I have had clients in the past that have gotten to the point in their company’s life cycle where they must have a custom design. They’ve grown up out of the cheap template websites or they don’t have time to keep being a designer or programmer themselves because their time is worth more. They want to get to the next level.

When a client goes out and gets multiple quotes for this process, they will not get one price for the same service. It’s like our health industry and the various articles circulating recently about how one person will pay a certain amount for a medical procedure and another person will pay 45 times more!

If the health care industry applied principles from the website side, one doctor performing one procedure might have practiced his skills on his $16.97 game of Operation before excitedly taking his first patient. But he won’t tell you that.

And then there may be another company that has a genius or two with fancy pieces of paper yet cannot coordinate and organize within their company to get it together and create quality products quickly and consistently. Your project could bounce around with geniuses for months resulting in a very hands on project for you. Your time is worth more than that.

A large number, roughly 80%, of our clients have had bad experiences just like this. They have 10 pennies to spend, yet decide to go with a cheaper option. They are gambling. 

Gambling on websites can cause many more problems than you think. I’ve personally seen clients that went with the gamble, and called me back months later with no progress made. Sometimes the design might look good, but the functionality is abysmal and hard to manage. They will have a new site that has many broken links. I’ve even seen sites where they put up the new site and never took down the old site! It’s still there!

If you’re going to take the gamble and go with the “cheaper” way of the moment, just remember, “If you think it’s expensive to hire an expert, wait until you hire an amateur.”

Natalie Nagengast