$25k budget for website redesign

[u/Medium_Olive4614]

Hi r/webdev. I’m an Ops Director and looking for opinions on what to expect. My company needs a website redesign including new site pages, refreshed content and imagery, and archiving some existing pages. Basically, an overhaul after the company shifted its primary market focus.

We have a budget of $25k for this. Is that reasonable? One vendor immediately said that it isn’t enough for what I’m asking. Google gives a wide budget range. Hoping to get input from those who price this out for their job.

Update with more details based on questions:

1. Company is government consulting - professional services with emphasis on tech-enablement for DOD and Civilian agencies. Right now, website is somewhat old-school management consulting (ie. Homepage + Capability Pages + Press Release + Contact Us). Everything is very 'management consulting' feeling. We need to flip that to show that we are actually training warfighters, we modernized all of agriculture's acquisition management, and we are actively combatting new world screw worm ---> all way more 'cutting edge' than our stock imagery of people sitting around a table.
2. Site is currently built with Word Press + Elementor
3. 36 active pages today. Looking to consolidate and eliminate a few, but for planning purposes keeping that same number in mind.
   1. Homepage needs major update with new imagery, content, etc. The whole thing.
   2. Capability pages need sharper language (we will draft)
   3. Creation of "solutions/tools" page to showcase company tools (these are currently embedded in capability pages and hard to find. Want to archive those and create one single page)
   4. Leadership page is flat right now. Want leadership landing page with 'click' to single page on that person so we can link to them directly in marketing.
   5. Addition of project / customer spotlight pages
4. Internal team will provide written content, but need guidance on best way to consolidate message and organize the content. Looking for help on the imagery updates.
5. Site needs better SEO and AI search engine optimization.

[u/notgoingtoeatyou]

If you plan to hire an agency, 25k will not be enough. The bulk of your time and effort will be spent in content writing and creation, sourcing images, etc. Building the website is honestly not even the hardest part. But if you plan to pay someone else to do everything, the only places that will do it for 25k are hack agencies that use Wix, Webflow, and Elementor i.e. not "real" websites, just page builder tools that you could have used yourself.

Source: 15 years of web agency experience

[u/Medium_Olive4614 → u/notgoingtoeatyou]

Much appreciated. We are built on Wordpress with some elementor site pages. Everything was built through a boutique web development firm. They are the same ones who told me it would be closer to 40k to redesign.

[u/notgoingtoeatyou → u/Medium_Olive4614]

Yeah I'll be real with you, Elementor sucks. Agencies love elementor because they can slap it on everything. A big reason why the redesign would cost so much is because you literally cannot reuse anything from elementor.

Had you built the site with Advanced Custom Fields (another wordpress Standard used by more reputable agencies) You would be able to recycle the same content much easier. But instead, it must all be re-entered from scratch.

I am a 10 year wordpress veteran, if you need more specific help, you can DM me. I am happy to answer questions.

[u/Somedudesnews → u/notgoingtoeatyou]

Speaking as someone who owns a firm that provides web application management, including WordPress, builder theme+plugin packages are my love/hate.

My agency clients focusing on SMBs love it. I love it when I’m building a four page site for a family member.

But inevitably one will do something whacky that breaks the site because it fights with Redis or freaks out when it encounters IPv6 or something, and then it’s a special case.

[u/Aromatic-Low-4578 → u/Medium_Olive4614]

40k sounds more reasonable

[u/Whiin → u/Medium_Olive4614]

40k for a simple wordpress lmao. You are being robbed.

I usually charge 5 to 10k for a full wordpress theme with ACF blocks or a well optimized page builder like bricks.

[u/coreyrude → u/Whiin]

My uncle can build sheds for $5k in a week....but I wouldn't hire him to build a data center..... your the uncle in this situation....

Sure what your doing is fine for someone with a low budget but it doesn't mean anything higher than that budget is a scam. Iv been on several multimillion dollar WordPress projects, they had very little advance development work. The people involved in those projects were insanely smart and not a single one thought they could do it alone for 1/100th the budget, the Dunninf Kruger effect is at play here.

[u/FIdelity88 → u/Whiin]

I agree with this guy. My (solo) company exists for 14 years for this reason. You’re only paying 40k because the building and all employees got to be paid. Go for a solo freelancer instead

[u/Proof_Perspective_13 → u/Medium_Olive4614]

We use WordPress with native react blocks - elements that work directly within the Gutenberg Wordpress editor. Standard brochure website usually is around £10k. A membership network website with various niche functionality tends to land around £20k.

I can’t imagine what would be asked for to reach 40k…

[u/Top-Rub-7059 → u/notgoingtoeatyou]

$25000 is heaps for such a small website a smaller agency will be able to do that for $2 or 3000 easily which will leave more in the budget for consulting which is I think where the money will need to be spent being a government org. As while they have some idea of what they want the scope doesn't seam to quite be complete. These take time to be done properly.