The four costs nobody talks about

1. Conversion gap — $1,500 sites convert at 0.5-1.5% vs 3-7% for boutique sites. On a service business that's $30k-$120k/year of missed revenue at modest traffic.

2. Trust gap — buyers Google you. A cheap-looking site loses 20-40% of qualified buyers before they read a word.

3. SEO ceiling — template sites cap at certain ranking ceilings (slow load, weak schema, thin content structure).

4. Rebuild cost — most cheap sites get rebuilt within 18-24 months at 2-3x the cost of doing it right the first time.

When a cheap website is fine

Pre-revenue. Validating an idea. Side hustle generating < $50k/year. Anything where the math doesn't yet justify $10k+.

When a cheap website is the most expensive thing you'll do

Established business doing $500k+. Premium service. B2B with long sales cycles. Anything where the site is the room where the deal happens.

Related

• Website Cost Calculator Canada

• Talkerstein Websites service

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