How I price web projects

Packages & Pricing

Four ways of building a site, from a CMS store you manage yourself to a coded build with scroll animation and 3D. This page is here so you can work out roughly where your project sits before we ever talk numbers.

I don't publish fixed prices, because two sites with the same page count can take very different amounts of work. What I can tell you is what moves the number.

The four tiers

These are not rigid boxes, and they are not ordered by price. They describe how a build is put together, which is what actually decides the timeline. Startups mostly begin at the first one because it is the fastest way to a working store. Larger companies, and anyone with room to invest more, pick the other three just as often, and for them the choice is about what the site has to do rather than about cost.

Tier 01

CMS ecommerce website

WordPress · Elementor · WooCommerce · Shopify

Where most startups begin, and where most stores stay.

WordPress with Elementor or Shopify, depending on whether the site is a business with a shop attached or a shop first. Either way I lay out a template against your brand rather than adapting a purchased theme. It is the quickest route to a finished store, and the reason it costs less is honest: the platform handles the plumbing, so my time goes into design decisions instead.

Best for

Startups and established stores that want to add pages and products themselves, without a developer on call.

What you get
  • Custom layout built to your brand, not a bought theme
  • You edit pages and products yourself from the dashboard
  • WooCommerce or Shopify set up around your catalogue
  • Payment methods your customers actually use, local transfer included
  • Contact and lead forms wired to your inbox
Tier 02

Visual & motion first

Framer

For when the look is the argument.

Framer, for sites whose job is to hold attention rather than to run a catalogue. Finer typography, transitions and scroll motion than a page builder allows, and you still edit the content yourself afterwards. On price, this tier can land above tiers 3 and 4: the more motion and bespoke sections you want, the closer it gets, and it often passes them. Tier numbers here describe how a site is built, not what it costs.

Best for

Brands, launches and portfolios where the aesthetic does the selling and there is no large catalogue behind it.

What you get
  • Design led layout with real typographic control
  • Scroll and hover motion built into the page
  • Editable by you, no code required
  • Fast to launch when the deadline is tight
Tier 03

Coded site

Astro · React · Tailwind · TypeScript

Written from scratch, so nothing is fighting the design.

Hand written code with no page builder in the way. This is where performance scores stop being an afterthought and become something I design for. Every component is built for your content instead of your content being squeezed into someone else's template. This portfolio is built this way.

Best for

Sites where speed, search visibility and long term maintenance actually matter to the business.

What you get
  • Components built for your content
  • Top tier performance and Core Web Vitals
  • Structured data and clean semantic markup
  • Blog or case study system if you publish
  • Multilingual setup if you need more than one language
Tier 04

Animated & 3D

GSAP · Three.js · Blender · Spline

The full build, and the one that takes the longest.

Scroll driven sequences, pinned sections, transitions that carry meaning, and real 3D running in the browser. Every one of these has to be built, tuned and then made to perform on a mid range phone, which is the part that takes the time. The price reflects that, and so does the result: this is the tier people remember after they close the tab.

Best for

Launches, portfolios and brands that need to be talked about, not just found.

What you get
  • Scroll driven animation timelines
  • 3D models and scenes running live in the browser
  • Motion tuned so it never costs you performance
  • Reduced motion support for accessibility
  • Everything from the coded tier

In every project

These are not upsells. Whichever tier you land on, the following is part of the build, because a site without them is a site that does not work.

SEO optimisation

Titles, meta descriptions, headings, alt text, sitemap and structured data set up properly from the start, so search engines can read the site the way people do.

Speed optimisation

Images compressed and served in modern formats, fonts and scripts loaded so they never block the first paint, and layouts that hold their shape while they load.

Responsive on every screen

Designed for the phone as its own layout, not shrunk down from desktop. Checked at real widths, from small Android phones through to large monitors.

Ecommerce integration

If you sell, the store is part of the build: products, categories, checkout and the payment methods your customers actually use, including local transfer where cards are not the norm.

Customer support widget

A floating button pinned to the bottom left of every page that opens a WhatsApp chat with you. Visitors ask from wherever they are instead of hunting for a contact page, which is where most enquiries are lost.

Contact and lead capture

Forms that reach your inbox reliably, with spam handling, so an enquiry never quietly disappears.

Accessibility basics

Contrast checked against WCAG thresholds, keyboard navigation that works, and semantic markup that screen readers can follow.

Two rounds of revisions

Two rounds free in every project, whatever the tier. You gather your notes, we go through them in one session, and I apply them in a single pass.

Handover

You get the accounts, the files and a wireflow: a diagram showing how every page and action connects. Not a tutorial on using WordPress, Shopify or Framer, since learning the tool is your side of it. Nothing is held hostage.

What moves the price

A WordPress site is the most accessible starting point, but that is a starting point and not a ceiling. The same tier can land anywhere depending on scope. These are the things that move it, and I would rather you know them now than be surprised by a quote later.

Number of pages

A five page site and a thirty page site are not the same job, even on the same platform. Every page needs a layout, content and testing.

Catalogue size

Ten products is setup. A thousand products is data structure, filtering, search and a category system that still makes sense at that scale.

