“The reason it seems that price is all your customers care about is that you haven’t given them anything else to care about.”
— Seth Godin
Downwards pricing pressure, long close times, and high competition makes selling websites in 2025 difficult. Web agencies need to adjust their strategies and swim with the current and not against it.
My Web Director Survival Story
But before I get too far into what I see as working and not working for web agencies in 2025, let me tell you a little story…
A few years ago I took over as executive director of a website department at a small agency I ran with my brother. Our pricing and services no longer fit the market. Every website we built was on a different CMS and our website projects were going over budget by as much as 150%. Oh and just about 0 of our web design and build projects were under budget. We had a 7-person person team and we couldn’t afford them.
In short, my work was cut-out for me.
I worked nights and weekends for two years trying to turn it around. I had to layoff employees, fend off lawsuits and lawyers letters, and got yelled at more times than I care to count. It sucked (but I also learned a lot).
I succeeded in stopping the bleeding and establishing a new support program that we could actually make money from, but that also involved pissing-off clients who had become accustomed to NOT getting billed for the value we provided. (We had to be tough and part-ways with a number of them.)
And just when we started to see the RED months turn GREEN . . . I quit.
(It was a slow quit. I’d worked too hard to let everything fall-apart again. I eased my way out over a six months.)
There were reasons that go beyond our web department troubles that were part of my decision, but what I realized was I had reached the limit of my influence and authority and there was still a lot of change that needed to happen in order to build a web department that could thrive (and I was tired).
The result of this experience was that I learned a lot about what works and what doesn’t when selling and building websites for small business. (Our website projects typically ranged from 20k-150k by-the-way).
During my tenure as web director, I talked to a lot of experts and agency owners because I was desperate to dig my way out of the mess I found myself in. And I gathered some pretty good intel. So even if I am no longer in a position to implement these things myself, I figured they can definitely be of use to other agencies.
(I know not every tip here will apply to every firm, so please apply what makes sense for your agency)
How to sell web services in 2025
| What Works | What Doesn’t Work |
|---|---|
| Agency Branding and Positioning: Now more than ever, web agencies need to define their value proposition to a defined audience. |
Generic positioning: “We build awesome WordPress/Shopify/Webflow websites for forward thinking companies.” This is not enough. This is what everyone is doing. |
| Diversify your lead generation: This goes for all agencies, but make sure you aren’t just doing ads, or cold email, or networking or you will be in trouble if that channel starts to dry up. Also, don’t neglect your current clients because they are your best opportunity. |
Wait for things to get better: The world changes, it doesn’t reset. So if what you were doing before worked, don’t assume that it will start working again. This is especially true in online sales and marketing where things are changing very fast. |
| Post launch services: Post launch services can be the key to profit in this market. Even if you lose money on half or more of your web build projects. Monetize support, SEO, Content Creation, CRO, Analytics & Reporting, etc. Think of website builds as client acquisition, and focus on long term profits. |
Raising prices to profit on website builds: Unless you are underpricing, or offering something truly unique, this won’t work. The market is too competitive, and the math won’t math. Instead, focus on efficiencies, good project management, change orders, and upsells. |
| Paid discovery: Charge for research and planning and delivering a scope of work. Don’t do it for free! |
Sending proposals: Proposals are just pricing sheets as far as clients are concerned. They don’t win business unless your price is cheapest (or close to it). I advise never sending proposals … instead build a scope of work with the client. Read more on that here. |
| MVP-first approach: Start with quick and affordable website build with a tight scope. Add features as phase 2 or as part of a retainer. This makes it more clear to the client what they are getting for their money and allows you to compete with other agencies that are low-balling. |
Fixed bid website projects with custom dev: These projects are riddled with scope creep, hurt feelings, and clients who are angry because you didn’t solve all 10,000 of their issues. |
| Create repeatable systems: Get to know your tools and frameworks so well that your websites are basically half-built before the ink is dry on the contract. Part of this also means turning down projects that are not in your sweet spot. If you need to learn a new language or CMS to win a contract you will lose money. |
Building everything custom: It might be fun bit it’s never profitable and the client will not be happy when they realize how inflexible their site is. Also, be wary of assuming that new problems and discoveries should fall under the current budget. They should not. Embrace the change order. |
| Solve problems instead of building websites: Just because your prospect asks for a new website doesn’t mean they need one. Can you solve their problem for cheaper with an integration? (This will win you business.) |
Always selling a rebuild from scratch: A completely new site is not the answer for every website problem. Agencies are good at being creative. Use your creativity. |
