Did you know that apart from the website development cost, there are a few other hidden charges that may raise your web design budget slightly higher?
I am going to share some of those hidden charges that you must be aware of if your web developer doesn’t mention them.
#1 Web Hosting
Although most of us are aware that our websites are hosted on servers. These hosting servers store & execute the files and render the webpages to the client (users) in a readable format upon their request.
As such, there is no fixed price for web hosting and their price is also dependent on the storage size that your website requires. For eg., some websites may require 5GB of storage and some may need more than 20GB. It depends on how much data (content, images, videos, etc.) your website possesses.
If I talk about a simple corporate website or a basic e-commerce website, they don’t take up much space. A basic web hosting package of 5GB storage should be sufficient for these kinds of websites.
Talking about the charges, most web hosting companies provide affordable packages due to the stiff competition in this arena.
For a 5GB web hosting plan, you may have to pay around $100 per annum however for a 20GB plan, you may end up paying more than $200 per annum.
As a web consultant, I meet several prospects every week, and here’s what I’ve found. Most of my prospects either don’t know why they need website hosting when they have a domain name and some of them even don’t know why they need web hosting.
#2 Domain Name
Similar to website hosting, you also need to pay for a domain name, every year. Let me make a clear distinction here, between a domain name and website hosting.
As I already mentioned above, web hosting servers store & execute the files and render the webpages to the client (users) in a readable format upon their request, while, a domain name is the virtual address of your website.
Domain names are usually cheaper than website hosting. A domain name could cost you as low as $15 per annum & the price may vary depending upon the TLD (.com, .org, .net, .sg, or .com.sg).
#3 Website Maintenance
Website maintenance is usually not included in the web development proposal. But many people have a wrong interpretation that website maintenance packages and web hosting packages are the same.
A web hosting package is an annual contract (min. one year) to host a website on the servers however web hosting package is an annual contract to make updates & changes on a website.
If you intend to have regular changes to your website, then you must engage a web developer to maintain your website.
In the absence of a maintenance contract in effect, you may have to pay your web developer for each & every update you want to incorporate on your website and you may end up paying more than the website maintenance price.
#4 Paid Plugins & Themes
If your web developer has used any of the CMS platforms like WordPress, you must know that there could be several plugins or themes that have been used to build your website.
When you hire a WordPress developer to build your website, you must request him to mention all of the paid plugins for which you may have to pay every year.
All the recurring charges of those plugins must be added to your total website development cost and yearly maintenance charges of your website.
#5 3rd Party Software
There could be some chances that your website has been using any of the 3rd party systems to integrate some features like accounting, inventory, etc.
Similar to paid plugins & themes, these 3rd party software may also come with some recurring charges. It is, therefore, necessary to know about them and include these charges in your total website development & maintenance cost.