Ask three web designers what a website costs and you'll get three answers, usually followed by "it depends". That's true, but it's not much use when you're trying to set a budget.
So here are the numbers. They're the typical ranges NZ web designers and agencies publish, rounded off, with a plain explanation of what moves a quote up or down.
The short answer
| Type of website | Typical published NZ range | What you usually get |
|---|---|---|
| DIY website builder | Roughly $30–$150 a month | A template you set up and write yourself. Cheap in dollars, expensive in evenings. |
| Freelancer or small studio | Roughly $1,000–$5,000 | A small business site of around 5–10 pages, built for you on a template or light custom design. |
| Established agency | Typically $5,000–$20,000+ | Custom design, more planning and meetings, often copywriting and photography in the mix. |
| Ecommerce (online shop) | Typically $4,000–$20,000+ | Product pages, cart, payments and shipping rules. The price climbs with the number of products and integrations. |
| Custom-built software or web app | From a few thousand dollars to well into five figures | Booking systems, quoting tools, client portals. Priced on scope, so ranges are wide. |
All of those are one-off build costs, except the DIY row. Treat them as a guide to the market, not a quote: plenty of good work sits outside these ranges in both directions.
Already have a website? You may not need any of the above. If the content is fine and the site just looks dated or loads slowly, a refresh costs a fraction of a rebuild. More on that below.
The ongoing costs people forget
The build is the number everyone asks about. These are the ones that turn up on your card every month or year afterwards.
- Domain name. Your .co.nz or .nz address. Usually somewhere around $25–$50 a year from an NZ registrar. Make sure it's registered in your name, not your web designer's.
- Hosting. Where the site lives. This ranges from a few dollars a month for bare shared hosting, where you're on your own when something breaks, to $100 or more a month for managed hosting with support and updates included.
- Maintenance and updates. Software updates, security patches, backups, and the small changes you'll want over time: a new phone number, new photos, a price change. Some designers bundle this into a monthly care plan; others charge by the hour when you ask.
- SSL certificate. The padlock in the browser bar. Most hosts include one free now. If someone is charging you extra for it, ask why.
- GST. Many NZ quotes are plus GST, which adds 15% if your supplier is GST-registered. Check before you compare two quotes side by side.
The trap is the year-one special. A cheap first year of hosting that quietly doubles on renewal is common. Ask what you'll pay in year two before you sign up.
What actually drives the price
Two quotes for "a website" can be thousands of dollars apart because they're quoting for different things. These are the big levers.
Number of pages
A five-page site (home, services, about, contact, maybe a gallery) is a different job from a 40-page site with a page for every service and every town you cover. More pages means more design, more writing and more checking.
Who writes the words
Copywriting is the cost most people underestimate. If you supply all the text and photos, the price drops. If the designer has to interview you and write every page, expect it to go up, and expect the job to take longer.
Custom features
Online booking, an instant quote calculator, a client login area, a job enquiry form that feeds straight into your systems. Off-the-shelf plugins cover some of this cheaply. Anything built specifically around how your business works costs more, but it's often the part that actually brings in work.
Ecommerce
Selling online adds products, payments, shipping, stock and GST handling. Ten products is a small job. Five hundred products with variants and freight rules is a big one.
Integrations
Connecting the website to Xero, your CRM, a booking system or an email list saves you double entry later, but every connection is extra build and testing time.
Refresh vs rebuild: do you even need a new site?
A lot of NZ businesses asking "how much does a website cost" already have one. It's just not pulling its weight. For them, a full rebuild is often money spent re-creating things that were fine.
A refresh is usually the better call when:
- Your content is still right. Your services, prices and contact details haven't changed much, so there's no need to plan and write a site from scratch.
- The design looks dated. It works, but it looks like 2015, and customers judge the business by it.
- It's slow or awkward on mobile. Most of your visitors are on a phone. If they have to pinch and zoom, they leave.
- It isn't ranking. Missing page titles, no structured data, slow load times and thin service pages are fixable without starting again.
A rebuild makes more sense if the business has changed a lot, the site runs on something you can't get support for, or you need features it was never built to handle.
The part that matters most: keep your old URLs
Whether it's a refresh or a rebuild, this is where redesigns quietly go wrong. Google ranks individual pages by their address. If your old "/services/drainage" page becomes "/drainage-services" and nothing points from one to the other, Google treats it as a page that vanished, and the ranking it had built up goes with it.
The fix is a 301 redirect for every old URL, pointing it permanently at its new home. Done properly, the ranking carries across. After launch, someone should check Google Search Console for broken pages and fix any that slipped through. If a quote doesn't mention redirects, ask.
Questions to ask before you pay anyone
- Who owns the website and the domain? It should be you. If the designer holds the domain or the site can't be moved elsewhere, you're locked in.
- What does hosting cost after year one? Get the ongoing monthly or yearly figure in writing, not just the launch special.
- Are 301 redirects included? Essential if you're replacing an existing site. Ask who checks Search Console after launch.
- Can I update it myself? Some sites need a developer for every change. Know whether you're paying for small edits before you need one.
- Is the price GST-inclusive? A $2,000 quote and a $2,000 + GST quote are $300 apart.
- What happens if I leave? You should be able to take your site, content and domain with you.
Where Mahi Digital fits
For transparency, here's what we charge. We publish it because we think every NZ web designer should.
- Website: $350 one-off. Same price whether it's a brand-new site or a refresh of the one you've got: a modern design, fast loading on phones, clear copy and the technical basics Google looks for. If you're replacing an existing site, every old URL is 301-redirected and we check Search Console after launch.
- Hosting + Basic SEO: $99/month. Hosting, SSL, backups, security, updates and small changes, plus the technical SEO kept right (titles, descriptions, schema, sitemap, speed), your Google Business Profile set up properly, and Search Console watched for problems. Month to month.
- Hosting + Full SEO: $249/month. Everything in Basic, plus ongoing local SEO work and new pages, Google Business Profile management, review requests, AI search visibility and a plain-English monthly report. Month to month.
- Bigger custom features like booking systems or quoting tools are custom software, from $1,500, fixed price after scoping.
You own your site, domain and content, and you deal directly with me. Plans and details are on the websites and plans page, and if you're in Hawke's Bay, there's more on our web design in Napier page.
One example of what a custom feature can do: for Containers Hawke's Bay we rebuilt the site with an instant-quote tool so customers can price a container themselves. It ranks #1 on Google for "containers hawkes bay", and brought in six enquiries in the first five days after launch.
Not sure whether your current site needs a refresh or a rebuild? Run it through our free website check first. It's a quick way to see what's holding it back.