If you are a business owner wondering how much it costs to hire a website designer, you are not alone — and you are probably frustrated by the lack of straight answers online. Pricing ranges from a few hundred dollars to tens of thousands, and most agencies will not give you a real number until you are three meetings deep into their sales process.
At Beardman Design, we do things differently. As a custom WordPress web design and SEO agency based in Omaha, Nebraska, we believe you deserve honest information before you ever pick up the phone. This guide breaks down exactly what website design costs today, what drives that price up or down, and how to make sure your investment actually pays off.
How Much Does It Cost to Hire a Website Designer?
The short answer: most professional websites cost between $3,000 and $8,000. At Beardman Design, our average full custom website lands right around $6,000. Simple one-to-two-page sites can come in closer to $2,500, while large enterprise projects with extensive content creation, custom functionality, and compliance requirements can run $50,000 to $60,000 or more.
Across the industry, pricing generally falls into four tiers:
| Tier | Typical Cost | Best For |
| DIY Builders (Wix, Squarespace, GoDaddy) | $20–$50/month | Startups with zero budget and lots of free time |
| Freelancer or Offshore Builds | $500–$2,500 | Very simple sites where quality and ongoing support are not critical |
| Small Custom Agencies (Like BDX Omaha) | $3,000–$8,000 | Growing service businesses needing custom design, SEO, and lead generation |
| Enterprise / Large Agency Projects | $15,000–$60,000+ | Large corporations needing massive content, complex apps, or legal compliance |
Understanding where your project falls in this range starts with understanding what actually drives the cost of a website.
What Factors Affect the Cost of Hiring a Website Designer?
When you see a $3,000 quote and a $30,000 quote side by side, the difference is almost never about the designer being greedy — it is about the scope of work being completely different. Here are the biggest cost drivers:
Page Count and Copywriting
This is the single largest factor in how much it costs to hire a website designer for your project. A 5-page website takes far less time to build than a 50-page website. But it is not just about building the pages — it is about writing the words that go on them. Copywriting becomes a very large cost, especially when your business is highly technical and requires specialized writers who understand your industry.
Custom Photography and Videography
Stock photography is affordable and, when used correctly, very effective. Most professional designers have access to licensed libraries with hundreds of thousands of images. However, if your project requires a photographer and videographer to travel to your location to capture real photos of your team, your building, and your work, that investment increases significantly. Real photos almost always convert better than stock images.
Custom Design vs. Templates
Many developers keep their prices low by purchasing a $50 template, swapping in your logo, and calling it done. At Beardman Design, we custom design every website from scratch — no templates, no page builders, no shortcuts. This makes us a premium option, but it results in a dramatically faster, more flexible, and more effective website.
SEO Built Into the Build
A lot of developers focus purely on making a site look good. They do not treat Search Engine Optimization as part of the development process. At Beardman Design, on-page and technical SEO is baked into every website we build. Many other agencies will launch a beautiful site that Google cannot properly read, and then charge you separately to fix it later.
Custom Functionality and Approvals
Custom API integrations, e-commerce setups, and unique coded features all add to the cost of hiring a website designer. Project complexity matters too. If your project requires multiple rounds of approval from legal or compliance teams — or if a client takes weeks to provide feedback — that added time increases the development cost.
Real Examples: What Does Your Money Actually Buy?
To make this concrete, here are three real projects from Beardman Design that illustrate different price points.
The $3,000 Range — The Local Service Starter
A local service business came to us needing a clean, straightforward website to present a few specific services and capture leads. It was a 3-page site. We used high-quality licensed stock images, the owner was highly responsive, and they gave us significant creative freedom. Because the scope was tight and the process was smooth, we kept the cost on the lower end.
The $6,000 Range — The Comprehensive Growth Site
Another local service company needed a much larger digital footprint. They required about 12 core pages plus a handful of location-specific landing pages for areas they served across the Omaha and Lincoln, NE markets. The site ended up at around 20 pages total. We delivered a fully custom-built, SEO-optimized lead generation website that fit squarely in the $5,000–$8,000 range.
The $60,000 Range — The Enterprise Financial Institution
On the higher end, we worked with a financial institution that needed far more than a website — they needed a complete digital identity. The project required extensive technical copywriting, on-site photography and videography, and every single page had to pass through multiple layers of legal and compliance review. The final website was over 50 pages, included a full blog setup, and required intensive project management from start to finish. The result was a site that genuinely told their story and communicated what made them different in their market.
All three clients saw strong results after launch, and we are proud of every one of those builds.
Common Misconceptions About Website Designer Costs
Business owners often have a skewed sense of what should be cheap and what should be expensive when it comes to hiring a website designer.
Many people assume custom functionality is simple. It is not. Building a custom-coded form, a lead tracking system, or a unique interactive feature from scratch takes real research, testing, and development time. At Beardman Design, we prefer the development of custom plugins over off-the-shelf solutions — which means more work upfront but a far better product for the client.
