Does a bigger site cost more?

Only through content. Twenty service pages on one template is a smaller job than five pages that are each unique, because the template is built once and filled many times. What a page adds is the cost of writing it, reviewing it and loading it, which is real but small next to a template, a content type or an integration.

What is the single largest driver?

Integrations, in most projects. Each connected system carries its own authentication, its own rate limits, its own error and retry behaviour, its own test environment and its own owner inside the client organisation. Two systems is not twice the work of one, because the second one also has to agree with the first about which record is the same record.

Why is there no price range on this site?

Because a published range becomes the ceiling of every deal that starts from it, and because a number attached to a project nobody has scoped is a guess wearing a decimal point. A build is priced after the scope exists, and the number that comes out of that is fixed before any code is written.

How do change requests work under a fixed price?

The scope lists what is included and, next to it, what is not. A request inside the list is the work. A request outside it is priced as its own small piece of work, with its own number, before anybody starts it. The point of writing the exclusions down is that neither side has to argue about which side of the line something fell on.

Is a template cheaper than a design system?

Cheaper on the first page and more expensive by about the fourth. A bought template is a fixed set of components and the cost arrives as the work of forcing your content into them, which is paid for in content production and in every future page. A design system costs more at the start and makes the next page a fraction of the first. The break-even depends on how many distinct layouts the site actually needs.

What actually moves the price of a build. HUREAL.

The unit

Page count isthe wrong unit.

Almost every website quote is organised around a page count, because it is the one quantity a buyer can state without a discovery process. It is also close to irrelevant, and understanding why is most of what it takes to read a quote properly.

A website is not built page by page. It is built as a set of templates, a content model that feeds them, a set of connections to other systems, and the content itself. A template is designed once, built once, tested once, and then filled any number of times. So twenty service pages sharing one template is a smaller piece of work than five pages that are each structurally different, and a quote that prices those two the same way is not pricing the work.

The cost of a build is closer to this: the number of distinct templates, plus the number of distinct content types in the model, plus the number of systems it has to talk to, plus the number of languages authored natively, plus whatever has to be migrated, plus the content itself. Page count enters only through that last term, and it is the smallest term in the sum for most projects.

The practical consequence when you are comparing two quotes. Ask both suppliers how many templates they have counted and which ones. If one has counted six and the other eleven, they are not pricing the same website, and the difference will not show up anywhere in a page count.

Ranked

Sixteen factors,in four tiers.

The tiers are ordered by how much a change in that factor changes the number. The middle column is the mechanism, which is the part worth reading: the rank follows from it, and where your project is unusual, the mechanism will tell you so before the rank does.

What moves the price of a website build, and what reduces it
Factor	Why it costs	What reduces it
Tier oneMoves the number most
Integrations	Every connected system carries its own authentication, rate limits, error behaviour, test environment and internal owner. Two systems also have to agree about which record is the same record.	A nightly file instead of a live connection, where the business can tolerate yesterday's data.
An authenticated area	Accounts, roles, permissions, recovery, session security and an audit trail, plus a signed-in version of every screen that already had a signed-out one.	A signed link with an expiry, where the thing behind it is a single document rather than an account.
Languages authored natively	Authoring per language, native review, search research per language, and every system message, error state and automated email written twice rather than once.	Launching one language first on a content model built for two, which is authoring later rather than rebuilding later.
Migration	Content mapping, URL mapping, redirect rules, data cleaning, and a period where the old and new systems both have to be right.	Deciding honestly which content still earns its place, and archiving the rest behind redirects.
Tier twoMoves it substantially
Distinct templates	Each one is designed, built, made responsive, made accessible and tested. This is the real page count.	Merging two templates that differ only in emphasis into one with a variant.
Content types in the model	Each type needs fields, validation, an editing interface, a preview, a listing, a URL rule and its own structured data.	Resisting a new type for something that is a field on an existing one.
Content production	Who writes it, from what source material, and how many review rounds it goes through before it is signed off.	Deciding the approver before the writing starts, rather than discovering them at round three.
Commerce	Catalogue, pricing rules, checkout, payments, tax, shipping, returns, and reconciliation with whatever holds inventory.	Keeping the commerce engine you already run and rebuilding only the storefront on top of it.
Interfaces that hold state	Configurators, calculators, filtered search, booking. Each one has valid states, invalid states, partial states and a way back.	Shipping the form first, measuring whether anyone completes it, and building the configurator against real behaviour.
Tier threeMoves it noticeably
Design system depth	How many components exist and how many states each one has. States are where the work hides: hover, focus, error, empty, loading, long text, no image.	A smaller component set used consistently, which also looks better.
Motion beyond the system	Motion made for one page is designed, built, tested on low-powered devices and given a reduced-motion alternative.	Motion that lives in the design system and is reused, rather than art directed per page.
A third-party accessibility audit	An external assessment, a remediation round and a retest, on top of the testing already in the build.	Nothing, where procurement asks for it. It is a real cost with a real reason.
Analytics and attribution	Beyond page views: event definitions, agreed metric definitions, consent handling, and a route from a form submission to a closed sale.	Naming the five questions leadership actually asks, and instrumenting only those.
The approval process	Rounds cost time, and time is the unit a project is priced in. An undeclared veto late in a project is the most expensive thing on this list.	Naming every person with a veto at the start, and putting them in the review.
Hosting and environment constraints	Data residency, a private network, a client-managed cloud account or an internal security review each add setup and each add a dependency on somebody else's calendar.	Raising them in the first session, so they are scoped rather than discovered.
Tier fourBarely moves it
Page count, once the templates exist	The marginal cost of the twenty-first page on an existing template is the cost of writing and loading its content.	Not applicable. This is the factor most quotes are organised around, and it is the smallest one here.

