How Much Does a Website Cost in Australia?

Finding out what Websites actually cost can seem complicated – but it doesn’t have to be.

Before investing time into getting one or more quotes for a new website, please use this article/ guide to explore different website types, and to gain a better idea of what each costs, in order to find the best fit based on your needs and goals. Also use this guide to avoid pit-falls, traps and money-wastage.

A professional quality website that has a ‘conversions focus’ is an asset to your business. It will help your business grow. It is your online representative that helps build your audience size, helps people discover your business (or other entity type), attracts new customers, further engages existing customers and converts website visitors into new customers.

On the other hand, a poorly created website is a liability to your business. It does nothing to help with your business growth and certainly does not help you gain (or retain) decent market-position, nor does it help you future-proof your business.

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A word of warning

‘Cheap does not mean good’.

This is a word of warning if you have a limited budget:

We have had some potential clients approach us in the past, receive a quote from us, then find someone else who apparently could create “a website” for half the price. 3 months later many of these people contact us again saying things like:

  • “It was a nightmare. I hired someone and the website is terrible. I wasted my money. Please help!”
  • “I hired someone but they were rude, extremely difficult to work with and the website is still not finished. They’re asking for more money. Can you get me out of this and provide me with a REAL website please?”
  • “I thought I could save money. He told me he could save me a lot of money. The website is not at all what I wanted and now he is asking for more money.”

Every one of these people also say to us: “We should have hired you in the first place.”

If you have a limited budget, don’t despair. We offer a variety of options, plus you can also apply for one of our repayment plans if required.

Those who quote ‘cheap’ often either hit you up with more costs during the project, OR they are very inexperienced and either:

  • Can’t finish your website
  • Don’t have the skills to create the website you need

When looking at getting a website, a good question to ask yourself is, “What is the REAL cost to me and my business if I DON’T get a professionally crafted website created?”

A bad website will hurt your business. However a good website will help your business to some degree, where-as a GREAT website will GREATLY help your business!

Our prices are fair. We are not the cheapest — because we do not want to be “on a race to the bottom.” However we are also far from expensive. We don’t quote anywhere near the types of prices that some agencies and freelancers charge. That does not mean though that our work quality, attention to detail, quality assurance, abilities and/or end result(s)/output is any less good. It just means we try and be very competitive.

Side note: If you’re part of a local club, sporting club, community group, charity, organisation, conservation group or grass-roots group, we also offer a special website reduced fee option (it’s kind of like a grant).

The next thing to note is that the website development Industry in Australia is COMPLETELY unregulated

When you get website quotes from freelancers, agencies and any other types of website provider businesses in Australia, please be aware: this is a TOTALLY unregulated industry in Australia at this time. Because of this, the quotes you receive from various website providers will be wildly different in price. Avoid getting ripped off.

The ACCC is also trying to crack down on freelancers and agencies who make false or misleading claims. Info about this is here:

Here are some of the wild and non–wonderful ways some will try and trick you with their website prices:

  • Some will quote a small-ish sounding monthly fee. Essentially they are asking you to ‘rent’ the website from them. You will usually never be able to move the website elsewhere, if you ever want to leave them. They may also charge you hidden fees during the life of the website (with them). Plus if you ‘break contract’ or want to cancel the website, there will usually be exit fees (sometimes these are relatively quite large). Going into a website offering like this might ‘seem cheap’ initially, but like anything: “If it’s too good to be true, it probably is” and “You get what you pay for.”
  • Others will charge a small upfront fee, then hit you up with hidden fees during and after the website is complete. “Website horror stories” are a real thing.
  • Some will just quote a ‘cheap price’. Usually they are inexperienced, or it’s their hobby business, or they just want ‘quick money’ and don’t have expertise to provide after-sale service, a quality website, website security, assistance with helping your business grow, etc. You may also find they don’t have very good website design skills, and the website they eventually create for you looks ‘average at best’. I say ‘eventually’ because an inexperienced website developer will take WAY longer to create your website than they estimate. This can hold you up significantly, especially if you have a deadline.

On the other hand, there are those like us who quote fairly and have the expertise to create a website for you that WILL actually help you achieve your goals, match your expectations, be here to help once the website is launched and know what we are doing vs ‘fly by nighters’ who are ‘in it for some quick money’ and who probably won’t be in business in one or two years’ time << we’ve seen this occur time and time again. These type of people will usually leave you in the lurch. 