| Charge for web design first: Scope dev after design. There’s no law they have to be priced at the same time. Similar to charging for discovery this allows you to have a much better chance of scoping the development accurately. It also gives you the opportunity to say goodbye half-way through the project if there are too many red flags. |
Put rebrands and websites in the same contract: Don’t put your website scope in a contract with a bunch of other work that needs to be done first. Get the branding work signed off on first and start that work. You will understand the client and their needs much better once you’ve started working with them and your website contract will be better. |
| Offer proactive support retainers: Charge at least $500-3k month (U.S.). Make support a requirement of the project, with 6-12 month commitments, auto-renew, no roll-overs, and cost-of-living increase 3-5% every year. Meet with the client once a month. Show the value. If a client doesn’t get support or cancels support you need to charge a premium for ad hoc support or refuse service. If they aren’t paying you monthly, they are basically a new customer asking for help. (And they have to wait in line behind everyone who is paying for support). |
Charge for hosting: Don’t do this. It makes you responsible for everything and you could get sued if the client’s server goes down and they lose a bunch of money. Set up the hosting and tech stack, but put the client’s credit card on file with the host. Now you are just charging for your availability and hours to fix things. |
| Hybrid team structures: Use offshore developers for cost efficiency, especially for things like weekend support. |
All in-house development: Maintaining higher costs for all work. |
| No-code/low-code solutions: These solutions can help you meet shrinking budgets. Design-in-site options (customizable templates) or design solutions that output fully coded sites like Webflow, Framer, etc. |
Take on a new technology to seal the deal: This is an act of desperation and will make you too busy to onboard a better project down the line. |
| Project pause fees: These need to be talked about more than implemented, but I will say that I did rescue one project with what amounted to a 70k pause fee (our requirement for continuing work after numerous pauses). |
Free post launch support: This is too open ended and feature-versus-bug arguments can go on ad-infinitum. I much prefer jumping straight into a support retainer. (I had one client that would pull out our a year-after-launch to try to tell us we shouldn’t be charging them for this or that, and I would just point out a line in our contract that says “Our websites are delivered ‘as-is.’). Websites cannot be guaranteed. |
| Modular pricing: Break website features into component parts that clients can select and prioritize for launch and post launch. Show the client how this affects price. |
Offer feature parity: Just saying this gives me anxiety. Make sure the client knows that their new site will not do exactly what their old site does in every way. Instead teach your clients that undefined scope gets a change order. |
How To Talk About Website Pricing With Skeptical Clients
If you do a Google search for “how much does a website cost in 2025?” you will generally see estimates from about $500-10k. This is because most websites are built by freelancers on Wix and Squarespace or pre-built WordPress templates. This can be confusing for clients who do research and then get a proposal with a 60k price tag.
This one from Forbes is a doozy:
- Initial build: $0 to $450
- Hosting and apps: $15 to $150 monthly
- Maintenance: $20 to $100 annually
How Much Does A Website Cost? (2025 Guide)
(I mean WTF Forbes! Who builds these websites? Slave children?)
I had the marketing director of a company in the semi-conductor industry tell me his website budget was 1-3k for a new website for this exact reason.
There are AI systems now that will generate a complete website with all the copy and a logo for you in just a couple of clicks. If this is the case, then why would anyone pay more than a few hundred bucks for a website?
This is what you have to answer and it’s not an easy question to answer. It’s complicated.
Why not just agree? Websites are easy to make and therefore they don’t cost that much.
But you know what does have high value?
Great design, UI/UX, CRO, brand strategy, SEO, copy writing, integrations, expertise, analytics integrations–all the stuff that you add to the website is what is valuable.
Website Pricing Market Data (2024-2025)
I like this little pricing chart from WebFX Website Cost Guide. It’s likely pretty accurate for small agencies in the U.S. But keep in mind websites are super unique (and some cost millions).
I did create a website pricing calculator that is much more nuanced if you want to check it out. I also have an article on website pricing specifically here.
Most Popular CMS Platforms For Agencies (From 2024)
From a great report by promethean research here.
Take note of that Webflow percentage. It’s becoming the go-to tool for design and branding agencies that want to get into no-code web design.
The Bottom Line on Sling’n Code Buckets in 2025
Clients don’t want to invest in big websites projects, but they will invest in big business solutions. You can adapt by:
- Website builds can be approached as client acquisition, not profit centers
- Use retainers to for sustainable income
- Creating systems that make each build more efficient than the last
- Using no-code/low-code tools to meet shrinking budgets
- Breaking projects into smaller, more manageable phases
The more you can position yourself as a problem-solver rather than a website builder, the more you’ll stand out from the commodity website market.
Feel free to reach out if you want to talk more about any of these strategies. I’m always available in the Free Grow Your Agency Slack group. @Chris Bolton – Admin
