ur clients often ask us to help them estimate the amount of money they should dedicate to a site when starting out on the WWW.

Here is the best and most honest answer to that somewhat complicated request:  Spend what you can afford, then expand your presentation as your online business grows. 

The actual cost of website construction is directly affected by the amount of graphics and pages that you desire.  In general, most new sites tend to run between $750 and $1500 -- as with anything else, the bigger the site, the greater the time required to complete the project (see below for $$ amount details).

We realize of course that a lot of people are looking to get started on the web but need to remain within a carefully defined budget. If that describes your position, then we can create for you an online presentation with an attractive and well designed interface that will serve as a strong foundation for future e-commerce growth, and yet remains affordable -- simply indicate to us your working budget for the project and we'll let you know what is possible within that range.  

Our approach to site construction differs from many other firms in that we work very closely with you to provide the website design that you envision as being most effective for your own business. After all, no one knows your business better than you, so it stands to reason that you would have valuable insight about its presentation.

With that in mind, the package below is simply what we consider to be a solid approach when starting out -- it can be modified according to your wishes:

• "Home Page";
• "Gallery" or "Products" page with (at least!) 5 items -- pictures, descriptions, and ordering info. You can always add more items here at any time;
• Each of these items will open in a larger more detailed view when clicked;
• "Contact Page" with postal address, email address, phone number, and a short online form with pre-configured fields for the convenience of your visitors to fill out and send;
• "Ordering Page" with thumbnails / prices of each of the 5 items. This page is connected to your...
• "Secure Shopping Cart". Note that to include a cart you must be set-up to accept customer payment by credit cards (ie, you need a merchant account for Visa & Mastercard), or as an alternative, have a "PayPal" type of online payment account;
• "Printable Order Form" for people to use who wish to send a check or fax you their credit card #;
• A "Links Page" so you can develop reciprocal linkage with other sites;
• An "About Us" page with a brief bio and picture of yourself (or of your staff);
• And a custom "404 Page", which shows only if visitors accidentally type in a wrong address for a page in your site (this means they won't get the dreaded "Page Not Found" message!).
• Also, we will submit your site information to those major search engines that still allow for free inclusion in their databases.
• (You can quickly print out the above info with prices on a plain white background for offline reference).

The cost of that fully functional e-commerce enabled package is $775 (this is a one-time charge ... it is not annual!). Naturally, you can expand upon it however you want, or even go with a more limited initial presentation -- it's entirely up to you.

In addition, we can make all arrangements for you with a very dependable hosting service -- the server we are currently recommending charges less than $80 per year. Also, if you do not yet have your own domain name, we can register one for you in your name at an ICANN accredited registrar (both the server and the registrar will bill your credit card directly).

You can always add more products, pages, and features -- either immediately or over time as your "cyber" business grows.

The cost to add the first 5 additional items at the point of initial design is $200 (bringing the total # of items to 10). This provides you with a second "Gallery / Products" page with the 5 new graphics, each about 2.25" high or wide; also 5 larger images of same for more detailed viewing; and all 5 of these additional items are configured into your shopping cart. The total design fee for this 10 items package will be about $975.

A website with an additional 10 items would require 2 new pages, so the one time charge to custom design for you the complete "turnkey site" described above with a total of 15 items for sale using a secure shopping cart is approximately $1175.

Thereafter, for every additional 5 products/items (after 15) add $175.

We are happy to discuss with you the cost of a basic web presence that would fit within your current budget. You should realistically decide what you need, determine your budget, then get in touch with us to see what can be done within those parameters. As long as the foundation is strong, the sky is the limit for future growth.

You can include a wide variety of additional features and interactive enhancements on your site (the cost will depend on what you want). For example:
~ Guest book
~ "Tell-A-Friend" email link
~ Mailing list sign up form
~ Intra-site search engine
~ Online surveys & quizzes
~ Password protected pages or directories
~ Bulletin board / forum for message posting
~ Send an online postcard featuring your work
~ Random images or text (by day, week, or month)
~ "Latest News" (that you can easily update yourself)
~ Tracking / counter stats for incoming visitors to your site
~ Outgoing tracking for links on your pages leading to external sites
~ A "Classifieds" section for visitors to use in selling goods/services
... and more!

As you can see, we offer a variety of flexible "turnkey" solutions to help you get started on the World Wide Web. Our website design fee is a one-time charge, so your only continuing annual expense is for your domain and hosting.

The total cost to you for the first year only of our "Solid Foundation" design package (5 products with secure cart), as described above, will be approximately $875 (including 3rd party domain & hosting fees). You can expand upon that however you see fit, either immediately or in the future. If you add no additional content, then in the subsequent years the only ongoing fee is hosting and domain -- about $90 - $100. We of course remain available at our hourly rate to do changes, updates, additions, etc whenever the need arises.

If you are now ready to do business online, then the next step is very simple -- contact us so we can begin the dialog about your site requirements. The sooner we hear from you, the sooner you will gain a visible and effective presence on the World Wide Web.

NOTE: For your convenience, you can quickly print out a price sheet on a plain white background. If you have any remaining questions, you may very well find the answers in our FAQ or in our Terms & Conditions.