Deciding what to spend before anybody quotes you

Most website budgets are set by the first quote that arrives, which means the supplier decides your budget. A better approach is to work out what the site is worth to you first, then see who can do it.

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Set the budget from what the website is worth rather than from quotes: estimate what one customer is worth and how many extra the site should bring, then work backwards. Split the money between building, content, and being found, and hold back a meaningful share for the year after launch, when most sites are abandoned.

Start from value, not from quotes

If you ask three suppliers what a website costs, you will get three numbers and no way to judge them. The question you can actually answer is what the site is worth to you, and that gives you a basis for everything else.

Work out what a typical customer is worth over the time they stay with you. Then ask how many extra customers a year would make a given budget clearly sensible. The answer is usually a small number, and it turns an anxious decision into an arithmetic one.

Split the money across the whole job

The common mistake is spending the entire budget on the build and having nothing left for the words or for being found. The result is a handsome, empty site that nobody reaches.

Think in three parts, and be deliberate about the proportions rather than letting the first invoice decide them.

  • Building: the structure, the design, the technical foundation.
  • Content: the words, photographs, and the pages that answer real customer questions.
  • Being found: search and AI visibility work, which continues after launch.
  • Held back: a reserve for the first year of changes, once you learn what customers actually ask.

Do not spend it all on launch day

A site is at its least informed on the day it goes live. You have not yet seen which pages produce enquiries, which questions people keep asking, or which searches bring the good customers.

So hold back a meaningful part of the budget for the months after launch, when you can spend it on things you know are needed rather than things somebody guessed. This single habit separates sites that improve from sites that are abandoned.

One-off versus ongoing

Some of this is a purchase and some of it is a subscription, and confusing the two produces unpleasant surprises. Hosting, maintenance, and any continuing visibility work are ongoing. The build is not.

Decide what you can sustain monthly before agreeing to anything monthly. A commitment that is comfortable in a good quarter and painful in a bad one tends to be cancelled at exactly the moment the business most needs the enquiries.

Where money is most often wasted

A few patterns recur, and each is avoidable with a question at the right moment.

  • Elaborate design on pages nobody visits.
  • Features nobody asked for: booking systems, portals, calculators, all unused.
  • Photography of the office rather than of the work.
  • A rebuild triggered by taste rather than by a measured problem.
  • Advertising sending traffic to a site that does not convert.
  • Tools bought on a subscription and never configured.

Phasing a small budget sensibly

If the budget is tight, do not build a smaller version of everything. Build the part that earns first: a clear homepage, proper pages for your main services, real proof, and a contact path that works on a phone.

Add area pages, extra services and articles later, funded by the work the first phase brings in. A site that earns from month three can pay for its own second phase, which a beautiful empty one cannot.

How Licheo scopes work

We give the figure on a first call rather than publishing one, because the right scope genuinely depends on the business and an anchor on a page helps nobody.

What we make explicit is what the money covers: the build, the words, being found on Google and inside AI assistants, conversion, and the work that continues afterwards.

Part of a larger guide

This page is one part of Website ROI. The other parts:

Questions people ask

How much should a small business spend on a website?
Work it out from value rather than from quotes: estimate what a customer is worth and how many extra the site should bring, then see what budget that justifies. It usually takes a surprisingly small number of extra customers.
How should I split a website budget?
Across building, content, and being found, with a meaningful share held back for the first year after launch, when you will finally know what customers actually ask and which pages produce enquiries.
What are the ongoing costs I should plan for?
Hosting, domain, maintenance, any paid tools, and continuing visibility and content work. Decide what you can sustain in a poor month, since a commitment cancelled during a downturn costs you exactly when enquiries matter most.
What is the most common waste?
Spending the entire budget on the build and having nothing left for the words or for being found, which produces a handsome site nobody reaches. Close behind it are unused features and photography of the office rather than the work.
What should I do with a very small budget?
Build the part that earns rather than a smaller version of everything: a clear homepage, proper service pages, real proof, and a contact path that works on a phone. Fund the rest from the work that brings in.

Spend where it earns

We scope the work against what your business actually needs, and tell you on a first call exactly what the figure covers.

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