Business Website in New Zealand
Most businesses buy a website once every five or six years, which means everyone is a first-time buyer in a market where the same brief can honestly cost $4,000 or $40,000.
$12k+
Typical project value
2 min
To post a project
What do you need built?
Start here and add detail as you go.
Free - No obligation - Your details stay private
What people usually mean by business website
A business website is not one product. At the low end you are buying a template configured competently. In the middle you are buying design and words written for your customers. At the top you are buying a site built to do a job — generate enquiries, rank for things people search, and be measured against both.
Get us online properly
A handful of pages on a good template, your content, working contact forms, fast and correct on a phone. Two to four weeks.
Designed and written
A designer and usually a copywriter involved. This is the version people mean when they say a site looks expensive, and the writing does more of that work than the design.
Built to generate enquiries
Structured for search, with landing pages, tracking, and enough measurement to tell which of it is working.
What it costs
Indicative ranges from projects posted here. Use them to sense-check a quote, not to budget precisely.
Template site
A quality template configured well, your content loaded, forms working.
$4k – $10k
Designed site
Custom design, professional copywriting, photography direction, a content system you can use.
$10k – $30k
Marketing site
Search-led structure, landing pages, integrations, tracking and conversion measurement.
$30k+
Questions worth asking a provider
·Who writes the words? If it is us, when do you need them and what happens if we are late?
·Can we edit pages ourselves afterwards, and can we add new ones?
·What is the hosting and maintenance cost each month, and what does it include?
·How will we know whether the site is producing enquiries?
·Do we own the design files, the content and the domain? All of it?
Common questions
How much should a business website cost in New Zealand?
A competently configured template site is $4,000 to $10,000. A custom-designed site with professional copywriting is $10,000 to $30,000. A site built and structured to generate enquiries, with tracking and landing pages, is $30,000 and up. All three are legitimate; the mistake is paying for one and expecting another.
Why is one quote $4,000 and another $25,000?
Usually because they are different projects. The cheap one is a template with your logo and your text. The expensive one includes design, a copywriter, photography direction and a structure built around what your customers search for. Ask each quote to state who writes the words and who designs the pages — the gap will explain itself.
Who should write the content?
Whoever will actually do it. Content is the single most common cause of a delayed website, because it lands on a business owner already doing a full-time job. If your quote assumes you will supply the words, be honest with yourself about that. Paying a copywriter is usually cheaper than a project stalled for three months.
WordPress, Webflow, Squarespace or custom?
For most businesses it matters less than the people building it. WordPress is flexible and needs maintaining. Webflow and Squarespace are tidier and more constrained. Custom is rarely justified for a brochure site. A developer who leads with the platform rather than your goals is answering the wrong question.
What are the ongoing costs?
Hosting is $20 to $100 a month for most business sites. Maintenance — updates, backups, security, small changes — is typically $50 to $300 a month depending on the platform and how much help you want. Any quote silent on this is quoting half the cost of owning a website.
Related: Website Redesign · Landing Page · Corporate Website · Membership Website · Directory Website · Website Maintenance · Website Performance · Website Accessibility
Business Website projects open right now
Titles and categories are public. Full briefs, budgets, regions and buyer detail are visible to approved providers only.
Updated daily
No open projects in this category right now. New briefs are posted every week.
Why the quotes look nothing alike
You will get $4,000 and you will get $28,000, for what reads like the same brief. Neither is dishonest. They are pricing different projects.
The cheap one is a good template, configured competently, with your logo and the text you supply. That is a legitimate product and for a lot of businesses it is the right one — a small trade business does not need a bespoke design system.
The expensive one includes a designer, usually a copywriter, direction on photography, and a structure built around what your customers actually search for. The extra money is people's time thinking about your business rather than more pixels.
The mistake is not choosing the cheap one. It is paying for the cheap one and expecting the outcomes of the expensive one.
Decide what the site is for
Say it in one sentence before you talk to anyone. The honest answer is usually one of:
- Credibility. People are referred to you and check you exist. The site has to look competent and load fast. It does not need to rank for anything.
- Enquiries. You want people who have never heard of you to find you and get in touch. That is a different, larger, more measurable project.
- Reducing work. Answering the same questions, taking bookings, letting customers self-serve.
Most quotes assume the first and most buyers are hoping for the second. Saying which one you mean is the most valuable sentence in your brief.
Content is what delays it
Nearly every late website is late for the same reason: the words never arrived.
The proposal says "client to supply content", everyone agrees, and then it lands on someone already running a business. Three months later the design is finished and the site is still not live because nobody has written the About page.
Two honest options. Pay a copywriter — usually $2,000 to $6,000, and often the best-value line in the whole project, because good words sell more than good layout. Or block out real time in your own calendar and treat it as a deliverable with a date.
The version that does not work is assuming it will happen in the evenings.
What actually matters technically
Less than people think, but not nothing:
- It must be fast on a phone on mobile data. That is how most of your visitors will see it. Ask to see a site they built tested on a phone, not a designer's monitor.
- You must be able to edit it. Adding a page, changing a price, updating hours — without a support ticket. Ask for a demonstration of the editing experience before you sign.
- Forms must arrive reliably. Every business has a story about enquiries silently going to spam for a month. Ask how form delivery is monitored.
- You must own everything. Domain, hosting account, design files, content. Registered to you, not to the agency. Ask explicitly.
The platform question is a distraction
WordPress, Webflow, Squarespace, something custom — for a business site, the people building it matter far more than the tool.
WordPress is flexible, ubiquitous and needs maintaining. Webflow and Squarespace are tidier and more constrained, which is a feature if you will never have a developer. Custom is rarely justified for a brochure site and sometimes sold anyway.
Be wary of anyone who leads with the platform. It usually means it is the one they always use, which is fine, but it should follow from your goals rather than precede them.
Ongoing costs are part of the price
Hosting is $20 to $100 a month. Maintenance — updates, backups, security, the occasional small change — is $50 to $300 a month depending on platform and how much hand-holding you want.
A quote silent on this has told you half the cost of owning a website. Ask for it in writing, and ask what happens if you decline: an unmaintained WordPress site is a security problem within about eighteen months.
How to compare five quotes
- Who writes the words? The biggest difference between quotes, and the biggest predictor of whether it ships on time.
- What happens after launch? Monthly cost, what it covers, what a change request costs.
- Can you see their work? Sites they built two years ago that are still maintained, not a fresh portfolio.
- Do they ask about your customers? Someone who asks who buys from you and why is building a different thing from someone who asks how many pages.
Describe what your business does, who buys from you, and what you want the site to achieve. Five developers will interpret that differently — and reading those interpretations side by side tells you more about who understands your business than any portfolio will.
Get up to 5 quotes for your business website project
You choose who may contact you. Free to use, no obligation.