What a brand and website actually cost

What the number pays for

A project at Gobo starts at $50k and runs 8 to 15 weeks. That covers strategy, identity, design, development, a CMS your team can edit, launch and training. Nine people work in one room, so you are not paying for handoffs between a branding agency and a development shop.

Four things that move it

• Page types. Ten pages built from three templates cost less than five pages that are each their own idea.

• Content. If the copy and photos are ready, we design with them. If they are not, someone has to write and shoot them, and that is real work.

• Integrations. A store, a booking tool or a private database each adds design states and testing.

• Motion and 3D. A custom interactive moment is a small product of its own. It is worth paying for when it explains something.

How to keep it from growing

Budgets grow when the scope is vague at the start and precise at the end. Ask for a written brief and a list of what is excluded. Agree how changes get priced before the first one comes up. We put both in writing in the first two weeks.

What to bring to the first call

Three things: what the site has to do, the date it has to do it by, and the range you can spend. A range is not a negotiating tactic. It tells a studio which version of the project to propose.