This article could also be titled 'How much is this going to cost me?' There are actually several parties you have to pay when having a website designed. I tend to use the analogy of a house, so I'll run with that analogy here.

First off, you may or may not realize that there are both one-time and recurring fees involved in getting a site online. I will differentiate between the two as I go through the three major parties.

Web Designer

The designer is a combination of an architect, builder and interior designer. And really a number of other things. The designer ends up handling (or helping you handle) everything from the purpose of the website to its organization, layout, design, good coding and plenty of other things that you may or may not see just by looking at the website.

Like a good house, a lot of things, when done well, will not be noticeable. And in a lot of cases, that's the point. When a menu on a site is well designed, you really just use it without paying too much attention to its exact location, font, design, etc.

With a web designer, there is definitely an up-front cost. This is the design of the initial site. This fee can run anywhere from $300 or so to thousands and thousands of dollars. It all depends on the size and complexity of the site. If you want a lot of custom programming or Flash work, that type of thing will obviously cost you more. In the long run, however, many of these elements like the custom programming can save you money.

There is also the ongoing cost of maintaining the site. At T&S, you sign a contract for several (generally 6 or 12) months at a time, and pay up front. You know the cost ahead of time. Many web designers charge hourly for this type of work. The downside is that you don't know how much you will be charged in a month. The upside is that if you don't have any work done at all in a month, you don't get charged for that month.

Because of anti-price-fixing laws, many web designers do not put prices on their website. So you would need to contact a given designer for an actual estimate.

Web Hosting

This can also be called 'Web Space,' among other things. This is a combination of the land and foundation your house is on. A good designer will help you pick a hosting company and package that will fit your wants and needs for your website.

Some web hosts do charge an initial setup fee of anywhere from $20 to $75 or so dollars. The bigger the package you get, the more the initial setup fee is likely to be.

Not all web hosts charge a setup fee. You will, however, be required to pay an ongoing fee. If you keep in mind that what you're actually doing is renting space on someone's computer, this makes a little more sense. The ongoing fees for this range from around $5 a month to $600+ a month. Most of m clients end up paying in the $10-$30 per month range.

Domain Registrar

Imagine that you had to pay the post office yearly for your address. Sure, someone could find you if you gave them your longitude and latitude, but having a street address makes it much, much easier.

That is how it works with a domain name. You pay a domain registrar, and they generally charge you based on the extension. An extension is .com, .org, .net, .edu and the list goes on.

One domain registrar we've had good experiences with is Go Daddy. Their domains generally run from $7 to $10 a year. As I write this, .tv is really popular, so it's quite a bit more expensive. Still, at $31 a year, it's way cheaper than domain names used to run. In the late 90's, you had to pay $70 or so a year for a domain.

The charge for a domain registrar is yearly, though you can generally buy up to 10 years at a time. We've only had one client buy that many, but we've had another client buy 11 domain names in addition to the other one they already owned.

And there you go.

Tim is the owner and senior web designer at T&S Web Design. His company has developed and maintained website for dozens of small businesses and organizations. Tim also maintains a blog with free website advice for small business owners, GetASiteOnline.com.

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