Web design price FAQs

It varies and primarily depends on (a) the type of website you are building, (b) the design and technical complexity, (c) the additional cost from third-party services, and (d) the mode of service. It can start from a couple thousand dollars to millions.

Projects with Grayscale tend to fall between HK$80,000 to HK$200,000, but every project is different and special just like you, so we don’t have a fixed price or standard packages. Feel free to take a look at our web design and web development projects, then reach out for a quote with reference to one or some of them.

There are four major factors affecting the cost of a website: the type, the design and technical complexity, third-party costs, and who you work with.

As an example, the quote from a freelancer for a one-page website with an email collection form to gauge market interest is generally cheaper than the quote from a 4A agency for a corporate product catalogue with 360° image preview.

There are two main types of third party costs. On the technical side, there are costs associated with domain names, hosting, plugins, and other SaaS products (e.g. analytics platform and booking engines). On the content side, there are costs associated with copywriting and translation, photography and videography, custom fonts, icons, and illustrations.

Yes. Some of the costs are inevitable such as domain names, hosting, as well as plugins and other SaaS products that enable the features on your website. You should also consider allocating budget for monthly or quarterly maintenance. Think of it as insurance – the last thing you want is investing in a website but letting it get hacked and loosing everything you have carefully crafted.

The cost of a template-based website may only be 20% cheaper than a custom-designed one, because they both require the same amount of work in building the technical foundation, such as setting up the back-end for page hierarchy, creating slots for entering SEO data, constructing the optimal URL structure, and mapping the domain, etc.

No for technical SEO; maybe for content SEO.

Technical SEO is the effort of writing and creating codes that follow best practices outlined by search engines. For example, using valid and semantic HTML, optimising your site for speed, etc. For most agencies, Grayscale included, this is a default practice without saying.

Content SEO is the effort of creating copy and metadata that help search engines understand the content of your webpage, so they can better map it to the search intent of a user. The work includes coming up with appropriate keywords, having quality inbound and outbound links, editing the meta title and meta description. Content SEO can be done by yourself who is the subject matter expert, a SEO-aware copywriter and translator, or an agency.

Unlikely if it is considered from the start of the project. Accessibility is only costly when treated as an afterthought because once we past the design or development phase, implementing accessibility features may require the team to adjust the overall balance of the aesthetics, or reprogram part of the website.

Accessibility is one the primary focuses at Grayscale. We proactively advise and educate clients on the need to make websites accessible, so we can avoid potential legal liability or the need of additional budget. Making your website accessible also shows your effort in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and can win you an award!

You can definitely start small and add features later while keeping your budget in check. The key is to inform your web design and web development partner of the intention at the start of your project, so they can advise and consult accordingly.

We understand that budget is a sensitive matter, and it might come across as asking how much you are willing to part with so we can cater the proposal to match that. In fact, with a custom design job, this is exactly how it works with a minor twist – we are doing this to make sure we can provide you with a solution that is within or under your budget, not over.

Let’s say you are redecorating your home, your interior designer will want to know how much you are willing to invest, so they can put in either a table from IKEA or a designer-made marble top table. This applies to our web projects, too. We are upfront about the price and if you are too, we can tell you exactly what you are in the market for.