What do I mean by ‘leave you in the lurch’:

  • Imagine having a website created for you but the person (freelancer/ ‘one-person band’) who created it, decides to go on an extended overseas holiday (or trip around Australia). You try and contact them but no response. They never gave you Admin logins to your website; now you can’t login to make complex changes, you’re locked out of the website hosting and you now have a website you cannot correctly manage, update or change. 
  • Another scenario: The person who created the website turned out to be immature, hard to work with, etc. They now ‘hold you to ransom’. They don’t provide any assistance, won’t work on your website, won’t give you access to their website, etc until you pay a hefty fee. 
  • Or they just decide to close down their business because they were never charging enough to be a sustainable business and also developed a very bad reputation. Some won’t fully handover the website to you (like they should) and instead they will just ‘disappear’ and ghost you. 
  • The person who built the website, built it on some obscure platform. If this is the case, there is usually NO way to move the website elsewhere. The website is locked to it’s hosted location. In order to host it elsewhere you’re then having to pay for an entirely new website to be built from scratch. (you might be surprised how often this occurs).

Over 40% of our clients in the last 10 years have turned to us after having had a bad experience working with someone else (some other website provider business, freelancer or agency).

The above scenarios I’ve written are just SOME of the horror stories we have heard over the years!

It is also wise to find out who will actually be building the website, and if it’s going to be built by Australians in Australia, or by people off-shore (which can create security issues. Info about this topic is here).

We have been in this industry for over 20 years. We have seen a lot!

Side note: As an example of our work, here is information about a Real Estate website we built and launched in just over 2 weeks during 2025.

My initial advice: Please VET a business before asking them to create your website. This will help you avoid a LOT of issues moving forward.  Four easy ways to vet ANY website provider business:

  1. Find out how many years they have been in business
  2. Contact some of their other clients and ask what their experiences working with the business was/ is like. 
  3. Ask the business or freelancer to their face who will actually be building the website. Ask then, “If we give you this project, will Australians in Australia be building the website, or will you be getting people off-shore to build it?” 
  4. Ask the contact person to introduce you to the actual people who will be: designing the website, building the website, (and doing the SEO work, the Google Ads work, etc,… if you ask for those things to be done and/or they have been included in the quote).
  5. BONUS: Ask the person if they are a Sales Rep or the actual person who will be creating the website. Listen VERY carefully to their answer. My advice: be very careful when communicating with a sales rep. You might end up very unhappy with the website, should you choose to go ahead with him/her.

What else do I need to know?

If you want your website to most effectively help with the growth of your business and/or you have growth goals that you are wanting to achieve, it is a good idea to discuss a growth roadmap service. This can ultimately save money long-term, provide you with much more than just a website and directly aid with helping provide the actual growth you are seeking within your business (or other entity type).

It also helps with the strategic planning of your website, and a greater understanding of how and why the website was planned.

Learning about the ‘usual-suspect’ types of websites that exist is also worth knowing, to make informed decisions as to which is best for you. Of course learning about prices is also of key importance. More about these things is below:

NOTE: a poorly built website can harm your reputation and slow down your marketing efforts and damage your growth

While it might be tempting to start with a cheap website, cutting corners does more harm than good.

Cheap websites are typically poorly built. They also do not convert. Corners are cut at the expense of proper security & maintenance, strategy, conversion strategy, quality and results. They lack effective ‘conversion-focused website design’. Meaning, they won’t help generate leads, enquiries and sales for your business. They’re also poorly coded which makes achieving results using Google either impossible or very difficult.

If you pay for a cheap website, all you will get is:

  • A buggy template website
  • A website that is not well optimised for mobile phones
  • A website that has security issues
  • A website that won’t benefit your business.

Cheap websites are costly to fix and can also damage your reputation, especially if a virus gets installed on your website, ‘nasty’ images get hacked into it, words get changed, and other nasty things get added. Same too if the website looks ‘average’ and/or reads poorly. First impressions matter!

Please note: Cheap websites are also often not correctly security updated regularly and/or are not security-hardened. There are many reasons why hackers hack small business websites. Some are listed here.