On the other hand, people often assume stock photography is expensive. It is not. Most professional designers have access to licensed libraries with hundreds of thousands of images, and using the right stock photo can be just as effective as a custom shoot for many projects.
The biggest misconception, though, is the Fiverr Trap. Clients regularly come to us after hiring a cheap offshore developer who delivered a decent-looking site — only to have it disappear six months later. The foreign company becomes unreachable, or they demand a large payment to restore the site. Worse, the client realizes they never had full administrative access to their own website and must start completely from scratch.
A lot of the value we provide at Beardman Design is simply that we are real, local people. We answer the phone. We build relationships. We are not going anywhere.
How to Compare Website Designer Quotes (And Red Flags to Avoid)
If you are looking at a $2,000 quote, a $6,000 quote, and a $15,000 quote side by side, here is what to look for beyond the price tag:
Questions to ask every designer or agency:
•Will I receive full administrative access to the backend of my website?
•What platform is the site being built on? (We build exclusively on WordPress, the world’s most robust and expandable CMS)
•Is hosting and maintenance included, and what does it cost after the first year?
•What is the realistic timeline from kickoff to launch?
•What exactly is included in the scope — pages, copywriting, photography, SEO?
Red flags to watch out for:
•Foreign operators or companies that only communicate via email or text
•Agencies that do not have a strong website of their own
•Suspiciously low pricing with vague scope
•No clear answer about who owns the website after launch
At Beardman Design, we typically charge $100–$175 per month for hosting and maintenance, and we include the first full year free with every new website build. Most design and development firms will ask for half of the project fee upfront and half upon launch — that is standard practice.
Why Custom Code Beats Templates Every Time
At Beardman Design, we build custom themes and custom-coded websites. We do not use pre-made templates, and we avoid bloated plugins wherever possible. This is one of the most important reasons hiring a website designer like us costs more than a template shop — and why the results are dramatically better.
Custom websites are massively faster. When we launch a custom site, we consistently see huge jumps in Google PageSpeed Insights scores, which directly impacts how Google ranks the site. A faster website means better SEO, lower bounce rates, and more conversions.
Custom code also allows us to build exactly what a client needs. Rather than forcing a business into the limitations of an off-the-shelf plugin, we can build a custom lead tracking system that lets the client export leads, mark prospects by stage in the sales pipeline, and track whether deals have been closed. Most agencies cannot offer that level of tailored functionality.
Is Hiring a Website Designer Actually Worth the Investment?
The old saying used to be: If you don’t have a sign, you don’t have a business. Today, if you don’t have a website, do you have a business?
The ROI of hiring a website designer can absolutely be measured mathematically. We had a fence company come to us with no website at all, operating entirely on word-of-mouth. After we built their site and launched their digital marketing, we saw their annual revenue grow from under $100,000 to over $500,000 in generated leads.
But ROI is not always just about math. Sometimes the most important job a website has is telling the world who you really are.
We worked with a financial institution whose old website was technically functional but completely lacked personality. When we toured their building and got to know their leadership, we quickly realized they had a genuinely unique approach to client care — and none of that came through online. We rebuilt their digital presence from the ground up to tell that story. The result was not just more leads. It was a brand that finally matched the quality of the business behind it.
According to Stanford Web Credibility Research, 75% of people judge a company’s credibility based on their website design. Your website is often the first impression a potential client has of your business — and first impressions are everything.
3 Pieces of Advice Before You Hire a Website Designer
Before you sign any contract, here is the advice I give every business owner:
1. Do not hire based on an ad or a pitch alone. Get to know the developer. Look at their past work. Make sure their design style aligns with your vision and that they understand your industry.
2. Web design is an art — make sure the artist understands you. You need a designer who gets your business, your personality, and what makes you tick. Something unique about me and Beardman Design is that we are in the service industry ourselves. I drive a Ford F-250, I love camping and spending time outdoors — but I also love computers and code. I understand the mindset of service-based businesses in a way that a purely corporate agency might not.
3. Find someone who treats your website as a business tool, not just a design project. The best website in the world is worthless if it does not generate leads, rank on Google, and convert visitors into customers. Make sure whoever you hire thinks about all three.
Why Beardman Design?
There are hundreds of web designers out there. Why hire us?
Because we are picky, control-freak perfectionists who genuinely want to hit your project out of the park. We do not take on every client that walks through the door — we only take on projects where we know we can deliver massive value. We are local to Omaha, Nebraska, but we serve clients across the United States. We are highly relational, and we dig deep to understand exactly who our clients are and what their business actually needs to grow.
If you are still asking how much it costs to hire a website designer, the better question is: how much is it costing you not to have the right one?
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Beardman Design is a custom WordPress web design and digital marketing agency based in Omaha, Nebraska, serving businesses across the United States including Lincoln, NE, Bellevue, Papillion, La Vista, Elkhorn, and Gretna.
