Setting a website budget for small teams

The gap between knowing this and actually doing it is where most teams lose ground. Most advice about setting a website budget assumes a team that does not exist at your size. Here is the version that does not.

Clear scope protects the client at least as much as it protects the agency. It is worth deciding this deliberately rather than inheriting whatever the last person set up.

What to keep

The cheapest quote usually costs more by the end. It is worth being explicit about, because assumptions differ quietly. It is the sort of thing that looks like polish right up until it costs you an enquiry.

What to drop

Process that exists to coordinate ten people is overhead when there are two of you. It is worth being explicit about, because assumptions differ quietly.

How we handle it

Content is the line item most often forgotten. It is worth being explicit about, because assumptions differ quietly. The practical test is whether someone new to the project could tell, in a minute, that it had been handled.

The short version

The projects that go badly are rarely the ones with the hardest technical problems. Three things worth confirming about setting a website budget before you move on:

• Someone can say what the current setup is without going to look
• The cheapest quote usually costs more by the end — and you know whether that is true here
• There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped

Most of the value here comes from doing the first two things, not all of them.