How to compare website quotes apples to apples

Send every provider the same five questions and compare the answers, not the totals. Website quotes are not comparable as they arrive, because each includes different work under the same word.

The five questions

Copy these into an email and send them to everyone you are considering:

1. What exactly is included? Number of pages, who writes the content, who supplies photos, whether the design is original or a template.
2. What happens after launch? Who hosts it, who updates it, who fixes it when it breaks, and what each of those costs.
3. Who owns what? The domain, the website files, the content. In writing.
4. What does a typical change cost? A price update, a new page, a new team member.
5. What is the total over three years? Build, hosting, maintenance, and the changes you realistically expect.

The answers make three quotes comparable in a way the quotes themselves never are.

Why the numbers differ so wildly

None of those is wrong. They are different products with the same name. The mistake is treating a £500 quote and a £4,000 quote as competing offers for the same thing, then concluding the expensive one is overpriced.

Compare over three years, not at launch

The headline build price is the smaller part of what you will spend. Work out the full picture for each quote:

Build cost, once.

Hosting, £5-£30 a month, and check whether the first year is included and what happens in year two.

Domain, £10-£15 a year.

Maintenance, £15-£50 a month, if it is included at all.

Changes, £50-£80 an hour, multiplied by how many you realistically make.

A £600 build with no maintenance and £70 an hour changes often costs more over three years than a £99 monthly plan, and it does less. Run the sum on your own expected usage rather than assuming.

What to look for in the answers

The questions that reveal most

Two extras worth asking that are not about price:

“Can I see two sites you built for businesses like mine?” Then look at those sites on your phone. If they are slow, or awkward on mobile, or clearly the same template with different colours, you have learned something the quote would not have told you.

“What would you do differently from my current site?” A provider who has actually looked at your situation gives a specific answer. One who has not gives a generic pitch.

Deciding

Once you have the five answers from three providers, the decision usually makes itself. Put them in a table and the gaps show up.

If two quotes are genuinely comparable in scope and one is cheaper, take the cheaper one. That is what comparing properly is for.

If the cheapest is cheapest because it excludes hosting, maintenance, content and ownership, it is not cheaper. It is smaller, and the difference arrives later as separate bills.

More on the vetting questions in what to ask before hiring a website company, and on the later costs in hidden costs of a cheap website.

Where we sit

Our plans are £49, £99 and £199 a month, and the pricing page itemises what falls into each so you can run the five questions against us the same way. You own the domain, site and content, there is no contract, and changes are included rather than billed.

Whether that beats a one-off build depends on how much you expect to change and whether you will maintain it yourself. If you send us the quotes you have received, we will tell you honestly how they compare, including when one of them is a better fit than we are.