Ask three people to quote on the same five-page website and you will get R1 500, R8 000 and R45 000. All three can be honest quotes. They are simply selling different things.

Under R2 500

Usually a template filled in with your details, often by someone doing it alongside a full-time job. It can genuinely work for a brand-new business that needs to look real by Friday. What you tend to give up: anyone to call when it breaks, control of your own domain, and any thought given to search.

R4 000 to R12 000

Where most established small businesses should be. Expect a proper structure, pages written around what your customers search for, a fast mobile layout, working forms, and the technical setup that lets Google index you. Ask to see two sites the person built, then open them on your phone.

R20 000 and up

Justified when there is real complexity: online payments, bookings, stock, member logins, several locations, or a full brand identity built alongside the site. If a quote at this level does not list complexity like that, ask what the money is buying.

The costs nobody puts in the quote

• Domain: roughly R120 to R250 a year for a .co.za.
• Hosting: R60 to R300 a month. Local hosting matters, because a server in Johannesburg answers a Johannesburg visitor faster than one in Texas.
• Maintenance: WordPress needs updating. An unpatched site gets hacked, and cleanup costs more than a year of care.
• Changes: agree up front what a small text edit costs, or whether it is included.

How the money should be structured

A 50% deposit to start and the balance on launch is standard and fair to both sides. Be careful of anyone asking for the full amount before a single page exists, and equally careful of a quote so low that the person cannot afford to care about the outcome.

Three questions before you pay a deposit

• Whose name is the domain registered in? It must be yours.
• What happens if I want to move to someone else in two years?
• What is included after launch, and for how long?

The cheapest website is not the one with the smallest invoice. It is the one that brings in work without needing to be rebuilt in eighteen months.