February 26th, 2008

A lot of web design firms like to quote prices based on how many pages they build, some even going as far as to quote prices for “up to” a certain number of pages (often ten to 15), with an additional rate for more pages. A better question than how many pages you should have might be “what are you hoping to do with your site” or “what’s it actually worth?”

If you’ve got a solid idea about what you want and have no problem providing the relevant content, a site with 50 pages is little more work than a site with a dozen. If a designer wants to charge you $50 per page, bear in mind that it likely only takes them a few minutes to do it, and realize that you’re probably paying way too much.

If you had eleven fingers, your manicure would still cost the same.

The actual cost has very little to do with the number of pages you have. Once the skeleton is in place you should be able to have a virtually unlimited number, assuming the site was properly built with a content management system in place.

So the question comes back to how many pages you should have. Enough to get the point across but not so many that readers get lost. If your site is a contractor information page, you can get by very well with under a dozen. If you have a catalog of products for sale and number of other categories, it could run easily into the thousands without being any problem.

Don’t focus on what pages cost or an actual number that you should have, but think of all the things you need your site to be and make sure you’re working with a designer who understands these needs and will do whatever it takes to get you there.

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