How Much Does a Restaurant Website Cost?

Are you planning to start your new restaurant? One of the first questions running in your mind is how much does a restaurant website cost?  Various factors contribute to website design costs. Out of them, we can minimize some cost factors, but some are unavoidable. This post covers all factors which you must know before deciding on the budget for designing your website.

Dragging your business to an online platform is a good starting point to increasing customers. In this 21st century, as the internet is easily accessible via smartphones and laptops, Social Media Marketing (SMM) and search engine ranking undeniably directly impact a restaurant’s earnings. A website is the face of your business, and talks to your customers on your behalf; hence emphasizing its design within your budget will surely benefit your business. If you still have doubts, do read 9 reasons why your business needs a website.

According to Statista,

• 78% of people, before going to a restaurant, search online for reviews, ambiance pictures, opening and closing times, food menu, etc.
• Out of them, only 83% trust online reviews. 
• However, 85% of them take action the same day and visit the place. 

Are these stats increased your curiosity to know more about how much a restaurant website costs? You are at the right place; we will cover every point regarding how much does a restaurant website cost in this article.

Do you ever think about what people look for on a website? The answer is quite simple; anyone wants to find out the following piece  of information while looking for restaurant’s websites:

• Location
• Menu
• Hours
• Contact details

Along with the above details, these days, customers are interested in knowing feedback and reviews of a particular restaurant before choosing it. Incorporating all this information into a perfect design website within your budget is always challenging.

Don’t worry! We will discuss what factors you must consider while designing an ideal restaurant website and some tips to get the design within your budget by avoiding unnecessary costs. This guide is for all eateries from BBQ joints to cafes and everything in between.

Factors Affecting Restaurant Website Design Cost

A well-designed website can be a game-changer for your restaurant business. Your website should have extreme functionality with a better user interface. Designing a fantastic website that attracts your prospects and converts them into leads will cost you time and money. If you prefer money over time,  you can create and manage your website by yourself. But if you want a professional-looking website holding all that you desire to convey to your leads, then we suggest you must reach out to a web development company. 

Restaurant Website Design Platforms Cost

If you don’t want to spend any amount on designing platforms, no worries; various free platforms (website builders) are available. These website builders provide a what-you-see-is-what-you-get editing interface, which means you can make changes to your site side by side, giving you an idea of how it will look exactly when it comes live. You will get various themes and plugins free of cost, while for their pro version (extra features), you have to pay. The three commonly used and easy-to-operate website builders are as follows:

1.WordPress

WordPress, founded in 2003, is an open content management system. It provides hosting for more than 500 sites created each day somewhere in the world. According to market analyst Kinsta, WordPress powers about 40% of all websites in 2021. If you desired to design the website by yourself, then WordPress is a better option. WHY? The answer is very simple. It is effortless to operate and maintain a WordPress site without having technical knowledge. Designing the website on WordPress will cost you anywhere between $20 to $200. In WordPress, some of the themes and plugins are free, but if you want to go for some particular themes and plugins, you have to pay. Other than this, the cost of domain Web hosting and SSL certificate will also be incurred. We will discuss them in the next point. 

 2. Squarespace

It is a SaaS platform for building a website. It allows all types of businesses to create professional websites with user-friendly drop-and-drag interfaces. As per the stats of Statista, Squarespace ranked as the second most popular website-building platform with over 15% of the overall market share. In this website builder, you can use a great list of templates and intuitive drag-and-drop tools to design your website in your way. Its plans range from $18 to $40 per month.

3. Wix

Similar to Squarespace, Wix is also a SaaS platform for creating a website. It is one of the leading website builders in the world, with over 22% of the global market share. It allows the users to construct, manage and customise the sites without any prior coding knowledge. Using Wix, you can easily set up an online business or promote your ongoing business without much effort. You can simply start from scratch or even choose from over 500 fully customisable designer templates. The plans here range from $ 5 to $35 per month. All these website builders are good to start your online business. Refer to the given table, which shows a fair comparison of these three platforms and helps you decide.

Refer to the rating given by customers for each platform

Important Points to Keep in Mind While Designing Your Restaurant Website

• As users like fast-loading websites, thus optimised your page speed by adding different plugins specially designed to enhance the page speed. Other than this, do read-How to optimise page speed in 2021
  
• Include the HTML file of the menu, as PDF file takes a long time to load on mobile devices.
  
