Why Professional Web Design Costs More Than $1000
Professional web design is underrated in today’s world. Especially considering how much weight Google puts on user experience. Because of this, business owners need responsive, functional, modern, professional websites to boost sales and get the word out about products and services.
Yes, you’re able to make cheap, or even free, websites in today’s world. But, it’s easy to identify these low-quality websites. Not to mention, small business owners often have to work far too hard on a mediocre-looking site.
It’s essential to realize how much money professional web design can make for you when it is built and managed properly. Therefore, it makes sense that great websites would cost more than $1,000, since you’re gaining access to professionals who go through the initial setup and design, provide on-going support, and assist with digital marketing.
But What About Free/Cheap Website Builders?
Most of the free or cheap website builders are considered SaaS (software-as-a-service) options.
There are hundreds of these companies, some of which include Wix, Weebly, and Squarespace.
The pitch is that you build your own website without spending too much money.
However, the downsides significantly outweigh the advantages:
However, the downsides significantly outweigh the advantages:- It doesn’t end up being that cheap – Many of the free/cheap website builders coax you in with extremely low pricing. The problem is that the limited features force many customers to consistently upgrade.
- You have limited control over your website – With WordPress, you’re self-hosting your website. Options like Wix and Squarespace limit access you have to website files. In addition, you don’t technically own the files on the server.
- You’re limited to the features provided – Imagine working with Squarespace only to realize that you need a specific feature for your company’s website. The only problem is, Squarespace may not have rolled out anything similar to what you need and then you’re stuck.
But My Friend’s Son Dabbles in Web Design
Besides your website builder, you need to decide on a developer.
It’s rather common to turn to relatives and neighbors to keep web design costs low.
It’s understandable to manage your budget, but your website is not an expense to cut corners on.
Why do we say that?
- Your website is the new Yellowpages – It’s really the only way people are going to figure out how great your business is. If the website looks unprofessional, your customers may ask, what else did they cut corners on?
- The portfolio effect – Knowing someone who dabbles in web design means that they have one thing in mind: to fill their portfolio. They may have decent skills, but the person is more willing to finish the job for their own portfolio–not for the sake of your business.
- What about maintenance? Building a website is only a small fraction of the workload required. You have updates to handle, backups, and marketing to worry about. Is your cousin ready to maintain your website for the next five years?
Cheap vs. Professional Web Design Work
When logo or web designs are sold for cheap, it usually means that they are cookie-cutter templates or it’s an individual freelancer with varying expertise. It all depends on the person, but inexpensive freelancers are rarely experts in everything.
For instance, we recently gave a quote to someone who hired an overseas company to build a website for $1,000. After examining the requirements, it was clear to us that it was closer to a $5,000 project. The design company said they would have it done in 4-6 weeks.
Unsurprisingly, she told me it’s been over three months and she just saw the first draft of the site! Now she’s scrambling to get the files from the cheaper designers so she can have a professional finish it and launch it.
Cheap Website Design Might Come Out Like This:
Click on the screenshots to view the websites.
These websites are from a few “design” companies that offer rates ranging from $50 to $100 per site. This is obviously on the cheap end, but it’s even common to see results like these when you pay $1000–or when you opt to design your own website in Wix or Squarespace.
Ask yourself the following questions when viewing these websites:
- How many of these websites are easy to navigate?
- How many work well on mobile devices?
- Do they make you want to buy from them?
- Where do they rank in search engine results?
- Do they establish credibility?
- Do you equate them to quality and satisfaction?
Here are some recent professional websites designed by us:
Do you see the difference?
One of the reasons, professional websites from Johnny Flash stand out is because of the overall design process. In addition, the Johnny Flash Productions team has expertise in a wide range of skills such as project management, SEO, development, and design.
In short, websites like the Johnny Flash examples can’t be made for only $1,000. The quality, and dedicated support after the design, requires more of an investment–an investment that’s bound to pay off in the future.
The web design process of a professional usually consists of the following steps:
- The brief – We ask you questions about your goals and why you truly need a new website.
- Building sitemap – We’ll create a visual sitemap so we’re all on the same page.
- Creating prototype – This is where you’ll see exactly what the website will look like.
- The design – We turn your prototype into a functional website.
- Delivery – We test every little button and page and get the website on your hosting server.
- Website care – You receive training resources, and we provide website care if needed.
- Digital marketing – We offer social and digital marketing into the future.
