

Website, logo, brand design costs?

(23 Posts)
FortyFacedFuckers Thu 17-Oct-13 14:14:55

I am trying to put together a business plan and look at how much finance I realistically need to get my business up and running. I am looking to get a rough idea of cost for the website and logo design? Can anyone recommend anywhere to start?

m0nkeynuts Thu 17-Oct-13 16:30:03

The cost of getting your website built will vary wildly depending on your needs. Are you looking for a simple static brochure-type site, or something more interactive/techie? Your best bet might be to contact a few companies/freelancers and ask for ballpark quotes based on your ideas.

You could try something similar for the logo design, or have a look at the likes of and find someone whose style you like.

BooItTooJulia Thu 17-Oct-13 16:32:09

We've had a couple of quotes. £1000 seems to be average.

m0nkeynuts Thu 17-Oct-13 17:08:37

For what type of website BooItTooJulia, out of interest?

2Retts Thu 17-Oct-13 17:38:53

I'm quite curious to know what you've been quoted an average of £1000 for too BooItTooJulia

2Retts Thu 17-Oct-13 17:40:12

Are you looking to maintain the site yourself Forty?

BooItTooJulia Thu 17-Oct-13 20:05:00

Logo design, website design,hosting the site for a year in one case, not in others, web search optimisation (or whatever it's called). Basic site that we can update ourselves. No shopping facility.

Had three quotes and one company came back to us after a quote of £1200 and offered us a super basic site, no web search optimisation, no monthly hosting charge, £500.

2Retts Fri 18-Oct-13 00:09:40

Thanks BooItTooJulia...seriously thinking of adding that to our services if that's the charge rate.

BooItTooJulia Fri 18-Oct-13 10:10:54

It is the rate where we are, but we thought it too expensive and haven't used the service for that reason!

FortyFacedFuckers Fri 18-Oct-13 11:42:04

Thank you for all the help! It's so daunting not having a clue where to start, how to go about things.

We are wanting a site to give information of our services, previous events, also an option to fill in a form and make a payment.

DontMentionThePrunes Fri 18-Oct-13 11:54:14

If you're looking to save money then you could in theory make a website to do all those things. Wordpress with a plug-in (the downloadable version plus paying for domain and hosting, not the free site) will take you a few evenings if you are reasonably savvy. Domain name plus hosting can be as little as £20, obviously that would be for a fairly low-traffic package but it depends on the nature of your business. There is a lot of help on the web and in googleable forums to customise the coding behind the templates.

Logo design I have had done and it cost £200, but that was through a friend.

FortyFacedFuckers Fri 18-Oct-13 14:40:41

Thanks dont I will have a look at wordpress but not sure that I have the skills required to do it.

I am with 1&1. I built my own simple straightforward site after being messed about by a website builder/hosting company when I was all green and naieve about being self employed.

Costs me £80 a quarter for website builder thing, hosting of (up to 3) websites, several email addys, thingys to track who is looking at my website/what search words they use etc, and also a search engine optimisation service that I had to get the hang of myself. But its simple, and if I can do it anyone can.

Be aware of two things, firstly, very important to register your own domain. Mine is my own rl name. I registered itmyself and went to the website companies with it. The first one then built a site on that, and kept on at me to transfer the name to him, 'because then everything is in one place'. I didn't. Firstly because for the £2 or so it costs me per year to own my own domain name, the website hoster will charge £20 or £40. Then if you want to go elsewhere, if you own your own domain you can do that. I have known people be charged for transfer of their own domain name, from a website hosting company to themselves.

Second, Without search engine optimisation you might as well not bother having a website. Unless your website is just as a link that you send to people, or put on your cards etc, for people to go to.
SEO services actually submit your website info to the search engines, ie Google, bing etc. So I'd be very wary of a company offering cheap websites without SEO, because you WILL have to pay for SEO to get the website to work as a marketing tool.

With 1and1 I didn't have to know anything about coding. Its a step by step package for building a website, with very patient tech support at the other end of a phone 24/7 to help with anything. (and something like 5p per min).

DontMentionThePrunes Fri 18-Oct-13 14:57:14

I don't either grin
It is all actually very straightforward, you find a hosting company who states that they will support Wordpress (NB other website platforms are good too, I only know about this one). There are simple steps to downloading the software, getting email addresses set up etc. Then you find a template you like and read up a little on making a child template (just a copy that you can work on).

The next step is working out what you want to customise, like headers, background colours, fonts, margins: the basis of what you want will be in the template you've chosen, this is just tweaking. This is where it helps to have a geeky dh/friend who can teach you a bit of simple coding: you just have to change a few things within the code to get what you want.

There is a lot online to help. Different pages (for info about events etc) are easy to set up. You can look up what sort of plug-in you need to have a form and take payment beforehand: definitely don't pay out any money until you are sure that you can do what you want.

This is what a web designer at the lower end of the market will do - well, that and the troubleshooting. It's worth the money but it's also really not hard to do, I'm not a techy sort at all and I found it interesting learning what the little bits of code look like, and how to source things like web-friendly colour names etc. There are also good 'Dummies' books.