• Clear location(Google Map) and opening hours information
  
• Your website should be responsive. It means users can browse it using any device like laptops, smartphones, tablets, etc. It should have good readability across all devices.
  
• It should be aesthetically pleasing. The look and feel of your website put a direct impression on visitors. So make sure to use proper background color, text size, etc., but don’t overdo it with color schemes and crazy images.

  In short, the four must-haves of restaurant website design are:

• Quick Page load times
• Great mobile designs
• An HTML file of the menu for ease down mobile browsing
• Google location and opening and closing hour information

 Cost of Hiring a Professional Web Development Agency

Designing a website is not tough these days due to the presence of accessible website builder platforms. But if you don’t want to get into designing and focus more on your business, along with it, if your business is big and you are an owner of a chain of hotels, or you have other companies, hiring a professional is a good choice. While designing a website, a professional web development team considers various factors that directly impact SEO (Search Engine Optimization) like proper tags, image optimization, content, description & design, etc., resulting in a lower bounce rate,  better user experience, and higher conversion.

Depending upon the number of pages on your website and the level of functionality you want to achieve, you can hire either a freelancer or a web designing agency. We will discuss how much the restaurant website costs in each case.

Cost of Hiring a Freelancer for the Website Design

Freelancers are people who work for themselves rather than for a company. Hence, they are easily approachable at your convenience and somehow will cost cheaper than any web designing company. Freelancers are equipped with various levels of talent and are charged accordingly. Depending upon your website’s desired look and functions, a freelancer on average charges in the range of $2,000 to $5,000 for a simple website design and $10,000 to $20,000 for an advanced one. The downside, in this case, is freelancers tend to be more hit-and-miss. It will take more time to do everything alone (no second person) or take multiple projects together. Other than that, some pros and cons that come with freelancer are as follows:

  PROS

• In most cases, freelancers are cheaper to engage and easier to find.
• Freelancer provides flexibility in case of upsizing and downsizing the project. It is easier to convince a single person(freelancer) as compared to the whole team.
• The chances of errors are less as a single person handles the project, so there is no point in miscommunication, which usually happens while working in a team.

  CONS

• The cheaper the freelancer lower the quality and skill.
• No maintenance & support after the project is completed.
• The website design process under freelancer takes time to complete, as a single person is doing everything. 
• A single person can’t be an expert in all fields, so a freelancer’s website is not entirely expert-oriented from each aspect.

Cost of Hiring an Agency for Restaurant Website Design

The best and most assured option to get quick results is to hire web development and design agencies. They come with a team of seasoned experts who likely have experience with goals similar to yours. As we all know, ‘quality is always expensive. The result delivered by expert teams is brilliant, but they will cost more than previous options. With the rapidly evolving digital landscape, the competition for website design is at its highest peak. Every new website is coming up with a new layout and new features making its unique identity. It increases the demand for a strategic website that can be achieved only with the help of professionals. If you have the budget to hire agencies, it will ultimately pay you back in the form of unique design, expert advice, and productive features. Let’s put some light on the benefits one can achieve by hiring professional web designer agencies.

• Proper strategy– The professional web development team can lay out a strategic online plan. A good strategy and preset goals result in a more interactive, informative, and user-friendly website.

• Seo-friendly design and content- Search engine optimization is the process of optimizing your website as per the guidelines(algorithms) of a search engine. The point is very simple if we want to rank our website on the first page of the search engine(Google), we have to design it as per its guidelines. The higher the rank, the more will be traffic and revenue generated. An SEO expert in a web designing firm will bring your website to the first page of a search engine using his expertise.

• Save money in the long run- If your website crashes, you will not lose your business and opt for redesigning. But redesigning is more costly than hiring a professional in the first place. The highly experienced and skilled web development companies design the website to be ready for any possible changes.

• Maintenance &Support- The best part of hiring a web development agency is their support even after the project is completed. They will be on hand to help with any technical issues related to the website anytime in the future.

Cost Incurred On Domain, Hosting, And SSL Certificate

Whichever option you choose for website designing-  website builders, freelancers, or a web development company, the cost of the domain, hosting, and SSL certificate will remain the same. Let’s learn why these are essential while designing a site for your restaurant.

Domain

It is basically the address of your website on the internet. You have to pay a registration charge and buy it to become the owner of a particular domain. The cost will vary with different domain names and the company from which you’re taking domain service. The  top domain provider companies are Blue host, Godaddy, Wix domains, etc., 

 Hosting

 You can consider it as buying land for your website in this vast internet world. It is the place/space where all your website files are located on the Internet. Most companies provide hosting and domain together in a complete package, which will cost you less if you buy hosting and domain from the same company.

