How much does it cost to build an app or website?" is a question most studio websites dodge. You fill out a form, wait for a call, and learn whether the project is even affordable only after you have entered a sales process. A useful cost guide should do two things earlier: show a real starting point and explain what makes the number move.
ThefiguresbelowcomefromthesamepricingcataloguethatgeneratesBothmadeestimatesandproposals.Theyareourprices,notinventedmarketaverages.
The live component reads BASE_SERVICES directly from lib/pricing.ts. It is not a price copied into the article and left to drift. When the catalogue changes, the guide, the public configurator, and the proposal builder change together. The public page does not charge a card: it produces an estimate to discuss and confirm in writing before work begins.
A base service establishes the platform and the minimum delivery shape. Real projects then add the parts that make the product specific: content management, customer accounts, payments, integrations, an administrative dashboard, extra pages or screens, migration work, and ongoing care. A low base figure is meaningless if the features most buyers need are excluded and appear only after the first call.
That is why the configurator shows dependencies. Selecting e-commerce also selects the backend it needs; counting SEO pages brings in the technical SEO foundation beneath them. The estimate should describe a system that can actually work, not a basket of disconnected features that happens to produce a smaller headline number.
Scope is first: every distinct workflow, role, screen, integration, and exception has to be designed, built, tested, and documented. Content is second: a five-page site with finished copy is different work from a sixty-page migration whose material needs rewriting. Integrations are third because another system's API, permissions, failure modes, and test environment become part of the build.
Platform is fourth. A responsive website, a logged-in web application, a native iOS product, and a Vision Pro experience solve different problems and carry different release requirements. Timeline is fifth: compressing the same scope removes sequencing room and creates more coordination risk. A faster delivery date should change the quote openly, not appear later as an unexplained rush fee.
Put the documents side by side and compare deliverables rather than totals. Does each quote include discovery, interface design, responsive behaviour, accessibility work, testing, deployment, analytics, source-code handover, and a written warranty? Does it name the integrations and the number of pages or screens? Does it explain what counts as a revision and what happens when the scope changes?
Then compare ownership and the end of the relationship. A cheaper quote can become the expensive one if the client does not receive the repository, design files, accounts, deployment access, or a route to move to another developer. Bothmade's fixed-scope price includes ownership of the work produced for the project; that promise belongs in the written agreement, not only in sales copy.
A project total and a payment schedule answer different questions. The total says what the agreed scope costs. The schedule says when money moves and what progress has to exist first. Bothmade divides a confirmed project across written delivery gates rather than collecting the whole amount from a public calculator. Nothing is charged when someone sends an estimate from the site.
Before paying, ask what starts the project, what evidence unlocks the next instalment, how acceptance works, and what happens if either side pauses. Clear milestones protect both parties because the invoice is tied to an observable state of the work rather than a date that arrived regardless of progress.
The useful question is not only whether the total fits today's budget. It is which parts create the business outcome and which can wait for a later phase without making the first release incomplete. Configure the full version, remove anything nonessential, and keep the dependencies visible. The result is a much better opening conversation than a blank request for a quote.
Atransparentpriceisnotasubstituteforscope.Itisthefirsttestofwhetherthescopehasbeenexplainedclearlyenoughtopriceatall.
Bothmade's current focused website base is £3,500 before scope additions. That is useful as a transparent starting point, not a market-wide average or a promise that every site fits the same envelope. Bespoke page systems, copy and content migration, commerce, complex forms, multilingual content, integrations and accelerated delivery change the work.
Ask every supplier whether prices include VAT and which recurring services are paid separately. UK VAT treatment depends on the supplier and transaction, so the quote and invoice should state it clearly. A credible comparison shows the first-year cash requirement and the normal annual operating cost.
- Build fee: discovery, design, engineering, content population, testing and launch.
- Client inputs: leadership and subject-matter time, copy approval, photography and legal review.
- Recurring services: hosting, domains, email, analytics, consent tooling, search or CMS services.
- Post-launch work: monitoring, security updates, dependency work, backups and planned improvements.
- Contingency: unknown legacy content, third-party limitations and migration discoveries.
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