Do you think all of that can be done for a mere $1,000?
What Else Do You Get With Professional Web Design?
An advantage of going with a professional website designer is the partnership you create with the company. You’re able to make a strategy that helps your business, as opposed to creating a brochure website that customers only glance at and never return to.
With a strategy like this, your websitw works for you to generate a positive return on your investment. So, you may be spending more than $1,000, but in the end, you can make more money.
Furthermore, a professional web designer guides you through a successful launch. Everything from implementing the content management system to running pre-launch checks is handled by your designer. This also includes testing the responsive interface and providing on-going support.
Delivering On Time
This may sound obvious, but many web designers are notorious for not finishing on time. It’s commonplace for new clients to come to us with unfinished websites, or stories about the developer disappearing after a few months.
It’s also incredible how many clients we get who initially paid less than $1,000 for a design and didn’t get what was promised on time.
How Much Does a Professional Web Design Really Cost?
This is one of the most frequently asked questions we receive. It’s also one of the most difficult questions to answers. One thing’s certain: professional web design doesn’t happen for $1,000.
In general, we need more details on your project.
Every business has different needs and goals, so the best approach is to create a custom solution for that project.
Since a number of factors need to be considered, the ideal way to find out the cost of a website design is to get a quote.
What’s Next?
Could you use a free low-cost website builder and launch a website with a few pages? Probably.
Will it be the same as hiring a professional who wants to help you achieve your goals? Definitely not.
We have worked with all kinds of businesses, organizations, and churches to help them achieve their online goals.
If you’d like to learn more about professional web design, or take the first steps to a professional website, contact us to get a free quote for your website project.
We focus on beautiful web design that delivers results for your organization. Our specialty is creating customized WordPress websites.
About Us
Johnny Flash Productions
Johnny Flash Productions is a creative agency based outside of Washington D.C. that focuses on digital strategy, web design and development, graphic design and event production that helps businesses get better results from their marketing.
Was a pleasure to work with Johnny Flash Productions to walk through the full life cycle of a complete redesign of several of our ministries websites. Working with people who are experts caused us to think outside the box in how we really tell our story through our website.
The entire team was great to work with and the value has been incredible! God is good!
When we all get a little too busy, sometimes we forget to say a heartfelt "Thank You"! I am so grateful that God led us to partner with you. I know good things will come from our hard work done together in His name. The website is terrific. Pure and simple.
Thanks for your expertise, guidance and always friendly attitude.
We found Johnny Flash Productions to be professional and a pleasure to work with. Their industry knowledge and creative approaches were incredibly helpful.
Our new website exceeds our expectations and we look forward to continuing our relationship with Johnny Flash Productions with their responsive and ongoing website upkeep, maintenance and SEO.
We are truly grateful for our time working with John and his team. They were able to manage a full redesign within a relatively tight timeline and delivered an impressive site that also worked well through mobile devices as well.
They kept us on schedule as well and were a pleasure to work with. The team continues to be incredibly responsive following the initial launch.
It has been such a pleasure working with John and Nicole to develop our WordPress website. The team is very professional and worked closely with us during the entire process. We couldn't be happier with the result, we love our new website.
I definitely recommend Johnny Flash Productions!
We regularly get rave reviews about our website. Often other non-profits have asked us for a referral. Johnny Flash was easy to work with and has always been responsive to our needs. They provided several built in tools that help keep our website from becoming stale.
Johnny Flash and team approached the project with as much passion as we had (we're a very passionate team) for the site and logo refresh. We worked through the logo and website designs and within a couple of weeks, it felt as if we were all one company.
The team was super responsive, understood our vision for the logo/website and communicated clearly every step of the way.
The experience of building home remodeling company’s website was nothing short of excellent! John and his team are extremely professional, responsive, and efficient at what they do. Their process is clear and they stick to it every step of the way. The weekly production meetings were very helpful and kept the project moving forward at record speed!
My favorite part about working with Johny Flash Productions is that John and his team truly care about their work and they were unwilling to settle on anything less than perfect. We have already had a significant influx of home remodeling leads and they are far more qualified! We highly recommend Johny Flash Productions!
John and his team at Johnny Flash Productions did an amazing job on our new company website! John was very patient and professional throughout the entire process and always responsive to any request we had.
I would definitely recommend their services to anyone looking to create a website!
