"Sorry, but roughly, what does a website cost for something like ours?" It comes up on every first call, and it almost always arrives wrapped in an apology.

The ones who apologise are usually the ones who've been burned before. Or they open with "we don't need anything fancy", which is its own kind of apology.

Never apologise for that one. It's the most sensible thing you'll ask a supplier all day.

We can't put your number on a public page, because it depends entirely on what your site has to do. So here's the working instead.

Where your business sits on the scale, what moves the number up and down, and how you'd spot a wrong quote before you sign it.

Why every answer you've found so far is useless

Search this and you'll be quoted anything from about R2,000 to well over R200,000. Both ends are real. Neither one helps you.

The problem is that "a website" describes 2 completely different objects. One is a template with your logo dropped in. The other is a machine that takes bookings and money while you're asleep.

It's a bit like asking what a building costs. A Wendy house and a shopping centre both keep the rain off you!

So the useful question isn't what a website costs. It's where on that scale your business actually sits.

The 3 things that decide your quote

How much of the site is custom, how much of it has to do something rather than just sit there, and how much thinking you're handing over. That's it. Everything else on a quote is detail.

At the bottom of the scale you're buying a template. Somebody picks a ready-made layout, drops your logo and your words into it, and you get 5 tidy pages.

That's a legitimate option and we'll tell you so. If you're a 2-person operation that needs to look real and take phone calls, don't let anyone shame you out of it.

In the middle you're buying a site built around your business. Your structure, your enquiry flow, your words, and somebody who asks what you sell before choosing a layout.

At the top you're buying software. A shop, a booking system, a members area, something talking to your accounting package. Now you're paying for logic, not looks.

Work out which of those 3 you're buying and you've done most of the job yourself. The rest is a conversation, and it should take one call.

What separates the cheap quote from the expensive one

Why do 2 quotes for the same site land nowhere near each other? Because one of them is building yours and the other is filling in a template.

Here's what actually sits in that gap, grouped by the job each part does for you.

The part that decides whether anyone stays

Layout, navigation and words. Cheap sites lose people in seconds and you never find out, because nobody emails to say your menu confused them.

Then there's responsive design. Yip, it sounds expensive! All it means is that your site rearranges itself instead of turning into a shrunken mess on a phone.

Open your own visitor stats and check the split between phone and desktop. Whatever that number says, it's the screen your design has to be right on first. Make people pinch and zoom and they're gone!

The line that catches everybody here is "client to supply copy". Writing your pages is real work on a real quote, and leaving it off your side of the deal is how a 6-week build quietly becomes a 6-month one.

The part that decides whether anyone contacts you

A call to action is a posh name for telling people what to do next. A button, a phone number, a form that actually sends. On every page of your site, not just the contact one.

Test yours right now. Open your own home page on your phone and count the taps it takes to reach a human.

What the cheap quote leaves out here is the testing. Somebody has to fill in your form from a real phone and confirm the email lands, and that's an hour almost nobody budgets for.

Search bars are the feature people ask for and rarely need. If your site has 8 pages, nobody's searching it, they're reading your menu.

With 300 products or 5 years of articles behind you, a search bar earns its keep. On a small site it's a box that says "no results" and makes you look broken!

The part that decides whether you can live with it

You need to change your own prices, hours and staff photos without phoning anyone. That's your CMS, which is just the screen at the back where you type things in.

The line item here is training, and it's the first one to vanish off a cheap quote. An hour of somebody showing you the dashboard costs less than a year of paying by the hour to change your opening times!

Analytics is the free tracking that tells you what people did on your site. Skip it and you're guessing about your own business, in public, for years.

Social integration is mostly links to your pages, plus a feed if you post often enough to fill one. It's a small job. Don't let anyone price it like a big one.

The part that decides whether it still works next year

Security, updates and backups aren't features you buy once, they're a line you carry for as long as your site is live. A quote that leaves them out isn't cheaper than one that doesn't, it's just less finished.

What you're paying for and probably shouldn't

Some of the standard feature list is padding for a business your size. We'd rather hand you the shorter list than the longer one.

• Multilingual. Unless you're genuinely selling into other countries, you don't need your site in 4 languages. You need 1 language, written properly.
• Personalisation. Sites that greet you by name and remember your settings are brilliant on Takealot. On your 8-page site it's a party trick nobody claps for!
• A blog nobody will write. If you're paying for a blog section you'll fill in "when things calm down", you're paying to store an empty room.
• Custom animation everywhere. Your visitor wants your prices, not a cinematic experience. Motion that delays what they came for is costing you enquiries.
• A chatbot before your contact form works. We sell chatbots, so trust us on the order of operations here!

There's only one thing worth adding back that quotes routinely leave off. A proper handover, with your logins in your own hands on the day you launch.

The bill nobody mentions at quote time

Your build price is a once-off. Your website is not!

Hosting is rent on the computer your site lives on. Your domain is the name, and that's a rental too, renewed every year for as long as you trade.

Then business email, then any premium plugin licences the build depends on, then maintenance. None of that sits in the number on your quote.

Ask for the monthly running total in writing before you sign. A build you can afford with running costs you can't is a problem that shows up long after everyone's stopped celebrating.

Maintenance is the line people cut first and regret quietly. That's the ongoing cover we run, and even the smallest block of it beats nothing at all.

How to tell whether you're being overcharged

Get 3 quotes. We can't name your number from here, but 3 quotes will name it between them, and picking the cheapest is not the point.

Then ask all 3 the same short list, and compare the answers rather than the totals on your quotes.

• What's included, in writing? Page count, revisions, copy, images, forms, training, handover. Get the list before you compare prices, or you're comparing nothing.
• Can I get my logins the day I ask for them? Domain, hosting, dashboard, the lot. Anyone who hesitates on that one is telling you something important!
• What happens the day after launch? Ask who fixes it, how fast, and what that costs you.
• Can I edit this myself? Make them show you, on a real page, not describe it.
• What isn't included? It's the question that separates a proper quote for your job from an optimistic one.

Cheap is expensive. The bargain build you end up paying for twice is the priciest website we ever see!

We'll admit our own uncool bit here. We will happily argue about the order of items in a menu for longer than any visitor will ever spend looking at it, and we'd do it again!

Questions we get asked

Can I just use Wix or Shopify and skip you entirely?

Yes, and sometimes you should. If your budget is tight and you can spare the weekends, a DIY site that exists beats a proper one you can't afford yet.

Where it stops working is when your site has to do something specific, or when the weekends you promised it never arrive. That's when the phone rings and we get involved.

Why is your quote higher than the guy on Facebook?

Sometimes it shouldn't be, and you should ask us to justify it. Usually the gap is copy, structure, testing, handover and somebody still answering the phone in 18 months.

Compare what's in your 2 documents, not the 2 numbers at the bottom.

Can I start small and add to it later?

Yes, and it's what we'd suggest for most of you. Build the 5 pages that earn their keep, get them working, then add the shop or the booking system once you know you need it.

Paying for features you might use one day is how budgets disappear before launch.

Where to start this week

Write down what your site has to do, in plain sentences, before you speak to anybody. "Take bookings" and "look professional" are 2 very different budgets.

Then get your 3 quotes, ask the 5 questions, and add up the monthly running cost before you sign a thing.

If a quote can't answer those, you've found your answer. WhatsApp us the quote and we'll tell you what's missing from it, even if you never use us.

Or have a proper chat about it, tell us what the site has to do, and we'll give you a real number on the call. Send us the worst quote you've had!