More often than not, a cheap website needs to be redesigned and rebuilt from scratch by professionals.

Please also note: Professional quality websites require the following skills and work:

If any of the above skills are not included within a website project, the website will be:

  • Poor quality
  • Not created on time
  • Will not help your business (or other entity type)

Why is an opt-in form important? Because it allows site visitors to connect with your business, even if they are not ready to buy from you. Over 50% of website visitors don’t enquire or buy the first time they visit a website << this is common knowledge in our indsutry based on 20+ yrs of industry data.

If you don’t provide a way for people to opt-in to your mailing list, they may never come back to your website and they never become a customer. THAT would be a big wasted opportunity for your business.

A professionally crafted website is an asset that can directly help your business, including helping you achieve your growth goals

If your goals involve more growth and more sales, then a professionally custom designed, authority-building website is the most reliable and scalable way to go. This type of website directly aids with the growth of your business. When you invest wisely in professional website design, your website will be an asset that will serve your business (or other entity type) for years to come.

How much does a website cost?

Remember, when done correctly, a website should provide your business with a return on your investment. So, while choosing quality may require more up-front, a professional website will offer greater benefits and MUCH larger returns once launched and into the future.

Personally, the way we quote ensures our prices are very fair, we provide excellent work & value-for-money (and great ROI for those we work for), and it ensures our business can:

  • Cover our business expenses
  • Pay our taxes
  • Allows us to be paid a liveable wage

Below is a guide to different types of typical websites and general indicators of prices.

Website IT Jobs & Fees

The first part of a website quote covers the all-important ‘website IT jobs’.

All websites require a Domain Name (website address). Setting this up (aka: registering one or more Domain Names), configuring the DNS, setting up the website hosting, a SSL Certificate and creating any email addresses needed, are the first jobs that always need to be done early in any website project. We quote these separately as a ‘package price’ within any website project quote we provide. The quote fee is very minimal as it only takes a short amount of time to do these initial IT jobs. 

If you already have your Domain Name registered, that is no worries. We can easily work with it. We do though recommend having us register any Domain Names you need. There are MANY benefits to this. Ask us about them.

If you already have domain-based email addresses set up, that too is fine. We can easily work with your current IT provider (who probably looks after your email), OR you can move your email to us, if you don’t currently have an IT provider handling this. Or we can set up one or more new email addresses for you.

DNS: This is a fancy boffin acronym used in this industry. It stands for ‘Domain Name System’. You may have heard the term, but don’t worry if you haven’t. You don’t need to know all the ins and outs about it; just know that we do and it is also an important part of setting up a website. 

A ‘SSL Certificate’ is also very important. This too is a boffin word. It’s a security certificate. If you want to know more about it just Google “what is a SSL Certificate”. There is plenty of information on the web about this topic. 

Types of websites and their costs

There are many types of websites that can be built. Some are:

  • One-page websites
  • Brochure style websites (images and pics)
  • Authority building websites (for those who want business growth)
  • eCommerce online shop websites
  • Membership website
  • Club websites
  • eLearning LMS websites. LMS stands for “Learning Management Systems”
  • Even more complex websites
  • Enterprise-level websites. They cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and require extensive website development teams (we do not have the team size to provide these kinds of websites). The new BOM website launched in late 2025 is an example of an enterprise-level website.

One-page Websites

One-page websites are typically only for those who have a small budget, or can only afford a simple, small website initially, or just want a relatively cheap but quality ‘starting-point website’, or want it for a small event (and don’t want to spend much on the website), or they need it for some kind of ‘pop-up’ promotional activity.

They certainly have their time and place and we do create them often for some clients. Some quality custom-designed one-page websites are less than $3,500 (+GST). We’ve even done some really, really simple ones for around $1,500+GST.

Some quality one-page websites can be more than $3.5k, if additional advanced functionalities are requested and/or extensive amounts of content are to be written and/or included, or if image (and/or video galleries) are to be built. 

More information about one-page websites is here.