Detailed or complex animation

Simple hover and entrance effects are quick. Scroll driven sequences, pinned sections and 3D each need building, tuning and then optimising so they stay smooth.

Volume of content

If the copy, photography and product data are not ready, producing or restructuring them is real work and it belongs in the estimate.

Custom functionality

Bookings, memberships, calculators, dashboards or anything connected to an external service goes beyond a standard build.

Revision rounds

Two rounds are included. Any round after those is charged by difficulty, $5 to $20. No complete redesigns after delivery.

Not included: the extras

These sit outside a standard build. None of them are required for a site to launch and work well, which is exactly why they are optional rather than quietly folded into the price. Add any of them and the timeline moves by the days shown.

Simple animations

$150

Light visual effects across the site: a section easing in, a hover state, an icon that nudges for attention. Not parallax or complex scroll work.

Extra days: +5

SSL / HTTPS setup

$100

Manual install of an SSL certificate so the site runs over HTTPS and the browser shows a closed padlock beside your domain.

Extra days: +4

Email design

$250

Full design for up to 8 emails, promotional and automated alike, using your logo, palette and a layout that holds up on a phone.

Extra days: +10

Anti theft protection

$100

Measures against content being lifted, including copying by AI: right click and text selection disabled. Legal copyright registration is not included.

Extra days: +3

5 newsletter emails

$170

Five promotional or newsletter emails written and set up, ready to send to your list.

Extra days: +7

reCAPTCHA

$150

Google reCAPTCHA on your forms so bots cannot fill them, with the familiar “I'm not a robot” check before sending.

Extra days: +3

Manual hosting setup

$50 – $70

Pointing a domain to hosting and doing the initial server configuration, when the two are bought from different providers. Not needed for WordPress with Elementor.

Extra days: +5

5 autoresponder emails

$180

Five emails that fire automatically on a user action: a new subscriber, a completed form, an abandoned cart.

Extra days: +8

Extra What it covers Cost Extra days
Simple animations Light visual effects across the site: a section easing in, a hover state, an icon that nudges for attention. Not parallax or complex scroll work. $150 +5
SSL / HTTPS setup Manual install of an SSL certificate so the site runs over HTTPS and the browser shows a closed padlock beside your domain. $100 +4
Email design Full design for up to 8 emails, promotional and automated alike, using your logo, palette and a layout that holds up on a phone. $250 +10
Anti theft protection Measures against content being lifted, including copying by AI: right click and text selection disabled. Legal copyright registration is not included. $100 +3
5 newsletter emails Five promotional or newsletter emails written and set up, ready to send to your list. $170 +7
reCAPTCHA Google reCAPTCHA on your forms so bots cannot fill them, with the familiar “I'm not a robot” check before sending. $150 +3
Manual hosting setup Pointing a domain to hosting and doing the initial server configuration, when the two are bought from different providers. Not needed for WordPress with Elementor. $50 – $70 +5
5 autoresponder emails Five emails that fire automatically on a user action: a new subscriber, a completed form, an abandoned cart. $180 +8

Prices are in USD and cover the work described. If you want several of these, tell me at the start and I'll fold them into one timeline rather than bolting them on afterwards.

What I need from you

Every project that ran late did so for the same reason: it started before this was ready. You don't have to write the brief yourself or work out what to send me. I hand you a short document with the questions already in it, covering what the site is for, the references, the colours and the rest, and you fill it in. What follows is what that document asks for, so you know what is coming. None of it is difficult, but the more of it you bring on day one, the faster and cheaper the build goes.

  1. 01

    What the site is for

    A few sentences on the business: what you sell, what you want this site to achieve, who you are talking to, who your competitors are and what makes you different from them.

  2. 02

    The look you want

    Be specific about style. Photography only, 2D illustration, 3D, video, motion or none of it. Send between two and five reference sites so we are talking about the same thing rather than about adjectives.

  3. 03

    Main colours

    Two or three is the useful number. More than that and the palette stops being a palette. If you have a brand manual, that covers it.

  4. 04

    Your logo

    In vector if you have it. If you don't have one yet, I can design it as an extra, and it is better to settle that before the site than after.

  5. 05

    Copy and content

    Text, product data and images, as a document or a spreadsheet. If the copy is not ready I will lay out with placeholder text, but the design always lands better against real words.

  6. 06

    Hosting and domain access

    Needed to publish. You can send it over chat rather than by email if you prefer, and I will tell you exactly which credentials are required and which are not.

  7. 07

    Plugin preferences

    For WordPress builds, tell me if you already rely on specific plugins. If you have no preference, I install the set I consider necessary for security, performance and SEO.

Before we start, you need to have
  • Your own hosting and domain purchased, or the budget set aside for them
  • Read through this page, so the scope we agree on is the scope you expect

I don't design from nothing. Without direction the result is a guess, and guesses cost revisions. Two rounds of revisions are free in every project, and anything asked for outside those two sessions counts as an additional round, so it pays to fill the brief in properly up front.

Want a number for your project?

I don't give blanket quotes, because they are almost always wrong in one direction or the other. Tell me what you are building, how many pages and products, and whether you want motion in it. You'll get a real figure and a real timeline back.

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