Search for "website redesign cost" and you will mostly find pages that end with "contact us for a quote". That is frustrating when all you want to know is whether your budget is realistic. The price of a redesign depends on real technical and editorial factors, and they can be explained clearly.
This article goes through those factors one by one, shows exactly what a redesign we recently delivered contained, billed at €3,200 excluding VAT, and lists the questions that will protect you from the two classic traps: overpaying for a facelift, or underpaying for a redesign that destroys your search rankings.
A redesign is not a coat of paint
The word "redesign" covers very different services. Some providers change the colours and photos on top of the existing structure: that is a facelift, sometimes useful, but it fixes neither speed, nor structure, nor SEO. A full redesign rebuilds the website in depth: page architecture, content, code, performance and search visibility. The two obviously do not cost the same, and this is the first reason quotes are so hard to compare.
Before comparing figures, make sure you are comparing the same scope. And before requesting quotes at all, make sure a redesign is actually needed: our article website redesign: when and why to change reviews the signs that justify one, and those that only call for an update.
What really drives the price
Once the scope is clear, six factors explain most of the price differences between two redesigns:
- The number of pages and templates. Rebuilding a 6-page website and a 40-page website with product pages are not the same project.
- What happens to the content. Texts and photos kept as they are, reworked, or rewritten from scratch: often the most underestimated line of the budget.
- A back office, or not. If you want to edit texts, photos and pages yourself after launch, an administration tool has to be built, connected and taught.
- Features. Booking, an English version, online payment, a client area: each building block adds design and testing work.
- The state of the existing website. Clean code can sometimes serve as a base; a website built on an ageing template needs rebuilding on solid foundations.
- The SEO migration. Listing the pages that rank on Google, redirecting old addresses, keeping the content that performs: invisible on screen, decisive in practice.
A serious redesign quote reads line by line. If a single line "redesign: €X" sums up the whole project, you do not know what you are buying, or what will be missing.
A real example: €3,200, fully itemised
Rather than theoretical ranges, here is a figure we can break down because it is our own project: the latest website redesign we delivered was billed €3,200 excluding VAT. It was a full redesign with a back office, for a business that wanted to take back control of its content.
- Custom design, built for the client's activity, with no purchased template or recycled theme.
- Full development of the website, with modern, fast code handed over to the client at the end of the project.
- An administration back office: the client edits texts, photos and pages independently, without calling us or paying for every change.
- Content migration and reorganisation, reworked page by page rather than copied as is.
- A clean migration: redirects for every old address, a structure built for SEO, and post-launch checks.
After launch, a subscription covers hosting and maintenance. On this project: €59/month for the first year, then €79/month. The amount depends on the website (a simple showcase site without a back office costs a little less), and there is no lock-in period: the client can cancel at any time and leave with their code and domain.
To place this project on our price scale: a custom showcase website starts at €1,500, and a website with a back office generally sits between €3,000 and €3,500. Our article how much does a website cost in Nice details these reference points by type of project.
The cost nobody puts a number on: losing your rankings
The real financial risk of a redesign is not paying a few hundred euros too much. It is losing the Google positions your website took years to build. The classic scenario: page addresses change without redirects, content that ranked gets deleted because it "looked old", and traffic collapses in the weeks after the new website goes live.
Prevention comes down to three steps: before the redesign, list the pages that receive traffic; redirect every old address to its new equivalent; and monitor Search Console after launch. If your website already suffers from this kind of damage, our article why your website does not show up on Google helps with the diagnosis.
A cheap redesign that makes your website vanish from Google ends up costing far more than a properly managed one: recovering lost rankings takes months.
Redesign, or start from scratch?
Sometimes the existing website is not worth keeping. A site built on a plugin-saturated template, code nobody understands anymore, a closed platform you do not own: in those cases, patching often costs as much as rebuilding, for a less durable result. Starting from a clean base is not a failure; over three years it is frequently the cheaper choice.
What must survive the rebuild, however, is not negotiable: your domain name, the content that performs, and your old addresses, properly redirected. Rented-platform websites are the typical case: our comparison Wix or a custom website details what can be recovered and what has to be rebuilt.
How to get a reliable price for your redesign
To receive a precise quote rather than a vague range, prepare three things: the address of your current website, an honest list of what works and what holds you back, and your concrete goals (more enquiries, online booking, online sales). With that, a professional can price the work line by line, free of charge.
Then, a few questions asked before signing will protect you better than any price comparison:
- Does the quote break down every line of work, or does it fit on one line?
- Who owns the code and the domain name once the redesign is delivered?
- Are redirects for the old addresses included, and checked after launch?
- What will I pay each month after delivery, what does it cover, and can I cancel freely?
Our own answers to these questions are public: the delivered website belongs to you, code and domain included, and the hosting and maintenance subscription has no lock-in period. The full model is explained in our article web agency with no lock-in.