Our organization couldn't be happier with the beautiful website Johnny Flash Productions created for us. They helped streamline thousands of components from our previous site into a site that portrays the mission of our organization and tells the story of our purpose while bringing in and engaging new and returning visitors.
We wouldn't hesitate to use them again and have already recommended them to several people who have seen the quality of our new site.
We have also seen a remarkable uptick in response in those who have gone to the site just in the first few weeks since launch in signing up for future communications. That is the sort of prolonged engagement we have been looking for, and Johnny Flash Productions delivered beyond our hopes.
Johnny Flash Productions gets results building stand-out websites that are optimized for success! Their team of professionals worked quickly to get to know my business and developed a plan of action. Their designers developed an amazing design that exceeded our expectations. If your organization or business is looking to build or improve your presence online.
I highly recommend Johnny Flash Productions!
John has been managing my website SEO and Google Ads for only a few months now and his services have already generated profitable leads. I can’t say enough about his company’s professionalism, promptness and results oriented approach. Hiring his company has been an excellent business decision!!
I was looking for a web designer who was not only talented, but could deliver - and keep delivering what I needed month after month. The team at Johnny Flash Productions brought ideas to the table that complemented what I wanted to do with my website and their design exceeded my expectations.
I was willing to pay more for their continuing monthly service than I had paid previously because they laid out what I could expect from their team. So far, they have under promised and over delivered.
Johnny Flash Productions is a company that truly cares about their clients, this is obvious by not only their work ethic but they also the way they put their heart into every project they complete.
Johnny Flash Productions was a pleasure to work with, we look forward to working with them again in the future.
John and his team are great to work with. We have worked with them on a broad range of projects including logo development, campaign materials and website design. They are a great partner!
Working with John and his team has been such a wonderful experience! They consistently go above and beyond to quickly complete our requests, and it's great working with a team of true experts.
I highly recommend them for anyone looking for WordPress developers.
I cannot begin to speak highly enough of Johnny Flash Productions. I was first alerted to their company by doing a Google search & found only one company around with so many 5-star reviews, so was curious if they could all be real. I found through working with John & Eowyn & the Johnny Flash team that we were able to collaborate to create the perfect website for our organization.
As a team of designers, it was important for us to differentiate ourselves & express the nature of our organization & ourselves through this most valuable medium of the modern age. The team @ Jonny Flash absolutely nailed it & we could not be more pleased.
Thank you Johnny for facilitating such an first class experience & thank you Eowyn for being our guiding light & all of the hard work that you put into helping our company shine!
Johnny Flash Productions and their team were aces to work with. Their process was simple, and project schedule was on target.
More importantly, their Storybrand mindset opened us up to a whole new world for our website presence, business development and even our own client communication.
Excellent WordPress Web Designer, we are so lucky to have them design our website we were very satisfied with the results!
We chose Johnny Flash Productions because I knew the person, John Falke. Relationships are important. Knowing character is important and relevant to business decisions. Knowing whether a person/business will stick by their word is important along with can they perform.
A company that can perform is good, but if they do not stick by their word, skill means nothing. You produced a great product, worked with us, gave a fair price and kept us on task.
Johnny Flash Productions helped breathe new life into Immanuel’s online presence with their wonderful redesign of our website. Aside from their consummate professionalism, flexibility and keen attention to detail, they were an absolute pleasure to work with.
It had to be a daunting task to be presented with the enormous number of expectations , hopes and ideas generated from our church’s website committee throughout the course of the website re-design, but if anything, Johnny Flash's resulting work exceeded all expectations.
I’m sure I can speak for all of us on the committee when saying that we’d heartily recommend Johnny Flash to any church or organization in need of a skilled, knowledgeable, easy-to-work with design company.
They did excellent design work, were professional and responsive. They were an absolute pleasure to work with, and I plan on using them for future projects.
Johnny Flash did a great job on our new Wellesley Hills Congregational Church website. Delivered on time and on budget. They helped us shape good content as well.
We were so satisfied we had them redo our Wellesley Nursery School in the Hills website also.
I recommend Johnny Flash Productions because they respond promptly and with honesty when requesting their services, they are very professional and I am a satisfied client!
They fulfilled my expectations with the website and branding project. It has already been a success and helped us reach our goals for our business. Thanks Johnny Flash Productions.
We have been very pleased with our website design experience with Johnny Flash. We appreciated how their structured process enabled our website team to prioritize our goals for the project and develop a final product customized to meet our individual needs.