Multi-page Brochure-style Websites

Multi-paged ‘brochure style’ websites will cost more than a one-page website because they require more work and expertise. Custom-designed ‘brochure style’ websites usually are between $4,400 (+GST) – $7,800 (+GST) (sometimes more, especially if they have more than 12 pages), plus usual fees for optional extras like: 

The price will partly be determined by the number of page types, pages, and the number of words & images to be included within each page. Plus the number of online forms, PDF’s, video’s, etc. Additional fees apply as well if a case studies section and/or a blog system are needed and/or any other functionalities like an online shop, product catalogues, event directories, etc.

As an example, a custom-designed brochure-style website we created in 2024 was for the Gayndah Orange Festival. More information about this website project is here. 

Instead of a custom-designed website, another option is an ‘off-the-shelf-template’ brochure website. They are cheaper in price. The cost is sometimes less than $4,500 (+GST). Template websites do have their time and place, but a good one needs to be selected. Nothing is better, though, than a strategically designed custom website; designed specifically for your business… BUT only when designed by a professional expert. 

In Australia, some will charge less than $4,500 for a brochure-style website. This can be confusing and you might be left asking why? Here are some of the usual reasons:

  • They are inexperienced and can’t create conversion-focused websites
  • The business is a hobby or side-hustle
  • They create websites just for fun
  • A limited-time promotion or special offer
  • Trying to win work based on price instead of value
  • Lack of marketing and business skills
  • Off-shoring the work (paying people in certain other countries to create the website… and not telling you. There are all sorts of security risks and issues when this occurs. Read more about this here.)

Cheap websites are usually made by non-professionals. Cheap website can sometimes look pretty but they usually won’t help with the growth of your business. In some situations, the website designer will even struggle to finish the project due to their lack of skills. (This happens a lot).

A word of warning about ‘template-based websites’:

An ‘off-the-shelf’ template website might ‘appear’ to save you money, but they don’t typically perform anywhere near as well as a custom-designed website that has been designed specifically for your unique business. Why is this? Template websites can look very ‘samey’. They don’t make your business look unique, nor do they typically serve as a really good representative of your business. As in, they don’t convert very well usually.

There are two sayings that apply to most things in life: “Poor man pays twice” and “You get what you pay for.”

If you have a limited budget, a quality one-page custom-designed website is usually MUCH better than a template-based website. With a custom-designed one-page website, it can be grown into a bigger website when you are ready. It is a great ‘starting-point’ foundation for those with an initial limited budget, but actually want business growth. 

Authority Building Websites

Authority-building websites are quite a bit of work. These types of websites utilise the E-E-A-T rule, have a solid content plan, conversions & growth strategy and focus.

When these types of websites are professionally crafted, they can yield a LARGE return on investment during the next 2+ years (once the website is launched and marketed correctly). They are crafted by digital marketing experts who also have extensive website design, conversion rate optimisation, SEO, SEvO (Search Everywhere Optimisation) and website development skills. We have been creating these types of websites for over 12 years.

If you want or need an ‘authority-building website’, expect to be quoted upward of $8,500, plus the fees for growth roadmap strategy, digital marketing, SEO, SEvO, online advertising, any online sales funnels needed, landing pages, etc.

These types of  websites, when combined with excellent SEO (and the other things mentioned above) will help yield thousands upon thousands of additional growth revenue in your business. These are websites that can help make BIG money for those who choose experts to create them, and use them and their website to their fullest.

Remember: No one will know about your website unless it is marketed correctly, sales offers within it are advertised correctly (online and maybe also offline), the website is excellent (and conversion-focused) and it is SEO-ed correctly. 

“The money is in the list”. This is an old marketing saying but is as relevant today as it has ever been! Incorporating strategies into your website to dramatically increase your mailing list is also a key part of owning an authority-building website. 

Two aims of an authority-building website are to:

  1. Gain MUCH more market awareness and audience size, because both these things combined with a GREAT website, then achieves ‘customer growth’ and more sales.
  2. Help you achieve your growth goals, including monetary growth goals.

Authority leads to trust, trust leads to growth, growth leads to scaling!

Side note: Authority-building websites can also be created from off-the-shelf templates, to save money, but as per what we wrote above, this could impact the actual ROI of the website, in terms of ‘website performance’ during its life.

Membership Websites

Membership systems can be added to any type of website we create: a one-page website, brochure site, authority-building website, etc.

The fees to set up a membership system within a website varies, depending on the functionality you require.

Simply ask us for a quote if you want a membership system. Contact us.

