What should a business budget for a website?

Watabe Digital’s published website starting price is TZS 1,800,000, VAT exclusive. Your final proposal should connect the price to an agreed scope: pages, content, editing tools, integrations, testing and handover. Compare the initial project fee with the recurring costs of keeping the site available and maintained.

This guide helps you prepare a brief and compare proposals. The current packages and pricing page is the reference for Watabe’s published fees; a written proposal confirms the inclusions, exclusions and payment terms for your project.

Define the website you need before comparing prices

A short company website, a publication-heavy NGO website and a transactional portal have different requirements. A page count alone does not describe the work. One page with complex forms or an external-system connection can require more investigation and testing than several straightforward information pages.

  • Company website: explain services, establish credibility and provide a clear enquiry route.
  • Publishing website: organise reports, projects and news so staff can maintain a useful archive.
  • Transactional website: support an agreed action such as an application, booking or purchase, including what happens when it fails.
  • Portal or custom system: define accounts, permissions, records and workflows separately from the public website.

For implementation scope, review our website design and development service. If staff need business workflows behind the public site, discuss those requirements alongside custom software development.

What changes the project cost?

Content readiness
Who will write, approve and upload the text? Identify photography, translation, document preparation and migration work. Supplied content still needs review for the agreed layouts.
Editing and approval
List what staff must update, who can publish and which content needs approval. Ask what training and documentation the proposal includes.
Integrations
Name the systems involved, who can authorise access and how success will be checked. Identify third-party subscriptions, account approval and transaction charges separately.
Redesign and migration
Inventory existing pages, downloads, forms and important search-entry URLs. Moving content and preserving useful routes requires an explicit work allowance.
Acceptance and support
Agree mobile layouts, accessibility checks, form tests, performance conditions and the process for correcting launch issues. Record what later maintenance covers.

Compare initial and recurring costs

Ask each supplier to put charges into three groups. The proposal should say whether each item is included, optional, paid to another provider or outside scope.

  1. Initial work: discovery, design, content preparation, development, migration, testing and handover.
  2. Recurring services: domain renewal, hosting, software licences, maintenance and any agreed support arrangement. Record the billing period, renewal date and responsible account owner.
  3. Usage and future changes: transaction fees, additional storage or traffic allowances, new integrations and later feature requests. Ask how these are estimated and approved.

Compare proposals over the same period and on the same VAT basis. Watabe’s published prices are VAT exclusive. Do not assume another supplier’s advertised figure uses the same tax treatment or includes the same ongoing services.

How to compare two proposals fairly

Use one requirements list for every supplier. Mark each requirement as included, excluded, optional or unclear. For example, “staff can publish reports” should identify the upload process, file types, search or filtering needs, permissions and training. A proposal that only says “CMS included” leaves those questions unanswered.

Then check who owns the domain, hosting account, content and agreed custom work; which third-party licence terms apply; how access is handed over; and what happens if you change support providers. Request relevant delivery evidence for the type of website you are buying.

Prepare a useful pricing brief

  • Your organisation, main audiences and the action visitors should be able to complete.
  • The current website address, if any, and the pages or documents that must be retained.
  • The features and integrations required for the first release.
  • Who supplies content, who approves it and who will update the site.
  • Your intended deadline, dependencies and any budget boundary you can share.

For an existing site, use the website redesign checklist to prepare the migration questions. When you are ready, request a scoped website proposal.