How much does a website redesign cost?

Short answer

For most small and mid-sized business marketing sites, a professional redesign lands in the mid four to low five figures, about the same as a new build, and typically ships in three to six weeks. A refresh that keeps your platform and structure costs less. Ecommerce, many unique page templates, integrations and complex migrations push it higher.

How much does it cost to redesign a website? The frustrating but true answer is "it depends," so this post is about what it depends on. Once you know the handful of things that drive the price, you can read any quote, compare agencies fairly, and decide what to do now versus later.

A redesign is usually priced like a new site, because most of the work is the same: strategy, design, build, content and launch. What makes a redesign different is the migration work, keeping what you've earned in search while changing everything around it.

01How much does it cost to redesign a website? Typical ranges

These are typical ranges for U.S. small and mid-sized businesses. They're not quotes, and your scope may sit above or below them.

Most of the marketing sites we build sit in the middle row, and most ship in three to six weeks from kickoff. The bottom row varies the most because "complex" covers a lot of ground.

02Refresh or full redesign?

A refresh is the right call when the structure works and the problem is mostly visual: dated styling, inconsistent fonts, poor photos. You keep your platform, your URLs and most of your content, so the risk and the cost stay low.

A full redesign makes sense when the problems go deeper. Visitors can't find what they need, your services have changed, the site is slow on phones, or your team avoids editing it because the CMS is painful. Changing the paint won't fix any of those.

A quick test: list the five things that frustrate you most about the current site. If most of them are about how it looks, refresh. If most are about how it works, who it's for or how hard it is to update, plan a redesign.

03What drives the price

The number of unique templates, not pages

A 60-page site with four templates can cost less than a 20-page site with fifteen. What takes design and development time is each distinct page type: home, service, location, product, case study, blog post, contact. Once a template exists, adding pages to it is cheap.

When we rebuilt MKB Company's site, one product template serves all 65 products. That's far cheaper to build and far easier to maintain than 65 individually designed pages.

Content: who writes it, and how much changes

Content is the most underestimated cost in a redesign. If your current copy is solid, migrating it is mostly mechanical. If every page needs rewriting, someone has to interview your team, write, edit and get approvals, and that's real time whether it's yours or a copywriter's. Photography works the same way: real photos of your team and work cost money and beat stock every time.

Migration and SEO protection

Keeping your search traffic means inventorying every URL that matters, mapping redirects, carrying over titles, metadata and structured data, and checking everything after launch. On a small site it's a modest piece of work. On a large one it's a project in its own right. Skipping it is the most expensive saving you can make. Our migration checklist shows what's involved.

Integrations and features

Forms that route to a CRM, booking systems, payment processing, product catalogs, member areas, search, document libraries. Each integration is design, development and testing time, and some carry ongoing license fees.

Platform and editing experience

Moving platforms adds work. So does building an editing experience your team can actually use without breaking the design. The more people who'll edit the site, the more it's worth investing here, because every awkward edit costs time for years.

Brand work

If the redesign comes with a new logo, color palette or messaging, that's a separate body of work with its own timeline. It's often worth doing first, so the website isn't designed around a brand that's about to change.

04What a good quote should include

Before you compare prices, check that each quote covers the same things:

• Discovery: goals, audience, analytics review and a content plan
• A sitemap and the list of page templates
• Design for desktop and mobile, with a set number of revision rounds
• Development and testing on current browsers and devices
• Content migration, and who writes new content
• A URL inventory and redirect map
• Basic on-page SEO: titles, descriptions, headings, structured data
• Accessibility basics, such as color contrast, alt text and keyboard navigation
• Analytics and conversion tracking
• Training for the people who'll edit the site
• Post-launch support for a defined period
• Clear ownership of the domain, hosting, code and content

A low quote often looks low because two or three of those are missing. Ask directly.

05Hidden and ongoing costs

The project fee isn't the whole bill. Plan for:

• Your team's time gathering content, reviewing designs and approving pages
• Licenses and subscriptions, such as premium plugins, fonts, booking or form tools
• Hosting and maintenance after launch, which we break down in website maintenance costs
• Ongoing content and SEO, if growth is the goal and not just a new look

06Phasing a redesign to spread the cost

You don't have to do everything at once. A phased redesign often works better:

1. Phase 1, the core. The main templates and the pages that earn money: home, services, key locations, contact. Migrate everything else with redirects. This is the three-to-six-week project.
2. Phase 2, content depth. Rewrite or expand service pages, add case studies, build out location pages where there's real demand.
3. Phase 3, features and integrations. CRM sync, a resource library, booking, anything that can wait until the new site is proving itself.

Phasing has a second benefit: you learn from real visitors before spending on the extras.

07How to compare quotes

• Compare scope, not totals. Line the quotes up against the checklist above.
• Ask how many templates are included and what happens if you need another.
• Ask who writes the content and how many revision rounds you get.
• Ask about the migration plan. If nobody mentions redirects, that's a warning.
• Ask what it costs to run for the first year after launch.
• Ask who owns what at the end, including the code and your content.

08What we'd do

Start by deciding whether you need a redesign at all. Sometimes the problem is a few weak pages or a slow template, and targeted fixes cost far less. Our post on how often you should redesign your website covers the signs.

If a redesign is the right call, define the core: the templates and pages that matter most to revenue. Get those built well, migrated safely and launched. Then phase the rest. You'll spend less upfront, launch sooner and make better decisions about what comes next.

09Frequently asked questions

Is a redesign cheaper than building a new website?

Not usually by much. Most of the work is the same. A refresh that keeps your platform, structure and content is cheaper, but it won't fix structural problems.

How long does a website redesign take?

Most marketing sites take three to six weeks from kickoff to launch. Larger sites, heavy content rewrites and complex integrations take longer. Slow content approvals are the most common cause of delays.

Can we redesign in stages?

Yes. Launch the core templates and money pages first, then add content depth and features in later phases.

If you'd like a scoped estimate for your site, our web design team will walk through what you need now and what can wait.