Writing
Why two quotes for the same website look nothing alike
Two studios read the same brief and send back numbers that do not match. The gap is rarely the hourly rate. It is what each one decided to put inside the number.
Published Revised One Other
What are you actually buying?
A website is writing, a system and upkeep, all at once. The price moves with how many of them sit inside the quote.
Count only the page design and you get one number. Count the writing, the images, and whoever comes back to it in six months and you get another.
Neither party is inflating anything. They answered different questions with the same word.
Why is one quote double the other?
Half the gap is usually the work nobody sees. Writing each page, deciding what stays out, wiring the form to somewhere a human will actually read it.
The other half is what happens after launch. A site that stays yours takes more work to build than one that only works while the studio keeps feeding it. Someone has to set up the files, the accounts and the rules that keep it running.
Who is doing the work moves the number too. I work alone, with the machine, and bring in the right hands when a project asks for them. A studio with ten people on the payroll prices it differently.
How do you compare quotes without knowing code?
Skip the technology. Compare the answers to the same four questions, and ask for them in writing.
- Who writes the page copy, and how many pages there are.
- Where the site and the data live, and whose name is on the accounts.
- What happens when you want to change a price or a page yourself.
- What the first months include, and what starts being billed after that.
Is it worth asking three studios?
It is, if all three answer the same brief. Three studios responding to three different conversations give you nothing to compare.
Write one page: what the site has to do, who for, and what already exists. Send the same one to everybody.
Then watch the questions that come back. Anyone asking about your work before talking about pages is looking at the right problem.
If it helps, I will read your case and tell you what I would do. Start with an email.