5Quotes
Get quotes

HomeWhat a website costs in New Zealand

What does a website cost in New Zealand?

Almost nobody publishes this, which is why you are here reading a page instead of a price list. Below are the ranges New Zealand developers actually quote, what moves a project from one band to the next, and how to get five real numbers for your own job.

$4k – $60k

Typical range, brochure to ecommerce

5

Quotes, free, no obligation

2 min

To describe your project

What do you need built?

Pick the closest match.

Free - No obligation - Your details stay private

Why nobody will tell you the price

Ring three agencies and ask what a website costs and all three will say "it
depends". They are not being evasive. A website genuinely can be $4,000 or
$400,000, and the honest answer needs to know what you are trying to do.

But "it depends" is useless when you are trying to work out whether to start.
So here is what it depends on, in the order that moves the number most.

The five things that set the price

How much of it is designed. A theme adapted to your brand is cheap. A design
drawn for you, page by page, is not. Most of the gap between a $6,000 quote and
an $18,000 quote is here, and it is a legitimate difference rather than one firm
being greedy.

How many different page layouts. A site with a home page, an about page and
a contact page needs three designs. One with services, case studies, a team
directory, a blog and a resource library needs eight or nine. Templates are the
unit of work, not pages — twenty service pages on one template cost barely more
than one.

Who writes the words. Almost every quote assumes you will supply the
content. Almost no business has it ready. Copywriting for a small site is
typically $2,000 to $6,000, and it is the single most common reason a project
that was quoted for eight weeks takes five months.

What it has to talk to. A contact form is free. Bookings, payments, a CRM,
your accounting system, a stock feed — each is a real piece of work with its own
failure cases.

Whether anyone has thought about being found. A site that is fast, properly
structured and correctly marked up costs a little more and is worth
considerably more. A site nobody can find is a brochure you paid to print and
left in a cupboard.

What each band actually buys you

$4,000 to $9,000. An existing theme, adapted. Five to ten pages, your logo
and colours, a contact form, and a CMS you can edit. Perfectly respectable for a
trade business, a consultancy or anyone who mainly needs to look credible when
somebody searches their name. You are buying competence, not distinctiveness.

$9,000 to $25,000. Designed for you. A proper discovery conversation, a
layout that reflects how you actually sell, several templates, a CMS set up so
your team can add pages without breaking anything, and search and analytics
configured rather than switched on. This is where most established New Zealand
businesses land.

$15,000 to $45,000. Ecommerce. The build is only part of it — products have
to be loaded with the right descriptions and images, payments and shipping rules
configured, tax handled, and a connection to Xero or MYOB set up so nobody is
retyping orders. Expect the product data to take longer than you think.

$45,000 and up. Many templates, integrations with systems you already run,
customer logins, or a store with unusual pricing. At this level you are
commissioning software that happens to be a website.

Questions that will save you money

Ask every developer quoting:

  • What have you assumed I will provide? Content, images, logo?
  • How many page templates are in this price?
  • What happens after launch — what is included, what is billed?
  • Who owns the domain, the hosting and the code when we are done?
  • What does maintenance cost, and what does it cover?

That last pair matters more than people realise. Your domain, your DNS and your
hosting should all be in your company's name with your billing, and the
developer added to them. It is the difference between changing developer being a
decision and being a negotiation.

What it costs to keep

The build is one number and the running costs are forever, so get both:

  • Hosting: $20 to $100 a month for most small business sites.
  • Domain: roughly $30 to $60 a year for a .nz name.
  • Maintenance: $80 to $350 a month for updates, backups, monitoring and
  • Content: someone's time, whether or not it appears on an invoice.

Skipping maintenance is the false economy in this list. Neglected sites are what
turn into $3,000 to $12,000 rescue jobs, and the rescue always arrives at an
inconvenient moment.

Getting five quotes

Describe what you need once and up to five developers can respond. It is free
and there is no obligation — you decide who is allowed to contact you.

The most useful thing you can put in the brief is what the site has to achieve,
not what it should look like. "We want enquiries from commercial property
managers" gets far better proposals than "we want a modern clean site". And
where the quotes differ, the differences are the conversation worth having.

What it costs

Template or small brochure site

Five to ten pages on an existing theme, your content, a contact form. Fine for a business that needs to look credible and be found.

$4k – $9k

Custom-designed business site

Designed for you rather than adapted, with a CMS your team can edit, proper structure for search, and a few integrations.

$9k – $25k

Ecommerce

Shopify or WooCommerce, products loaded, payments, shipping rules and an accounting connection.

$15k – $45k

Large or custom build

Many templates, integrations with your own systems, customer logins, or a store with unusual rules.

$45k+

Common questions

How much does a website cost in New Zealand?

A small brochure site on an existing theme is $4,000 to $9,000. A custom-designed business site with a CMS your team can edit is $9,000 to $25,000. Ecommerce on Shopify or WooCommerce is $15,000 to $45,000. Larger builds with integrations to your own systems start around $45,000. Those are build costs — hosting, domain and maintenance are separate and ongoing.

Why do quotes for the same website vary so much?

Because they are rarely for the same thing. The usual differences are who writes the content, how many page templates are designed, whether photography is included, whether search and analytics are set up properly, and what happens after launch. A $6,000 quote and an $18,000 quote for the same brief usually differ in those five lines rather than in the hourly rate.

What is not usually included?

Content is the big one — most quotes assume you supply the words, and most businesses do not have them ready. After that: photography, a logo if you need one, ongoing hosting and maintenance, and any advertising. Ask each developer to list what they have assumed you will provide. The answers explain most of the price gap.

What does it cost to run afterwards?

Hosting is $20 to $100 a month for most small business sites. Your domain is around $30 to $60 a year. Maintenance — updates, backups, security patching, small changes — is typically $80 to $350 a month. Sites that skip maintenance are the ones that turn into $3,000 to $12,000 rescue jobs two years later.

How long does it take?

A small brochure site is usually three to six weeks. A custom business site is six to twelve. Ecommerce is eight to sixteen depending on how many products and how complicated the shipping rules are. The most common cause of delay is not the developer — it is waiting on content and approvals from the business.

Is it free to get quotes here?

Yes. You describe the project once, and up to five developers can respond. There is no charge to you and no obligation to hire anyone. You decide who is allowed to contact you.

Get five quotes for your website

Describe the project once. You choose who may contact you.

Start your project