So, this will likely be just a bit long-winded.
The short version is this: we generally start between $3,000 to 4,000 for development. There are exceptions (if your needs are truly simple we can work with you), and a lot is included that you might not expect. If you need significant customization, or ongoing maintenance, that’s fine too.
We’re on the cheap end for custom custom WordPress development (we’re often the lowest quote), and we’re on the high end of average for the the absolute simplest sites – though our sites will be fully editable – and built to last – which often isn’t true for “simple” sites built by low-end developers.
What’s generally included
We include a number of elements that most developers charge individually for.
It’s all in the box
- Help with your logo (we usually include a few logos if you’re needing them)
- A discovery and wireframing process – typically, before we even send a quote, we’ll walk through the homepage together and arrange things. This helps us triage your most important needs and ensure that the functionality we ultimately propose matches your needs as closely as possible.
- Google Analytics setup
- Contact form setup
- Basic email support (our contact form needs to send information somewhere!)
- Help purchasing your domain
- Help managing your hosting
- Migration and launch
- A series of videos walking through your specific site and how to use everything you’ll likely need to do.
The parts you don’t see
Most sites we do are at least a little bit custom. And when there’s anything remotely custom going on, there’s a lot of setup that’s exactly the same whether you have the simplest site in the world or something relatively complex.
Our typical workflow
There’s a lot that goes into a modern development workflow, and setting up such a workflow is a relatively involved process. Once it’s set up, it works beautifully, but without it, we’re much more prone to mistakes. That means there’s quite a bit of work involved in setting up even a “simple” site, most of which is arcane enough that you’ll never hear about it.
- Setting up a local version of your site
- Installing dependencies
- Creating a new theme, then putting it under version control
- Creating a core functionality plugin for your site, then putting it under version control
- Setting up a build process for the theme and plugin styles and scripts locally
- Setting up a staging version of your site (somewhere you can see it but the public can’t)
- Setting up deployment for the database, allowing us to transfer that back and forth between staging and local
- Setting up deployment for the theme and core functionality plugin, allowing us to push changed files to the live environment.
- Once we launch, we’ll repeat about half these steps on the live site.
There’s also a lot of setup that happens as we’re launching a site that simply needs done no matter who you are:
Getting ready to launch
- Browser and device testing, to make sure your site looks good everywhere
- Redirecting the domain and migrating the site to its live location
- Setting up email addresses (sometimes)
- Client training (always, and we generally make a series of how-to videos showing you how to use your site).
- Google Analytics installation
- SSL installation
- Deployment setup (for pushing any necessary bugfixes)