A marketing website from us costs R15,000 to R50,000, and we’re a Cape Town agency, so read this guide knowing we have a side. The price matters less than people think, though. The expensive mistake is paying for a site that looks right in the presentation, then loads slowly, ranks nowhere and can’t be changed without phoning someone.
Here’s how to tell the difference before you sign.
What a web designer in Cape Town actually does
A web designer plans how your site looks and how people move through it: layout, type, colour, images, and sometimes the words. That part you can judge by eye. The part you can’t is the build, which decides whether the site is fast, secure and easy to change.
Plenty of designers hand the build to someone else once the design is signed off, so the first question to ask is who writes the code. A designer who works with a good developer is fine. You just want to know who that is, and whether they’ll speak to you directly.
What web design costs in Cape Town
These are our ranges. Other studios will differ, but they give you something to compare a quote against.
- Marketing website, R15,000 to R50,000: for service businesses, consultancies and local brands. Usually six to eight weeks.
- E-commerce or custom WordPress, R50,000 to R150,000: for online stores, membership areas and sites that connect to other systems. Usually eight to twelve weeks.
- Web applications, from R150,000: for platforms with user accounts, dashboards and custom workflows.
The number moves with page count, integrations and how much content the designer writes for you. If two quotes are far apart, compare what each one includes before you compare the totals. The web design page breaks down what sits in each tier.
What to check before you hire
Live sites, not screenshots
A portfolio image proves someone can make a nice picture. Ask for links, then open them on your phone. Tap through the menu, load a couple of pages, try the contact form. If you can, ask to see a site that launched a couple of years ago, because that’s the one that shows how the work ages.
Mobile first, not mobile afterwards
A large share of South Africans go online through a phone, so the phone version is the real site for many of your visitors. Ask to see the mobile design first, and be wary if it arrives as an afterthought.
Speed and search basics
Ask how they handle page speed and what on-page SEO setup is included. You don’t need to be technical. You just want a clear answer about page titles, descriptions, headings and image sizes, not a vague promise that the site will be “optimised”.
Who owns what
Get the domain, the hosting and the website logins in your name, or at least in your hands. This takes five minutes at the start, and it’s a miserable job to sort out later if you part ways.
What happens after launch
A website needs updates and fixes for as long as it’s live. Find out who does that, what it costs, and how quickly they respond.
Red flags in a quote
- A price before anyone has asked what the site needs to do.
- No written scope, so nobody can say what’s in and what isn’t.
- A guarantee of the number one spot on Google. Nobody can promise that.
- A “custom” design that turns out to be an off-the-shelf theme with your logo swapped in.
- No live sites to show you.
Freelancer, agency or someone overseas?
A freelancer can suit a small site with a tight budget. The risk is that everything depends on one person, including the updates two years from now. We’ve covered that trade-off in agency vs freelancer.
Going overseas can look cheaper, and we’d still lean local for most Cape Town businesses. You can meet in person, and a local team already knows the market. That’s not a rule, though. A strong remote team beats a weak local one, so apply the same checks to both.
Make it look like Cape Town, not a stock library
Your customers can spot a generic site quickly. Use your own photos of your own people and places where you can, and write the way you’d speak to a customer. A business in Woodstock and a firm in the City Bowl shouldn’t sound like the same template.
Design features worth paying for, and ones to skip
Worth paying for: fast pages, a site that works on every screen size, keyboard navigation and readable text so nobody gets locked out, and small touches like hover states that show a button has responded.
Usually not worth it on a marketing site: voice control, virtual reality and heavy animation. They look good in a pitch and add weight to every page. If an idea doesn’t help someone find what they came for, it can wait.
How to get the best from your designer
- Write a brief. Our website brief checklist covers what to decide before you ask for quotes.
- Name one decision-maker. Feedback from five people through one inbox slows everything down.
- Agree a content deadline. Late content is the most common reason projects run over.
- Give feedback on the goal, not the pixels. “Customers won’t find the price” is more useful than “make it pop”.
Common questions
How long does a website take?
Usually six to eight weeks for a marketing website and eight to twelve for e-commerce or integrated builds. Web applications are planned in phases with their own dates.
Is SEO included?
Ask, because it varies. Technical SEO is part of every build we do: clean markup, page speed, mobile layout, metadata and schema. Ongoing content and link building is a separate piece of work.
Can I update the site myself?
You should be able to. Our marketing sites come with a content management system you can run yourself after handover. Ask any designer to show you how it works before you sign.
Want to put these questions to us? Book a discovery call and you’ll speak to the developers who would build your site.
