope is agreed, and half on delivery after your sign off. Larger projects are split into three payments tied to phases.

The domain and hosting are paid directly to the provider, in your name.

Common questions

Why do you not publish prices?: Because scope varies enough that any published number would be wrong for most projects, and a wrong number wastes your time and mine. One short call is enough for me to give you a fixed figure and a real date, and that figure does not move unless you change the scope yourself.
How long does a website take to build?: A landing page is done in about a week. A business site runs two to three weeks from the moment I have your copy and images, and an online store three to five weeks. The only thing that extends a timeline is material arriving late, and I flag that the moment it happens.
Is the price fixed, or billed hourly?: Fixed. After a short call to define scope you get one figure and one date, and neither moves unless you expand the brief yourself. Hourly billing shifts the risk of a bad estimate onto the client, which is not a fair way to sell work.
Who owns the code and the domain?: You do. The domain is registered in your name, you receive the code in full, and every access is handed over at the end of the project. There is no arrangement where you have to stay with me for the site to keep running, and no subscription that switches it off.
How quickly can you start?: It depends on what is already in the queue, and I will tell you honestly rather than promise a date I cannot hold. Scoping calls happen within a day or two. The build usually starts within one to three weeks of you approving the quote.

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Updated: September 2026