Nobody hands you the rules on this, so owners end up comparing numbers that were never comparable. One quote says a thousand, another says ten, and both might be honest — they are pricing different amounts of the same word. This essay is the set of rules, without prices, because the number is downstream of the scope and any contractor who says otherwise is selling you a surprise.
Why upfront prices are a red flag, not a feature
A fixed price published before anyone asks what your business does is priced for the easiest possible customer, with the difference collected from you at the end. "Contact us for pricing" is not a dodge; it is the honest shape of the answer. What you should demand is not a number on a homepage. It is a written scope and price within one business day of your brief — specific enough to compare, delivered after someone has actually read it.
The factors that actually move the number
The job the site is doing. A site that takes a phone number and a site that books jobs, takes deposits and follows up with every enquiry do different jobs, even if both have a hero and a few pages. The second one has parts that run when nobody is looking, and those parts are most of the work.
The number of real decisions per page. A stack of "what we do" pages is cheap because they repeat — the words change, the decisions do not. One booking flow with a deposit, a confirmation and a reminder is a different kind of work entirely. Cost tracks decisions, not word count.
Whether the words exist yet. Copy that exists and is good: fast. Copy that must be written from conversations with you: slower, and worth it. Copy that must be reverse-engineered from nothing while you are too busy to answer: the expensive one, and the one that produces the most regret. A written brief is the cheapest thing you will ever buy.
The catalogue. A brochure says what you sell. A catalogue sells it — stock, variants, checkout, shipping, returns. Selling online is a real system, and the honest first question is not "how much for a shop" but "who already does checkout best, and what do we build around it."
The integrations. Calendar, payments, mailboxes, accounting, an old system nobody wants to touch. Each is a small standing promise that has to keep working.
The change rate. A menu changes weekly; a board page changes yearly. A site built for frequent edits costs a little more once and a lot less forever.
Time. Ordinary timelines are priced for ordinary planning. "Can it be live by Friday" is not a fee anyone honest enjoys quoting, because it works by removing the checks that protect you.
What does not move the number
Your industry does not, on its own — a restaurant site is not harder than an engineering site; it is a different list of decisions. "Modern" does not. "Simple" does not, and asking for simple while describing three audiences is how quotes get weird. And your last vendor's number does not — that quote priced that scope, and you are entitled to know what this scope costs on its own terms.
How to read the number you get back
Three things make a quote real: the scope is written down; the inclusions and exclusions are both named; and the after-launch arrangement is stated — what is checked, how often, and by whom. A quote that names all three can be compared honestly against another that does. A quote missing any of them is a hope with a figure attached.
Around here the order of operations is fixed: brief, then a written scope and price within one business day, then your approval before any work begins. You are never asked to trust a number you have not read, and the number you agree to is the number you pay. That is not generosity. It is the only version of this trade that survives contact with an owner who asks good questions.