A LinkedIn member posted a question in the "Answers" section, which read:

What is the average cost of developing a commercial website? (without hosting and domain name cost)

I have heard it can range from $1500 - $30,000.
What have you experienced?

As a website design agency, we are faced with this question daily. I took a few minutes to reply at the LinkedIn site and have reposted my answer here below. I think it’s an important question and something every business should consider.

Reply via Linkedin.

The secret question you are asking is, "What’s the best deal I can get, if I’m going to build a website for my business?". Don’t get me wrong, it’s a legitimate question. As the previous response stated, it depends on what you’re asking for. The range of complexity in web design is huge. Ask yourself, what do you want your website to do? What is the intended action I want a visitor to take when they visit my website? You don’t need a large-scale commercial website built using Flash if you are really just trying to sell a simple product… unless you are Sony, it’s wasted money.
If you were going to build a new house, would your first question to the builder be "What is the average cost of building a new house for my family?" We probably wouldn’t think of asking a simple question like that without first considering what your purpose for building the house is. How many rooms, is it for a family, what is the growth expected, will you need more rooms in a couple years (before you intend on building a new house) etc. Websites require no less planning then this. Sure, lots of 16 year old kids are running around building websites these days and you could get a great deal. But they are building websites… not businesses. Will your website convert on the goal you have set? I would sit down with someone who will help you think through your plan for your commercial website, not just what software you should use and how much it will cost. You could spend a ton of money and still not get the website you need, or you could spend a moderate amount and get your perfect online business. You get what you pay for these days. Not all websites are created equal. I’ve built many websites for $1500, as long as it fits the client’s needs.
Just remember, you are building a business, not a website. A website should fit snugly into your overall business objectives.
As they used to say in the days of dirt roads and horse drawn wagons… "choose your rut carefully… you’re going to be in it for the next 30 miles."

If you’re a member of LinkedIn, you can connect to me at: www.linkedin.com/in/durranijoe

Knight & Carver is widely regarded as one of the finest full-service marine facilities in the United States, with a proven specialty in the repair and refit of mega yachts. They came to us for one reason; create a professional clean look for their web presence for both the Marine and Wind Blade division.

Here are the before and after shots of the Knight & Carver website, completely designed and developed by Durrani Design. Their website can be found online at www.knightandcarver.com.

Here are the before and after shots of the IVD Research website, completely designed and developed by Durrani Design. Their website will be released shortly but you can stay tuned at www.ivdresearch.com.

Setting up your digital office can be expensive. Many new businesses fall into the trap of thinking they have to setup a complete office environment to appear legitimate to their clients. One of the major startup expenses is the office phone system. Setting up a business line from the local telephone company can cost upwards of a $100 or more with taxes and fees as well as installation costs lumped on, and that’s just for a single line. Setting up a multiple extension phone system with voicemail and fax capabilities is an entirely different investment and can end up being several hundreds of dollars in phone equipment and extension routing software.

It’s important to spend your often limited resources on useful technology and functional things that actually serve a useful purpose to your startup business. That’s where voice-over IP (VOIP) or internet based telephone systems come in. At Durrani, technology is our business, so we are always looking for ways to implement new technologies that help our business run more efficiently.

We examined several services and decided upon RingCentral.com.With RingCentral.com our basic monthly subscription gives us up to 5 configurable extensions, a unified voice and fax line, voicemail on each extension, an automated attendant (a virtual operator that greets callers and allows them to select an extension or leave voice messages) and the ability to forward incoming calls to several other numbers, such as a cell phone, in sequential order or simultaneously. The service also includes a PC application that resides on your desktop so you can answer calls (with a headset) and monitor voicemail and fax messages. Each person with an extension can completely configure their own services down to the hours they want their phone to ring and how many rings it should ring for. Take for example my extension #101. I have it setup to ring on my office desktop first, then rollover to my cell phone. If I don’t pick up the call on either my desktop or cell phone, it rolls over to my RingCentral.com voicemail. I then get an email and optional text message notifying me of the new voicemail.

The system also automatically detects incoming faxes and converts them to your choice of document format, such as a PDF, TIFF, or JPG. And the fax gets emailed to your email account. You can also setup your desktop computer to automatically send any incoming faxes directly to an office printer. Faxes can also be directly sent to an individual extension number.

Any optional toll free numbers associated to your account are completely integrated to your system. Inbound calls can be routed to any extension or office phone. We have several 800 numbers (which only run about $5 per line per month) and we have them routed to separate office phones with unique voicemail systems to take messages and deliver them to designated staff.

RingCentral.com lets you manage your office and client communications virtually from everywhere. Not only is it significantly less expensive then traditional phone systems, it’s smarter and more convenient. All for less then $50 a month.

There are many other features we won’t get into here, but you can get your own free 30 day trial by clicking the banner below. Once you try RingCentral.com you won’t look back.

Wallets, wallets and more wallets is what we were promoting and cross-promoting on the new e-Commerce site. We are responsible for the sites re-design and custom secure shopping cart development. In addition we provided all the studio photography for the famous Smaller & Smarter wallet.

Here are the before and after shots of the Walletbe Ecommerce website, completely designed and developed by Durrani Design. Their website can be found online at www.WalletBe.com.