How much does a website cost?

It depends on what you need.

Most people starting out on the Internet have no idea what a professionally designed website will cost.
If you are expecting to have a site designed for $200, you are going to go into "shock".

There are five costs associated with getting a basic website:

1. Purchasing a domain name
2. Hosting your site
3. Designing your site
4. Maintaining your site
5. Paying search engine fees

If you want an online store, then you also have to allow for:
Your shopping cart Merchant account fees Product updates and store maintenance.

1. Purchasing a Domain Name Purchasing a domain name (www.yourname.com) is the easiest and cheapest part of getting a website. You can secure a domain name for two years for about $50.
After the initial two years, you must renew the name every year for one half of the purchase price.

2. Hosting Your Site To get your website on the Internet, you have to rent space on a computer that has high speed Internet access. This is called hosting. Web Hosting prices typically run from $100 to $500 per year for full service hosting. There also be an initial set up fee of $50 to 150. Some firms require yearly payments in advance, others allow monthly payments. You can find cheaper hosting, but you may give up features you need. Selection of a host can be a tough decision.

3. Designing Your Site Designing your site is where the bulk of the expense comes in, and it is impossible to define a generic price.

4. Paying Search Engine and Directory Fees Paying Yahoo $299 will get your site reviewed within a week, and if your site is rejected, they give you up to thirty days to revise and resubmit. Yahoo still has a free submission option, but only if your site is noncommercial. The free submission has its drawbacks. It can take over sixteen weeks to get reviewed. Getting into Yahoo in a week rather than four months from now is worth paying for.

5. Maintaining and Monitoring Your Site Once you are on line, staying there can be fairly cheap. To keep your site on line, you have to pay your annual hosting fee, your annual domain name renewal, and the search engine's annual renewal fees. You can keep a site on the Internet for less than $100 per month. If you maintain your site yourself, or if your website needs no updating, there are no site maintenance charges. If you decide to have someone else maintain, update, and track the performance of your site, you can expect to pay for an hour or two per month at $25 to $125 per hour.