Our website got thousands of hits, and really worked for us for very minimal outlay. It is actually clean and simple because we didn't know how to make it complex and we've never once got any bad feedback about it being too simple or amateur.

m0nkeynuts Fri 18-Oct-13 15:06:17

Another vote for Wordpress here. I recommend it to almost all my clients who are building non-ecommerce sites.

If you use a hosting company like Vidahost, you'd be looking at £17+VAT per year for your hosting with a free domain name for the first year (domain name from £2.79 per year after that). And if you check the 'Wordpress' box while placing your order, they'll even install it for you as part of your account setup.

(I am mentioning Vidahost specifically because I use them, but many other hosting companies will offer the same service.)

Even if you then get a designer/developer to design a custom template for you (or customise one of the thousands of free/cheap templates already available), do any initial tweaks and give you some basic Wordpress training/mentoring, your cost is still going to be no more than very low hundreds - could even be less than £100 if you use an existing Wordpress template with not too many tweaks required.

Maintenance-wise, editing Wordpress pages is no more complicated than editing Word documents.

bubalou Fri 18-Oct-13 21:36:25

I agree with what a lot of people have said in that the costs vary a lot.

I am an online marketing manager specialising in search engine optimisation. I deal with websites all the time and you can get a great templates on things like Wordpress or shopify for not too much money but it depends what you want the site for. You do need a well constructed site however if you want the chance to rank well in google.

Don't buy into people trying to charge you massive amounts for something like this though on things like custom templates as that goes you in forever.


2Retts Fri 18-Oct-13 23:59:32

We send lots of folk to Wordpress too and this, with Paypal or something like that, is enough for what you need.

There is a marketing guy called Robert Tyson (not associated in any way, just on his mailing list) and he is a huge advocate of Wordpress.

If you sign up to his mailing list, he sends a fair few emails out but most of them are really useful and packed with free advice (although they are designed to lead to sales of his actual services).

There is loads of free info out there about building a Wordpress is your friend in this instance. It just takes a little time investment to wade through what you can deal with.

Best of luck with your new business Forty

Adair Sat 19-Oct-13 00:04:10

I use Yola to create my website and do it all myself - about to update actually (you can see at, feel free to email me via the site if you want to ask more questions). Paypal has a lot of integrated payment options.
I really like Dean at if you want someone to do it for you (much cheaper than your quote)

SpottyFrogs Sun 20-Oct-13 11:30:18

You can check out a web designers portfolios and see if what they offer is to the standard you require. The big mistake a lot of people make is look at portfolios and look to see if they like any of the sites visually (like checking out curtains and wallpaper) and turn them down if they don't see one they like that is suited for their business.

Instead, look at whether the website design is suited to the business it has been designed for and are they generally at a good level of design. All websites should be custom designed to suit a business, when paying for a custom design that is. If you are using such as 1&1, then you are using templates which means others are using the same design.

If you want to build a brand, having your own custom logo and other marketing materials like a website, leaflet, business card, van signage, etc, is so important to get over to your target market (your potential customers) that you have invested in your business because you believe it is worth it. Don't overdo it. Just do enough to make a good start and get going. Lots of companies improve their brand, or even do a total re-brand, once they have had time to get a feel for what works, what doesn't what feedback they have had, etc.

Also consider what is included in the cost you have been quoted.

So for example with a logo design, how many initial concepts, how many times can you revise it until it's exactly as you want it, will it be provided in all file formats including vector artwork for print, will you be provided with the fonts and colours in case you need to use them elsewhere, e.g. on the website or on a leaflet, and most importantly....will you be given copyright to the logo design! This is not automatic as you might think....the author always has copyright by default. You have to make sure it is included in your purchase price.

Next, with a website, does it include a content management system (CMS) that is an open source one and not one they own (a dire route to take for various reasons), does it use search engine friendly software and will it be optimised with your keywords in the meta tags, etc, will they ensure that it is fully working before handing over to you, will they give you training on how to use the CMS, what aftercare is there, can they email or call you for general support when you get stuck, do they reply the same day every time you contact the (what is their guaranteed response rate), do they provide website hosting or do you have to sort that out yourself and buy your own at an extra cost. So much to consider when comparing. Customer service an aftercare is paramount once the site is built and live.

I run my own web design business as my main day job and Spotty Frogs is a new soft play hire business which my family will be running, whilst I take care of design, marketing, hosting, seo, etc, so I do see things from both sides of the coin. it's a continual exercise of checking, tweaking, changing, improving, deleting.

Your marketing materials should always be "ongoing" with regards to continually updating them, but your brand should be strong so you can anchor it down and establish it in order to grow and even gain a value as a business. Your brand becomes intellectual property which in itself can have a value as an asset to the business.

FortyFacedFuckers Sun 20-Oct-13 16:32:57

Thank you so much for all these answers they are so useful.

MarthaS Wed 23-Oct-13 20:07:54

Happy to provide free help/advice or setup for Wordpress, pm me

MarthaS Thu 24-Oct-13 15:04:20

In fact just started a thread offering my services for free to build a website as building up my portfolio so let me know if interested!

makeusawebsite Thu 24-Oct-13 16:50:53

You might find this of interest as it helps you with the process of commissioning a new website.

It is going to be important that you know what you want exactly before you start getting quotes. The more specific you can be, the more likely that you are going to be comparing like-for-like.

Join the discussion

Join the discussion


Register now