How Much Does a Website Cost in Bundaberg?

The marketplace says web design rates in Bundaberg run at around $725, against a national average of $1,000. That's lower than the figures it gives for Ballarat ($800) and Canberra ($1,000). The local published prices fit that picture: both Bundaberg-based providers have a small site for under $1,000, while the national cost guide's band for a 5–10 page small business site in Brisbane is $2,000–$6,000.

The providers from elsewhere price closer to that band. The Sunshine Coast studio, which says it has no Bundaberg office, starts at $2,990 for five pages, and the Newcastle studio charges Bundaberg what it charges at home. Bundaberg is more than 350 km north of Brisbane, but none of that distance shows up in a quote, because a website is built and checked on a screen wherever the designer sits.

So the cheapest local price isn't automatically the best value, and the dearest out-of-town studio isn't automatically the most thorough. Compare the page count, who writes the words, what the site costs each year after the first, and whether you can leave with your files.

The Bundaberg Central designer says many of the local businesses it works with started on Facebook. That's a sensible way to begin, and most of what you've built there carries across: your photos, the way you describe your services, your hours, and the questions customers keep asking in messages.

What a website adds is a page Google can show to people who've never heard of you, an address that belongs to you, and an email address on your own domain instead of a free webmail account. We register the domain in your name for about $20 a year, connect it and set up your business email. Keep the Facebook page going and link the two both ways. Our guide on whether you need a website if you have Facebook covers when a page on its own is enough.

Page count sets our price, but a few features come up often in this region and are worth planning for:

• Tours and accommodation. Bundaberg Tourism says turtle season at Mon Repos runs from October to May, with ranger-led encounters from November to March, and it promotes reef trips to the southern Great Barrier Reef. Tour and accommodation operators need dates, prices and a clear way to book. The local $3,300 package adds bookings; we build online booking and payment systems into a site and quote them per job, or link a booking tool you already use.
• Contractors and suppliers to growers. A quote request that asks for the crop, the hectares and the location saves a phone call. Custom forms are part of our up-to-8-page package.
• Producers selling online. Our stores are $799 for up to 25 products with one payment gateway and basic order management, or $1,999 for unlimited products, several payment options, customer accounts and advanced shipping.

Whoever you choose, ask what payment processing, booking software and hosting cost on top of the build. The Sunshine Coast studio, for one, says its store prices don't include them.

We don't have clients in Bundaberg or the Wide Bay yet. Our Queensland clients include Queensland Dance & Performing Arts at Thorneside on Brisbane's Bayside, whose 12-page site has a class timetable and an online enrolment form, and M.J. Debney Plumbing & Gas, whose single-page site has a 13-photo gallery that swipes on a phone. Michael Debney wrote in his Google review: “They created the site very promptly and cost efficient.”

A Bundaberg project runs by phone and email from our Adelaide office. Queensland doesn't use daylight saving, so from the first Sunday in October to the first Sunday in April our clocks are half an hour ahead of yours, and for the rest of the year you're half an hour ahead of us. It rarely matters: you check the draft link when it suits you, send changes, and pay only once you've approved it. If you don't go ahead, you owe nothing.