SSL certificate

SSL stands for  Secure Socket Layer. It allows encrypted communication between a browser and a server. It helps reduce the risk of sensitive information, for example, credit card numbers, emails, usernames, passwords, etc., from being stolen by hackers. Most restaurant websites provide the pre-booking option and take some booking amount to get assured. In this case, the SSL Certificate helps to encrypt sensitive customer data. Many companies offer free SSL certificates along with hosting, so do check with your hosting provider company.

Cost of Adding Additional Features

Generally, people visit a website to collect information like the menu, feedback/testimonials, opening and closing hours, etc. However, the quality and visual appeal of the website are also crucial as it directly affects the user experience. It should be responsive in design. It means users can access the website via various devices-mobile, tablets, laptops, etc. Getting a website responsive in design will add extra cost, but it is a one-time investment. Other than that, various other features like payment gateway or online reservation features and premium themes with payment options on WordPress and Wix will add further cost. 

Cost of Digital Marketing in Restaurant Website Design

Various processes entail taking your business to an online platform; some of them are content creation lead generation, social media management, email marketing, strategy development, data reports, pay-per-click, etc. These processes are time-taking and require in-depth knowledge. These processes are equally important along with designing a website.  Your purpose of restaurant website design is unfulfilled if nobody is aware of your site. That is why the need for a Digital Marketer comes into action. The online world is so huge if you’re running a website; attracting more customers through marketing will help you achieve excellent results in a short period. Look at some of the reasons given below to know better; why do you need to hire a  Digital marketing agency?

• You have more focus on your business and no time left for looking into the marketing process.

• By appointing digital marketing agencies, you will get the advice of experienced ones and experts in the field.

• Digital marketing agencies are up-to-date on the latest trends. If you lack the time in doing proper research on the market, they bring good ideas to help you stay ahead of the competition. 

Three areas where digital marketing investment is required are:

Content strategy

A website with a good quality stat and dynamic content get easily noticed. Through storytelling and copywriting, you can convey your services and motive to your prospects. The enticing food and decor image presented with a personal experience blog will tempt visitors to try your restaurant.

SEO integration

Designing a website is one task and getting it ranked on the SERP(search engine result pages) is another essential task. It can only achieve with the help of an SEO(Search Engine Optimize) expert in your marketing team.

Social Media Marketing

These days social media is the biggest platform for marketing your business. With the help of the suggested strategies of the digital marketing team, you can enhance the reach of your website using social media marketing. It will result in increased traffic to your website and more revenue generation via more bookings.

Tips for Reducing Restaurant Website Cost

• Use pre-made templates, free themes, and free images (Unsplash) while designing a website using the website builders. It will reduce your restaurant website cost.

• Cut down the number of pages, as more pages result in more costs by web designing firms.

• Know your audience better, as it can be a bigger money saver. By knowing your audience, you can avoid unwanted features and confusion. It will save you time and money in redesigning again and again.

• Decide a time frame for your website completion. You can then avoid the risk of having the clock run by unethical developers. In addition, asking for hastening development at the end will incur additional costs.

• Pre-deciding the budget for restaurant website design costs and conveying the same to web development agencies is very important. It not only keeps costs under control but also helps the developers to set the correct expectations.

• Register your business on Google Local Business to spread your wings locally. 

• Buy a domain from the expired domain list. It will be cheaper. Expired domains are the domains purchased by someone but not renewed, so they expired.

Words from Author

Each new or well-established restaurant deserves its website, which will further help in gaining more customers. The sooner you accept this fact, the sooner you will start experiencing the benefits of a well-designed website. However, the amount you want to spend on your website is entirely your choice. This post has conveyed all the factors which are contributing to the restaurant website design cost. However, to some extent, you can minimize the costs by going through the tips provided above and creating your website within your budget. We hope you understand well the importance of a website in this digital world.

If you want a perfect professional-looking website, you can hire either a freelancer or a web development agency suiting your budget and understanding your plan of action well. The only difference here is the freelancer work ends as your restaurant website design is completed. But web development agencies ensure you complete support even after completing the task. If you have any queries regarding the restaurant website design in your mind, reach out to APPWRK

FAQs About Restaurant Website Cost