Scroll the table sideways to read it.

The two surprises

Sign-in and migration,priced as if they were small.

Two tier one factors are consistently underpriced, by buyers and by suppliers, and for the same reason: both look like one feature and are actually a change in the shape of the whole project.

Sign-in is not a feature

A sign-in area does not add a page. It adds a second version of the site. Every screen now has a signed-out state and a signed-in state, and the two have to agree about what a person can see.

It also brings a set of flows nobody asks for and everybody needs: registration, verification, password reset, session expiry, account recovery when the email address has changed, and what happens to a link in an old email after the account it pointed at was closed.

And it changes the privacy position of the whole site, because the site now holds records about identifiable people rather than anonymous traffic. That is a scoping conversation, not a checkbox.

Migration is a data job, not a copy job

Moving content is the easy half. The hard half is the URL map: every address the old site published needs a decision, and the ones that carry links and rankings need the right destination rather than the homepage.

A page that ranked, redirected to the homepage, loses what it had. So the migration inventory is not a list of pages. It is a list of old URLs, their traffic, their inbound links and their destination, and producing it is work before any of it is moved.

The most expensive thing in a relaunch is a page that used to rank and now returns a 404. It is also the easiest to prevent, and the prevention is entirely clerical.

Both are worth doing. Neither is worth discovering in week six.

Fixed price

A fixed price issix decisions, made early.

A fixed price is not a pricing style. It is a consequence of a fixed scope, and a scope can only be fixed once six things are decided. Any supplier who offers a fixed price without them is quoting a guess and will come back later, which is the thing a fixed price was supposed to prevent.

The template list

Not the page list. Which distinct layouts exist, what each one is for, and which pages sit on each. This is the number that most affects design and build effort, and it is the one a page count hides.
The content model

Which content types exist, what fields each one carries, which are required, and how they relate. A content model agreed late is a rebuild of the editing interface and of every template that reads from it.
The integration list, with names

Not "connects to our CRM". The name of the system, its version, whether it is hosted or on premises, which authentication method it offers, who administers it, and whether a test environment exists. The last two are where projects actually stall.
The language list

Which languages, which pages in each, and who reviews each one. A second language decided after the content model is a different project from a second language decided before it.
The migration inventory

Every old URL, what it gets, and what is being retired. Produced before the price, because it is the term with the widest range in the whole estimate.
Who approves, and who can veto

Named people, with what each one signs off. The most common cause of a project running over is not technical. It is a person with an opinion and authority who was not in the first review.

The list of exclusions matters as much as the list of inclusions, and a scope that carries only the second is half a document. When something is excluded in writing, nobody has to argue later about which side of the line it fell on, and the conversation becomes a small piece of work with its own number rather than a dispute.

Three shapes

Hourly, a range,or a fixed number.

Three ways of pricing the same work, and they are not better and worse versions of each other. They allocate the risk of a wrong estimate to different parties, and which allocation is correct depends on how well the work is understood before it starts.

Three ways to price a build, compared as approaches
Compared on	An hourly rateTime and materials	A published rangeA band on a page	A fixed scope and priceSigned before the work
What you sign	A rate, and an estimate of hours.	Nothing. A range is information, not a commitment.	A number, and a document listing what it does and does not include.
Who carries estimate risk	You do. Every hour of a misjudged estimate is an hour you pay for.	Nobody yet. The risk is transferred at the moment the real quote arrives.	The supplier does. That is what the number is buying.
What happens on a new requirement	It is added and billed. Frictionless, which is both the advantage and the danger.	Not applicable.	It is priced as its own piece of work, against a written exclusion list.
What happens if the supplier is wrong	You find out in an invoice.	The range moves.	The supplier absorbs it, which is why the scoping is careful.
Comparing two suppliers	Hard. A lower rate with more hours is not cheaper, and neither number is knowable in advance.	Misleading. Two ranges built on different assumptions look comparable and are not.	Possible, if both scopes list the same things. Compare the scopes first, then the numbers.
When it is the right answer	Genuinely exploratory work, research, or an ongoing improvement arrangement where the backlog is reprioritised every month.	Setting expectations before a conversation. Useful as a filter, never as a commitment.	A defined build, where the scope can be settled before the work starts.

