This is probably the number one question we as developers get, "How much does a website cost?"

Well, before anyone can answer that, you will have to answer "what type of site do you need?"

The three general types are:
Static – site content changes once every couple of years.
Dynamic CMS – Site changes on a monthly, weekly or even daily basis.
E-Commerce – Site changes daily plus you want to sell stuff on it.
Static is the cheapest so I will go over it in detail and if its not what you had in mind give me a call and I’ll give you the other options.

Cost:
Well let’s go over the cost first because that’s what everyone wants to know about. When dealing with a static site the cost is at its minimum of all the types of sites you can have.
The main things that you have to pay for are
1) The site itself which roughly runs $200 per page on the low end with a minimum of 5 pages. So let’s say $1000 one time cost for a 5 page site. Of course if you get elaborate designs you can spend much much more.
2) Domain Name this is important $10 bucks a year and its very simple to do. Just go to yahoo.com or godaddy.com check if the name you want is available and purchase it. The developers can associate it to the appropriate hosting company, once you select a developer but this is a biggie sometimes when you have the developer purchase the name for you, they can say that they own the rights to that name.
3) And site hosting, $60.00 year reoccurring which shouldn’t begin till your site is completed and running. Site host is a service that runs your website, so when your www.name.com is typed in, your sites contents are displayed. So after all said and done, the site should come out to around $1000+ one time cost plus $70 reoccurring per year. Once again this is a rough estimate but it should give you a basic idea
What is a Static Site:
Before you consider having a site developed you should ask yourself what it is that you need the site for.
Will you try Selling things online (which would be a ecommerce) or are you just trying to inform or educate your visitor with no reoccurring updates to the site or perhaps you want to educate them and need to update the content daily, weekly or monthly (which would be a CMS Dynamic site).
If you are trying to educate the visitor and you are not expecting to update your content for the next few years Or if you just don’t want to deal with the changes but need it updated than, than a static site is for you.

For example: A dentist office might want a Static site just to inform its clients of its location or business hours or even what kind of insurance they accept.  Knowing that the text and images don’t have to change for a couple of years.
Or a landscape designer that creates new gardens and wants new pictures updated weekly but doesn’t have the know-how or the time will also opt for a static site but have the developer update the site weekly for a set price.

There are a few answers to have ready before having the static site developed. Do your homework make sure you have all your content before hiring a developer because you are not wasting his time, you are paying for it. Plus with a static site you want to minimize the times you change the content of the site because once again you are paying for it.
Here are some questions the developer might ask.
1) What resolution do you want to support, 800x600 1024x768. If I were to have a site, I would gear it towards 1024x768 because you can have more content on it and more people in today’s world have their resolutions set to it. 800x600 might be good for say an optometrist or someone that deals with people that need to see big letters on the screen, like elders, that will have their computers set to a resolution of 800x600 and if someone with a 800x600 resolution visits a site that is 1024x768, a scroll bar will appear that will allow the user to view the entire page by scrolling.
2) What colors will you use? Well, do you have a logo? Stick to those colors
3) Do you have all the images and the rights to them?
4) Do you have all the verbiage that will be displayed on the site? Go over this with a fine tooth comb because you don’t want to pay for misspelling’s or incorrect verbiage.
5) Do you have any videos that need to be displayed? If so, will they be supported on all browsers?
6) How important is speed to you? Having a site with nothing but images, will slow the site down. You can speed up the site by just reducing the DPI of the image without reducing the size.
7) Is there a possibility that the site will expand in the future to a e-commerce site?

One question to ask developer would be:
How much will it cost to have changes made to the site? For example let’s say I need the phone number changed or some text about the company. Usually the average cost is $120 per hour with a minimum of an hour.
Also ask if the site will be visible on all browsers? IE7, Firefox etc…
Also ask if they will set up the email for you, will you have control to set up new emails, view and update your billing information.

Advantages and disadvantages:
The number one disadvantage of a static site is that you are limited to the changes you make to it, unless you set up a package deal with the developer where they will update the site for you as needed it will end up costing you a lot of money.

The advantages:
1) You will have personal email.
2) You can display your work instead of explaining it over the phone.
3) The client can view your work at their convenience at their home
4) You can setup web stats where you can see how many people visit your site and from what region. This is very important if you do a lot of advertising, you can determine which methods work and which don’t.
5) Last but not least, it gives you credibility.