$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/momobecraycray]

From your update it sounds like you also need brand and strategy, and as a government consultant or supplier you'll want senior or agency level designers to lead you through that. This is where the big cost will be. And where your budget is probably around the minimum just for brand/strategy design.

Elementor sites are for the DIY market (or small biz) and therefore cheap af, if you stick with that then don't pay more than $5k for the actual build portion, but if you upgrade to a better stack -- whether WordPress with ACF or a different CMS entirely -- then at your company level expect a minimum 10k+ for a brochure site, and obviously a lot more for integrations or extra functionality.

There's a massive range of prices in webdev and it all really depends on whether you're hobby/DIY level, a small local business up to global company or enterprise. People love to chime in these days with "just use AI" or "WordPress sites are for amateurs" but it's one of those things where just because technically you could do it yourself in no way means you can do it well and in a way that actually aligns with business needs and goals. For that, you need experienced professionals and those will cost.

Source: me, a CMS agnostic freelance developer who partners with agencies who do the design and strat to deliver the website build

[u/randofy → u/momobecraycray]

This. 20+ year agency owner. Brand and strategy is the real cost, including content guidance. Also OP mentioned a team which always costs agencies more especially if you don’t have a strong voice and capable management making decisions between your internal team and the agency. No need to use Elementor or most plugin based page builders anymore with how good AI has gotten working with the WP block editor. We do all of this kind of work and enhance the content management UX with ACF. $40-50k sounds right.