Scroll the table sideways to read it.

The verdict, including where it goes against a fixed price

Where the work is genuinely exploratory, hourly is the honest answer and a fixed price is a fiction with a decimal point in it. Research, a discovery phase whose output is a decision rather than a deliverable, and continuous improvement after launch all fit that description, and pretending otherwise just moves the uncertainty into a padded number.

Where the scope can be settled before the work starts, a fixed price is better for the buyer, because the supplier is then the party with both the information and the incentive to estimate carefully. A build is almost always in this category, because the six decisions above can all be made in advance if someone insists on making them.

A published range is the one shape that helps nobody at the point of decision. It cannot be signed, it cannot be compared, and its main function is to be anchored against later.

Before you sign

Six questions thatmove a quote down.

Ask these of whoever is quoting, including us. Each one targets a specific term in the sum, and a supplier who cannot answer them has not priced the work, whatever the number at the bottom says.

Which two of these templates could be one?
There is almost always a pair that differs only in emphasis. Merging them removes a design round, a build, a test pass and a permanent maintenance obligation.
Does this integration have to be live?
A live two-way connection and a nightly file are different projects. Ask what the business actually does with the data and how old it is allowed to be.
Does this need an account, or a signed link?
Where the thing behind the sign-in is one document for one person, an expiring signed link delivers it without building an account system.
Which content genuinely has to move?
Most migrations carry pages nobody has read in three years. Archived and redirected is a legitimate destination, and it is far cheaper than migrated.
Does the second language have to launch at the same time?
Building the model for two and authoring one is cheaper than retrofitting, and cheaper than authoring both at once. It is usually the right sequence.
Can the configurator be a form first?
Ship the form, measure completion, then build the interactive version against evidence about where people actually stop.

One question that moves it the other way, and is worth it. Ask who is accountable for the number after signature. A fixed price with no named person behind it is a fixed price until the first difficult conversation. The answer should be a person, not a company.

Questions

Questions peopleactually ask.

Does a bigger site cost more?

Only through content. Twenty service pages on one template is a smaller job than five pages that are each unique, because the template is built once and filled many times. What a page adds is the cost of writing it, reviewing it and loading it, which is real but small next to a template, a content type or an integration.
What is the single largest driver?

Integrations, in most projects. Each connected system carries its own authentication, its own rate limits, its own error and retry behaviour, its own test environment and its own owner inside the client organisation. Two systems is not twice the work of one, because the second one also has to agree with the first about which record is the same record.
Why is there no price range on this site?

Because a published range becomes the ceiling of every deal that starts from it, and because a number attached to a project nobody has scoped is a guess wearing a decimal point. A build is priced after the scope exists, and the number that comes out of that is fixed before any code is written.
How do change requests work under a fixed price?

The scope lists what is included and, next to it, what is not. A request inside the list is the work. A request outside it is priced as its own small piece of work, with its own number, before anybody starts it. The point of writing the exclusions down is that neither side has to argue about which side of the line something fell on.
Is a template cheaper than a design system?

Cheaper on the first page and more expensive by about the fourth. A bought template is a fixed set of components and the cost arrives as the work of forcing your content into them, which is paid for in content production and in every future page. A design system costs more at the start and makes the next page a fraction of the first. The break-even depends on how many distinct layouts the site actually needs.

Three that followfrom this one.

The service behind this article

This is the arithmetica proposal is built on.

The factors above are the agenda of a discovery call. A discovery call for Websites and Platforms walks the template list, the content model, the named integrations with their named authentication methods, the languages, and the migration inventory, and the written proposal that follows it sets a scope, a price and a timeline.

The discovery call leads to a number you can sign or walk away from. A conversation with the people who own the outcome, then a written proposal that lists what is excluded next to what is included.

Book a discovery call

More on this subject in the Websites and Platforms index, and everything else at Insights.

What actually movesthe price of a build.

Page count isthe wrong unit.

Sixteen factors,in four tiers.

Sign-in and migration,priced as if they were small.

Sign-in is not a feature

Migration is a data job, not a copy job

A fixed price issix decisions, made early.

The template list

The content model

The integration list, with names

The language list

The migration inventory

Who approves, and who can veto