Affordable Website Design: What You Should Actually Get for Your Money
Affordable and cheap are not the same thing. Here's what a genuinely affordable website has to include to be worth paying for.
Everyone selling websites in Australia calls themselves affordable. The word does almost no work - it tells you nothing about what you get, what happens after launch, or what you'll be paying in a year's time. So let's define it properly.
Affordable vs cheap
Cheap means the lowest number today. Affordable means the total cost of owning a website that actually wins you work stays low over years. They often point in opposite directions.
| Cheap | Affordable | |
|---|---|---|
| Upfront cost | Low or free | Low |
| Content | You write it all | Written for you |
| Hosting and domain | Extra, billed separately | Included |
| Changes after launch | Hourly, or not offered | Included |
| Built for Google | Rarely | Yes, from the structure up |
| Cost in year two | Unknown | Same as year one |
A cheap site is cheap once. An affordable one stays affordable.
What has to be included
- Your content written for you. The most common hidden cost in cheap website quotes is your own time. Writing pages for a business you run is harder and slower than people expect, and half-finished sites never launch.
- Hosting, domain and SSL. Three separate bills if nobody bundles them.
- A page per service. Google ranks pages, not businesses. One page listing eight services competes for nothing.
- Location pages for the suburbs you actually work in.
- Real mobile speed. Most enquiries arrive on a phone on mobile data.
- Enquiry form and tap-to-call that have been tested.
- Ongoing updates. New photos, new services, a changed number - without an invoice each time.
The three ways to get a website cheaply, honestly compared
- Build it yourself. Cheapest in dollars, expensive in weekends. Fine if you enjoy it. Most business owners get 70% done and stop.
- Overseas freelancer. Low cost, variable quality, and the hardest part - Australian wording, local search structure and ongoing support - is usually missing.
- Weekly or monthly managed website. Low to start, everything included, someone answerable when something breaks. This is the model I use.
Warning signs in a cheap quote
- "Content to be supplied by client" buried in the inclusions.
- Hosting priced separately, or a domain registered in someone else's name.
- Changes charged hourly with no stated rate.
- A lock-in contract with a cancellation fee.
- No examples of finished Australian sites in your kind of trade.
- Guaranteed number-one Google rankings. Nobody can promise that.
Before you pay anyone, ask these
- Is every word of the content written for me?
- Are hosting, domain and SSL inside the price?
- Whose name is the domain registered in?
- Does each of my services get its own page?
- What does a change cost after launch?
- Is there a lock-in contract or cancellation fee?
- What will I be paying in twelve months?
What I charge, and why it's structured that way
$99 to get started, then the first 14 days free once your website goes live, then $45/week - hosting, your domain, SSL, content written for you, SEO foundations, a monthly update and a monthly Google performance report all included. No lock-in contract and no cancellation fee, so the site has to keep earning its place.
More detail on the packages sits on web design packages, and affordable website design covers what's built for that price. If you want to compare the models first, read website pricing models compared and how much a website costs in Australia.
Need a Better Website for Your Business?
Professional websites built by Mike - $99 to get started, with the first 14 days free once your website goes live, then $45/week, including hosting, your domain, SEO foundations and a monthly update.
$99 to get started. First 14 days free once live, then $45/week.
Common questions
- Is a free website builder good enough for a small business?
- It can be a starting point, but free plans usually put ads on your site, keep you on their subdomain and give you no help with local search. The saving disappears the first time a customer can't find you.
- Does affordable mean it will look cheap?
- No. Cost is driven by how the work is organised, not by how good the design is. A repeatable process and honest scope is what keeps the price down.
- What's the real yearly cost of a cheap website?
- Add hosting, domain, SSL, plugin renewals and paid changes and most "cheap" sites land well above what people expect. See website maintenance costs.
Written by Mike - Web Guy Mike
I build and look after websites for Australian tradies and small service businesses. Every site is built by me - no outsourcing, no account managers. More about Mike.