Why website quotes are so hard to compare
Most quotes describe the same job in different units. One designer prices by the page, another by the package, a third gives a low build price and makes it back on a monthly plan you cannot leave. A home service business owner sees three totals and picks the middle one, which is how people end up paying for a site they do not own or a "5-page website" with no service pages at all.
The fix is simple: write down what you need first, send every designer the same list, and ask them to answer each line. A designer who will not answer in writing has told you something too.
What should a website quote include?
Every quote for a home service website should state these, line by line. Copy this list into an email and send it to every designer you are talking to.
- Pages: every page by name. Home, About, Contact, a page for each service you sell, and a page for each town or area you want calls from.
- Words: who writes the text on each page, you or them, and whether it is written for the searches your customers use.
- Photos: whether they use your job photos, stock photos, or both, and who edits them.
- Phone and forms: click-to-call on every page on a phone, a short quote form, and where the form leads go (your email, your phone, a CRM).
- SEO setup: page titles and descriptions, a page per service and town, LocalBusiness schema, a sitemap submitted to Google, and your Google Business Profile linked to the site.
- Ownership: who owns the domain name, the site files and the hosting account, during the contract and after it ends.
- Hosting and monthly fees: the exact monthly amount and what it covers (hosting, updates, edits, support).
- Timeline: the date the site goes live, and what they need from you to hit it.
- Revisions: how many rounds of changes are included before launch, and what changes cost after.
- Contract: the length, the notice to cancel, and any fee for leaving.
- Platform: what it is built on (a builder like Wix or Squarespace, WordPress, or custom code), and whether you can move it later.
Free RFP checklist you can copy
An RFP (request for proposal) sounds formal, but for a small business it is just a short email. Fill in the brackets and send it as is.
"I run [business name], a [trade] business serving [towns]. I want a website that gets more calls and quote requests. Please reply with a quote that answers each line: 1) every page included, by name; 2) who writes the text; 3) the SEO setup included; 4) who owns the domain, the site and the hosting, and what happens if I cancel; 5) the build price and the monthly fee, and what the monthly fee covers; 6) the launch date; 7) revisions included; 8) contract length and notice to cancel; 9) the platform; 10) two sites you have built for home service businesses and what happened to their calls."
What questions should I ask a web designer?
Beyond the checklist, these five questions separate a designer who builds sites that get calls from one who builds sites that look nice in a portfolio:
- "Can I see a home service site you built, and what happened to its calls?" Look for numbers from Search Console or the phone, not "the client loved it".
- "What will this site rank for, and how?" A good answer names your services and towns. A vague one is "we make it SEO-friendly".
- "If I leave, what do I take with me?" The right answer is the domain and the site, or at least every word and photo.
- "What do you need from me, and by when?" Most delays come from the owner, so a designer who plans for that is a good sign.
- "What happens after launch?" Who fixes a broken form at 7 p.m. on a Friday, and what does it cost.
What a good answer to "what happened to its calls?" looks like
Every guide tells you to ask for results. Few show what a real answer looks like, so here are ours, each with where the number comes from:
- An auto body shop, 41 calls and WhatsApp messages in 27 days after a new multi-page site, from Google Search Console and Analytics. See the auto body shop case study.
- A Shelby County landscaper, from 3 to 166 organic visitors and 6 new customers, with search impressions up from 176 to 10.4K, from Search Console before and after. See the landscaping case study.
- A Louisville basement remodeler, number one in the map pack for basement remodeling and basement finishing, with 2 leads in the first two weeks, checked by hand in Google. See the remodeler case study.
That is the shape to look for: a named business type, a number, a time frame, and where the number came from. A designer who answers with "our clients love us" or a screenshot of a pretty homepage has not answered the question.
Red flags in a cheap website quote
- No page list. "Up to 5 pages" usually means no service pages, and service pages are where search calls come from.
- They register the domain in their name. If the relationship ends, your phone number on every directory points at a site you cannot touch.
- A low build price with a long contract. $0 down and $199 a month for 24 months is a $4,776 website you do not own.
- "SEO included" with no detail. Ask which of the SEO setup items above are in it.
- No live examples. Screenshots are easy. Ask for links you can open on your phone.
How to compare the quotes side by side
Put the answers in a simple table with one column per designer and one row per checklist line. Then add up the real cost over two years: the build price plus 24 months of fees. That number, next to who owns the site at the end, is the comparison that matters. A $750 build at $25 a month costs $1,350 over two years. A free build at $199 a month costs $4,776 over the same two years.
If two quotes still look the same, pick the designer whose examples get calls in a trade like yours. Our answer on what makes a good website for a home service business covers what those sites have in common.
Where Sloan's Websites fits, and where it doesn't
Here are our answers to the checklist, so you can put us in your table too. Sloan's Websites fits a home service business that wants a price it can compare, because every build is a flat fee: $750 plus $25 a month for hosting and maintenance, or $1,250 plus $75 a month with missed-call text-back and lead follow-up. Every page is named up front, with a page for each service and area you serve, Google Business Profile setup, and unlimited revisions during the build.
Sloan's Websites suits an owner who wants to see the site before paying anything, because the first step is a free 5-page preview, built by hand and emailed within 24 hours. Most sites go live in under a week. The domain, the code and the hosting account are yours, and there is no long-term contract. If you also want ongoing local SEO, the $297 a month plan includes the website build and comes with a 90-day more-calls guarantee: if calls have not gone up in 90 days, we keep working at no charge until they do.
We are not the right fit if you need a multi-location enterprise site, an online store, or a custom web app on day one. Those are custom quotes, and a larger agency may suit you better. The full list is on our pricing page.