How much does a business website cost in South Florida?

It depends on what the site has to do, far more than on how many pages it has. A five-page site that explains your services and collects estimate requests is a different job from a five-page site that takes card payments and dispatches delivery drivers.

That's why we don't publish a price list. Anyone who quotes a flat number before they know what the site needs is either padding it to cover surprises or planning to bill for them later. What you should expect instead is a written scope and cost range before you commit — and this guide is how to tell whether the one you're given is fair.

1. What the site has to do

This is the big one. Explaining your business and taking enquiries is the simplest case. Every system the site has to run on top of that — payments, online ordering, bookings, a customer login, stock kept in step with your register — is its own piece of work, with its own edge cases to get right.

When we built ordering into Tiki Boca's own site, the menu was the easy part. The work was in pricing every size, milk and topping on the server so a total can't be tampered with, only marking an order paid when the payment provider confirms it, and getting orders onto the counter iPad and out to a delivery courier.

2. Connecting to systems you already use

A site that has to talk to your point of sale, booking tool or CRM costs more than one that stands alone. Jerusalem Market's store pulls thousands of products, prices, photos and stock levels from the shop's Square register every 15 minutes, so staff never keep a second product list. That saves the owner time every day — but it's engineering, not page design.

3. Distinct kinds of page, not the number of pages

Ten service pages that share one layout cost far less than ten pages that each need their own design. When you compare quotes, count the types of page — home, service, gallery, case study, contact — not the total.

4. Whether your content is ready

Copy and photos are where projects stall. If you have real photos of your work and know what you want to say, the build moves quickly. If someone has to write every page from scratch, or photograph your jobs, that's real time and should be on the quote. For New Shower Doors Unlimited, every gallery image is the shop's own install — which is exactly why it reads as trustworthy.

5. Moving from an existing site

A rebuild has to protect whatever search history the old site has earned. That means mapping old URLs to new ones and redirecting them, so links and Google results keep working. It's unglamorous and often missing from cheap quotes — and leaving it out can cost you the rankings you already had.

6. A second language

In South Florida, plenty of businesses want English and Spanish. A properly bilingual site isn't a translate button: every page, form, email and error message exists twice, and each version needs to be written for the people reading it. Budget for it as real content work.

Most small-business sites fall into one of three shapes. Knowing which one you need is the fastest way to make sense of a quote.

• A site that explains. Who you are, what you do, where you work, how to reach you. A handful of page types and a contact form. The least work, and for many businesses all they need.
• A site that wins work. A page for each service, a gallery of real jobs, a service-area page, an estimate form and tap-to-call on every page, plus the search groundwork to get found. New Shower Doors Unlimited is this kind.
• A site that sells. Payments, ordering or a catalog, and usually a connection to a system you already run. Tiki Boca and Jerusalem Market are this kind. The most work up front — and the kind that can replace fees you're paying someone else every month.

The build is one cost. These keep coming, and a good quote tells you about them up front:

• Domain renewal — yearly, paid to the registrar. Make sure it's registered in your name.
• Hosting — a simple static site is cheap to host; one with a database, logins or ordering costs more. It should sit in an account you own.
• Business email — usually priced per person, per month.
• Payment and delivery fees — if you take payments, the processor takes a cut of each transaction; couriers charge per delivery. These replace marketplace commissions rather than adding to them, but they aren't zero.
• Builder or plugin subscriptions — if the site runs on a website builder or a stack of paid plugins, those fees last as long as the site does.
• Changes and upkeep — new services, new photos, security updates. Agree up front how changes are handled and billed.

A builder like Wix, Squarespace or Square Online gets a simple site up quickly, and for a site that only needs to explain your business it's often the right call. The trade-offs: you pay the subscription for as long as the site exists, you're limited to what the platform supports, and moving off it later means starting again.

A custom build costs more up front, does exactly what your business needs, and — done properly — is yours to keep. The question isn't which is better in general; it's whether the builder can do what you need in two years' time.

1. Is this a fixed price or an estimate — and what happens if the scope changes?
2. Who will own the domain, the hosting account and the code when it's done?
3. Who writes the copy and supplies the photos? Is that included?
4. If I'm replacing a site, how will you keep my existing Google rankings and links working?
5. Will it be fast on a phone, and accessible to people using a screen reader?
6. Will you set up Google Search Console and my Google Business Profile, or is that extra?
7. What will I pay every month or year after launch, and to whom?
8. How are changes after launch handled and billed?
9. Can I see sites you've built that are live today?

A good agency answers every one of these in writing without hesitating. If you'd like a second opinion on a quote you already have, our consulting includes exactly that — or start with a free audit of your current site.