Real price ranges for New Zealand websites, what moves the number up or down, and what you actually get at each level.
Most New Zealand businesses asking this question get one of two unhelpful answers. Either a vague 'it depends', or a suspiciously low number that turns into something else entirely once the work starts. Here are the actual ranges, and more usefully, what pushes a quote from one band to the next.
The three price bands
| Range | What it covers | Typical timeline |
|---|---|---|
| $2,500 to $5,000 | Brochure site, five to eight pages, contact form, mobile responsive, basic SEO setup | Three to four weeks |
| $5,000 to $12,000 | The above plus a CMS your team can edit, custom design work, integrations like bookings or payments | Four to eight weeks |
| $12,000 and up | Ecommerce with real catalogue depth, membership areas, custom application logic, multi-language | Eight weeks and beyond |
A five page site for a professional services firm sits comfortably at the bottom of that first band. An online store with 300 products, click and collect, and a stock integration sits in the third.
What actually moves the number
Page count matters far less than people expect. Five pages and fifteen pages built on the same templates cost nearly the same. What genuinely changes the price:
- Integrations. Every external system you connect to (payment gateway, booking platform, accounting software, CRM) adds real engineering time.
- Content readiness. If your copy and images are ready on day one, the project runs to schedule. If they arrive in pieces over six weeks, the project takes six weeks longer.
- Design originality. Adapting a proven layout is fast. A fully custom design system with bespoke illustration is not.
- Who edits it afterwards. A site your team updates needs a CMS, and a CMS needs to be set up properly so it stays usable.
Fixed price or hourly?
Hourly billing transfers all the risk to you. If the work takes twice as long, you pay twice as much, and you have no way to know in advance. Fixed price transfers that risk to the studio, which is where it belongs, because the studio is the one who can estimate accurately.
The catch is that fixed price only works when scope is genuinely pinned down first. Any studio quoting a fixed number without asking detailed questions is either padding heavily or planning to charge you for variations later.
What to ask before you accept a quote
- What exactly is included, listed page by page and feature by feature?
- What happens if we need a change halfway through?
- Who owns the code, the design files, and the domain when we are done?
- What does it cost to keep running each year, including hosting and updates?
- Can our team update content without calling you?
Any studio that hesitates on question three is worth avoiding. You should own everything you paid for, outright.