You get what you pay for. Quality, speed or price...pick any two. Cliches get to be cliches because there's some truth to them. The following estimates are based on our experience or published confirmations of design costs.

Most professional code writers, web consultants and graphic designers work at rates of $80 per hour and up. Seek out professionals with good references (check them) and have them review your statement of work. Three firms should be plenty. Describe as specifically as you can what you want done, and then have them submit bids.

If all you want is a modest home page with a couple of links to raw content and very low-end graphics, you might find that for $500-750, and you probably don't need a designer for this kind of site. You might check out the VeriSign site, where you can build a low-cost site from existing templates and image menus.

If the site needs to be a more sophisticated and professional representation of your organization's services or products, expect to pay anywhere from $3,500 to $60,000. A make-over of an existing site would start around $3500 and range up $10,000 to 15,000 depending upon the total number of pages. A fully functional e-commerce site for 150 products or more might start around $30,000 and extend up to $60,000+ depending upon the need for integrated databases (see E-Commerce Primer) and the type of shopping cart. The price of a website design also depends upon how collaborative you want the process to be. The more thinking you do about how the site looks and works, the less time a designer will have to spend on those issues.

See our E-Commerce Primer for more detailed information about the ins and outs of web commerce.