Side note: If you are part of a local club and need a website membership system that is extremely affordable, read the next section. There are specific opinions we can provide that many in our industry either don’t know exist or won’t tell you about.

Club Websites

Websites for Local sporting clubs, social clubs, hobby clubs, etc can be relatively easy to create, or complex if the club wants a ‘full club management’ system built into the website.

The cheap way of getting a club website created is:

  • Ask us to create a one-page website, mini-website, or 5 – 8 page multi-paged website.
  • Then use a ‘club website SaaS platform’ to run the members area and other functionality. Contact us to find out more about options.
  • Then link the two together.

Feel free to also ask us about our club websites reduced fee offer (it’s kind of like a grant).

eCommerce Online Shop Websites

eCommerce online shop websites can be set up for retail sales or wholesale sales.

Either way, they require a lot of work and expertise to set up correctly. Amongst things, a lot of testing also has to be done to ensure the checkout, payment gateway(s), etc is working correctly. If not, no one will be able to buy from your website.

Making sure shipping calculators are set up correctly is also very important, else you’ll be finding you are ‘out of pocket’ paying excess shipping costs.

There are MANY other variables and functionalities that need to also be considered.

Remember: An online shop website that is not well designed, not functioning correctly, not well coded, not well marketed online, not correctly SEO-ed, etc, will NOT yield money-making results. 

It PAYS to work with website professionals when setting up an online shop website.

You can try and set up an online shop yourself using platforms like Shopify, but bear in mind:

  • Many people fail
  • If you want your online shop to be custom designed, you’ll need to pay an expert to help, unless you already have great ‘website developer’ skills, or want to do a crash-course (that could take you 6 months, if not a LOT longer). 
  • If it is not set up correctly, SEO-ed correctly, marketed online correctly, advertised online correctly, it’ll never provide any decent ROI.
  • Many people have tried to set up their own online shop themselves and MANY people have failed. It is FAR more involved and complex than what some think it is. It also requires excellent design skills, ‘end-usability’ and conversion rate optimisation, data-analysis skills, and a LOT more. PLUS extensive experience in ‘how to make online shops convert and make money.’ 

The best thing to do if you want an online shop:

Ask people like us at Green Valley Digital to create your online shop website for you, and work with you to get it marketed, advertised, SEO-d, etc, correctly.

We would look at using either WooCommerce, Shopify, WP Easy Cart, Square, etc to set up your online shop depending on which method/platform will be best for the growth of your business. We ONLY recommend options to you that WILL actually help your business grow. 

The quote costs for a professionally created online shop in Australia can be anywhere from $6,000(+GST) for something relatively basic to upward of $17,000(+GST). 

In some instances, a very basic online shop can be set up for less, especially if you only want to sell a few products online. 

eLearning LMS Websites

Similar to eCommerce websites, eLearning websites are a fair bit of work. They require planning, technical expertise and correctly set up payment gateways.

If you want a LMS (Learning Management System) eLearning platform built into your website, expect to pay reasonable costs, plus online security maintenance fees.

However, there are also very good 3rd party platforms out there, in which case we recommend:

  • Having us create the ‘public facing website’, do the SEO work and other digital marketing.
  • Use a 3rd party SaaS based LMS for the actual eLearning course platform. We can recommend some good SaaS options to choose from.
  • Then link the two together.

Other types of Complex Websites

A complex website is typically a website application like a personal social media platform, advanced forum website, online directory website, an app/ widget website like the old ‘Shoes of Prey’ shoe designer website app (that no longer exists) or some other highly inventive innovative web-app idea. 

These websites often require Software Engineers, Advanced Website Application Developers and other key team members. The costs are relative to how much expertise will be required, the time it will take to build, test, launch, etc and other variables. Expect to be quoted fees reflective of this.

Please note: Some ‘complex websites’ are not as complex to build as you might think. Some can be built using ‘pre-existing plugins’. For example, we’ve built a real estate website in 2025 that uses specially pre-built Plugins that only require a small yearly fee. On the other hand, the cost to build a website like this 15 years ago was not anywhere near as straightforward or affordable to do.

Let us know about your complex website project idea and we’ll let you know what options are available.

