Web design for small businesses: price and 7 principles

What is the difference between a template and bespoke web design?

A template is a finished design you fill with your content. Bespoke design is drawn from scratch for your business. There’s also a third way, where AI puts the design together from your choices:

Bespoke design is the core of an agency’s offer. See what else you get in web agency.

What does web design cost?

Web design is rarely priced on its own: it’s part of the price of building the website, typically DKK 12,000–30,000 from a freelancer and DKK 35,000–90,000 from an agency for five pages. Where you land in each range depends mostly on how much of the design is made from scratch.

All amounts exclude VAT and come from our website cost calculator, where you can add pages, copywriting, a blog and booking.

Which design principles work for a small business website?

The principles that work are about making it easy for customers to understand you and get in touch:

1. Say at the top of the front page what you do, and where. One sentence, not a slogan.
2. Give each page one clear action, such as “Call us” or “Get a quote”.
3. Use your own photos. They say more about you than any colour.
4. Stick to at most two typefaces and a couple of colours from your logo.
5. Give the content room, and write short paragraphs with clear headings.
6. Design for phones first. Buttons must be easy to hit with a thumb.
7. Make sure text and background contrast well, so everyone can read it.

How do you find a web design you like?

Start with examples, not colours. It’s easier to point at something you like than to describe it:

1. Find two or three websites you like, ideally outside your own trade.
2. Note what you like about each: the colours, the photos, the calm or the buttons.
3. Dig out your logo and colours, so the design can build on them.
4. Show the examples to whoever makes the design, or give them to AI.
5. Look at the result on a phone before you decide.

In Striive you can pick a design you like, or paste the address or screenshots of a website you like. AI then builds your pages in that look.

When do you need a new web design?

You need a new web design when the website gets in customers’ way, not just because it’s a few years old. Typical signs:

• It’s hard to use on a phone.
• It no longer looks like your business, for example after a new logo or new services.
• You can’t edit it yourself, so it stands still.
• Customers call to ask about things that should be on the site.

See how to get from old to new in new website.

Can AI do web design?

Yes, for a small business website. In Striive’s AI website builder you choose your trade and a look: a design you like, or the address or screenshots of another site. AI then builds pages with your colours, your type and text about you. If you already have a website, Striive can build a new design from its content with site import.

Colours and typefaces are design values you change in one place, and the whole site follows. Changing the whole look in one move with design styles is on the way, but not ready yet.