I have worked with Johnny Flash Productions on 3 of my own websites and recommended Johnny Flash productions to two other family members who were also in need of new websites. We have all had an exceptional experience during the process.
The staff are very responsive, organized, on time and they follow through until the work is complete. We valued them so much that we use them for our monthly maintenance and they help with our advertising online.
Johnny Flash redesigned both our church website and our preschool website to align with our new branding, helped us switch web hosts and met some tight timelines as well. John and his team are always professional, have fresh ideas and are quick to respond to questions.
They also worked us to revamp both websites within our set budget while still providing a quality web design and custom look. If I could give them ten stars, I would!
John Falke and Johnny Flash were incredible to work with and produced a very professional and progressive website for Covenant Park Consulting and were completely responsive to our vision and goals.
I must admit that I was not crazy about revamping our website, primarily due to the time commitment and cost. However, in looking through the updated content this morning, the new website looks terrific and was well worth the time and expense.
Thanks to you and your team for all of your hard work.
Johnny Flash Productions has played an integral role in the growth of our business. From logo redesigns, website design and management, fliers, banners, signs and more, they have done an incredible job of taking our ideas and WOWing us with his visual designs.
John's knowledge base allows them to understand our ideas and concepts and bring it all together in a professional, well thought out deliverable. Their work has always exceeded our expectations in both quality and speed.
We look forward to continuing our long business relationship as he continues to stay on top and ahead of visual marketing trends without losing it’s classic appeal.
We had a great experience working with Joli and the team at Johnny Flash. Their whole process was very helpful to shaping and sharing our website message.
We have a fabulous website thanks to their excellent process.
Professional, knowledgeable, friendly! Everything you could ask for in a website development firm/SEO company. Johnny Flash Productions is the best website development firm and SEO firm in Northern Virginia!
Efficient, effective and professional - Johnny Flash Productions did an awesome job of rebranding and migrating our WordPress website. We launched last week and there is positive feedback all around for the sleek, new, mobile friendly look.
Such an amazing service. A beautiful website that has already gotten the practice new business. John kept us on track so that our website was up and running in the time allotted. Thanks so much. Highly recommend.
Johnny Flash Productions was a joy to work with! They helped our church completely re-do our website. They also helped us refresh our look and logo. We have had many people comment on how much they love our new website and how much easier it is to navigate.
We used Johnny Flash Productions to help us recreate our website and to make it more visually appealing and more current. Working with them was very pleasant and easy. They really listened to what we were looking for and worked within that framework.
I would highly recommend them. I am happy to provide a reference or answer any questions that you may have.
The Johnny Flash team is incredibly skilled, attentive and patient. We are very happy with our new WordPress website!
We've worked with John and his team for several years on multiple projects. They deliver great work on time, on budget and with solid ongoing support. We highly recommend Johnny Flash Productions!
Exceeded all expectations in their abilities to professionally evaluate and customize our company WordPress website. Above all else, their customer service is the best I've dealt with in a long time with any company I've worked with in the past. I definitely recommend Johnny Flash Productions to anyone looking for exceptional service, professional detail and customer support.
I would like to thank Johnny Flash Productions for there great service my company has been able to get to get to the top of Google searches in half the time most companies take. I am now receiving 3 to 5 viable leads a day that all lead to service work for my company. And I can not thank them enough for all of there support with my site and maintaining it for me.
John, Joli and Team provided the path forward for us on how to take our desire to have a brand new website to getting it launched and live. We started at a high level of who we were and what we wanted to accomplish with our website.
John provided an up front schedule of what tasks would be completed by when from their team.
There were tweaks along the way that we would make and feedback given, and it was always well received with the changes being made in a timely manner. Thanks John and Joli.
We were so grateful to have found Johnny Flash Productions to help us with our marketing needs. Their work was above and beyond what we expected. The staff are very competent and great to work with. Excellent results!
John and his team do top quality design work, website work, and just about anything you would need to have a dynamic presentation in both print and digital media. Incredibly talented and innovative, you can call him with a "thought" that comes back to you better than you ever imagined. Truly professional and talented, I could not recommend more highly.
This process was so much easier than I expected. John listened carefully to what I was expecting to accomplish with our website and kept me focused on our objectives.
We are now able to register preschool students online (especially important during COVID). Parents are very happy that now they have the option to pay by credit card. I would highly recommend this company!