Website Testing - Why is it Important

All professionally crafted websites have to be correctly (professionally) tested. This is done in the background and can take a LOT of effort. If a website is NOT tested fully and correctly, you will not get a functioning website. 

Website testing involves things like:

  • Web Browser testing and fixing up rendering issues. All Web Browsers are coded differently. They therefore display websites differently. These days, it’s not as big an issue as it was 10+ years ago, but testing on different Web Browsers and fixing any issues (usually minor) is still very important. After all, I am sure you want your website to look and function correctly by ALL people who visit your website vs only 50% (or less).
  • Device testing: These days with MANY devices, tablets, smart-phones, etc on the market, if your website is not correctly tested on them, your website won’t be of much benefit.
    [MANY Web Browsers can also be installed on the one device. Each has to be tested.]
  • PC vs Mac computers: because people will access your website on PC AND Mac computers, testing also needs to be done on these platforms too! 
  • ALSO, until no one is using Windows 10 anymore, websites ALSO need to be tested on it, and not just on Windows 11.

If you’re starting to think, “Geez this sounds like a lot of work!” you would be right!

Website testing is factored into the quotes we provide. 

If your website is not correctly tested, it won’t display or work correctly on the various Web Browsers, Devices, Operating Systems and Computers, that are out there. This then again will mean:

  • You are wasting your money
  • Your website will not serve you well, nor help you achieve your goals.
  • You’ve been gypped/ ripped off.

This happens FAR more than you might think by 3rd party website providers who don’t care and are just out to make quick money!

Please note: A professional website project requires a Client Liasson Person, Project Manager, at least one Website Designer, one or more Website Developers, an IT Systems Admin person, Testers… and often a Website Writer & Proofreaders.
Websites that are crafted to directly provide EXCELLENT ROI results also require one or more SEO experts, one or more Digital Marketers, one or more SEO Blog Writers and innovative & creative digital asset/content creators.

Sometimes one to three people will perform these roles within a website project (if they have a diverse range of skills). Other times a team is assembled. There is more than meets the eye when it comes to creating professional websites.

Thinking about getting someone off-shore to create your website?

Good luck if you try this. Over the years, we have had to help many businesses and people who gave this a try, thinking they could save some money. They lost money, their project never got finished, and/or the website was poorly created, there were major communication issues, etc.

Again, “You get what you pay for” and the old saying, “Poor man pays twice.” << if you’re not familiar with this saying, please Google it.

Also there are big security issues if you get someone off-shore to create your website. Read this article for more info.

What about AI Website Builders?

AI website builders are popping up everywhere —they are selling (peddling) a dream/ a myth: That in business you can gain something that is both good quality, fast (quickly made) and cheap in cost. If you have been in business for any length of time, I am sure you have seen this graphic before:

The idea of spinning up a business-ready, finished conversions-focused website in minutes using AI might sound like a great thing… but the reality is: the technology isn’t there yet. 

We will be giving the the latest tools a very good test very soon. As of the 15/11/25 when we last updated this page, we’re curious to see how AI technology will improve in the coming years, unless it gets shut down or restricted once the many lawsuits around the world at the moment reach their conclusions.

Conclusion

All websites require time and effort for strategy & planning, design, building, testing and launch, and optional extras like digital marketing, SEO, advertising, etc. Just like any trade-profession, professional website creators have spent YEARS developing their skills. 

We go above and beyond to create the right website for those we work for. Our prices are also fair. Our work is high-quality and our focus is helping you achieve the results you want, and the goals you let us know you would like help with.

Contact us at Green Valley Digital to discuss the type of website that will best fit your needs and requirements (and goals). And/or chat with us about the best strategic approach if you just want to start with a small website… and/or feel you will only ever need a small simple website, OR you have decided you want an authority-building website or something more complex.

“Jay took the time to listen and then formulate a plan of action. Website options were then explained and were very easy to understand. Every milestone of the project was met and some even exceeded forecast timeline expectations, and all on budget. Playing With Fire Band is delighted with the work and support! A huge thanks to all of the team at GVD!”

— Lloyd, Rob, Chris and Colleen – Playing With Fire-Band – Bundaberg Qld

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To discuss your next job or project, call us on 1300 887 427 or send us an enquiry using the below form. We look forward to being of service. We'll get back to you asap.

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