How to Compare Web Design Quotes in NZ (and What the Cheap Ones Leave Out)

To compare web design quotes properly, stop comparing the totals. Rewrite each quote as the same list of line items (domain, ownership, hosting after year one, content, SEO setup, redirects from your old site, tracking, revisions, timeline and support after launch), then mark every item a supplier has not mentioned as a question to ask. A big gap between two web design quotes usually means they priced different jobs, and the line items are how you find out which ones.

That matters because anything a quote leaves out still has to be done or lived without, usually in the week after launch, when the old site’s pages stop working or the contact form turns out not to be sending anywhere.

This post is for the moment you are sitting with two or three quotes and the numbers make no sense. If you want to know what a website should cost in the first place, our web design cost guide for New Zealand covers that. Here we are only interested in making your quotes comparable.

Why Your Web Design Quotes Look So Different

Three suppliers who read the same email from you will quote three different jobs. One pictures a template with your logo on it. One pictures a custom design with copy you supply. One pictures a rebuild that carries over your search rankings and your Google Ads tracking. None of them is wrong, and none of them has necessarily told you which job they priced.

So the first task is not deciding who is cheapest. It is working out whether they quoted the same thing.

A Table for Comparing Web Design Quotes Line by Line

Put each quote next to this table and fill in what each supplier has actually written. Anything blank goes on your list of questions.

Line item	What to ask	The risk if it is not mentioned
Domain name	Whose name will the domain be registered in?	It may end up in the supplier’s name, which makes leaving hard
Site ownership	Who owns the design, code and content at handover?	Their terms decide it, so read them
Hosting	What does hosting cost from year two, and can I move the site elsewhere?	A low build price recovered through ongoing fees
Platform and licences	Are there monthly platform, theme or plugin fees, and whose account are they in?	Costs that appear on your card later
Pages	How many pages are included, and what counts as a page?	A blog, a privacy policy or a product listing may be extra
Words and images	Who writes the copy? Whose photos, and are they licensed?	You are writing it, usually at the last minute
SEO setup	Page titles, meta descriptions, sitemap, Search Console?	A site that works but was never set up to be found
Redirects	Will old page addresses redirect to the new ones?	Existing rankings and links pointing at dead pages
Tracking and forms	Is analytics and conversion tracking set up and tested? Where do form enquiries go?	Leads you cannot count, or cannot receive
Revisions	How many rounds of changes, at which stage?	Every change after the first draft is billable
Timeline	What is the timeline, and what are they waiting on from you?	A date that slips while both sides wait
After launch	Is there a period for fixing bugs? What does support cost after that?	The first problem after launch starts a new invoice

A quote that answers most of these in writing is doing you a favour, even if it is the most expensive one on the table. It is also the easiest one to compare.

Settle Ownership Before Price

Before you look at a single dollar figure, check three things. If any of them are wrong, the price does not matter.

The domain. The Domain Name Commission, which regulates .nz domains, is direct about this in its guide to managing your domain name: make sure your own name, or your company’s name, is listed as the registrant. It also says that if the registrant listed is your web developer, you need to contact your registrar to get it transferred, and that not being the registrant “can cause domain management issues when it comes time to renew your domain name or transfer providers”. You can search your domain on the DNC website to check who is listed.

My view, and one some suppliers will not enjoy: if a supplier insists on registering your domain in their own name “to make it easier”, treat that as a deal-breaker, whatever the price. Give them access to manage it. Do not give them the domain.

The design and code. Under section 21 of the Copyright Act 1994, when you commission and pay for a computer program, drawing or photograph, you are the first owner of the copyright. But subsection 4 says that applies “subject to any agreement to the contrary”, and written copy is not on that list at all. In practice, the terms and conditions attached to the quote decide who owns what. Read them before you sign, and if they are silent, ask for it in writing. (This is a plain-English reading of the Act, not legal advice.)

Our own position, as our web design pages put it, is that full ownership of the site, code, designs and accounts transfers to you on launch day. Whoever you choose, you want that sentence somewhere in the paperwork.

The accounts. Hosting, analytics, Google Search Console and any ad accounts should be in your name, with your supplier added as a user. When the relationship ends, you remove them. That is much easier than asking them to hand things back.

What Cheap Quotes Often Leave Out

The items below take real time and are invisible on launch day, which makes them the easiest to leave off a low quote. They are also what lets a new site keep what the old one built up.

Redirects From Your Old Site

If you already have a website, it has page addresses that Google knows about and other sites link to. When a new site changes those addresses, each old one needs a permanent redirect to its new equivalent. Google’s own site move guidance recommends permanent redirects such as 301s, and notes they “don’t cause a loss in PageRank”.

Redirects are a line item in almost every rebuild in our case studies. For an Akaroa jewellery and gemstone shop, that meant redirecting the previous site’s product and category URLs before launch, so that old links and search results would land on the new store from launch day (Fire and Ice case study). For a mortgage adviser replacing two sites on the same day, it meant carrying both old sites’ URLs to their new pages.

If your quote does not mention redirects and you have an existing site, ask. If a supplier is unsure what you mean, that tells you something too.

Tracking That Survives the Rebuild

Every new site needs analytics, and if you run Google Ads, it needs the conversion tracking your ads rely on. This is the item most likely to break quietly.

Trekway Shuttle came to us after its website had been rebuilt several times, and each rebuild had broken the conversion tracking its Google Ads used. Google could no longer tell which clicks became quote requests, and by the time Trekway got in touch, the ads had been paused. When we rebuilt the site, every page carried identical tracking so a future edit could not quietly break it, and the ads went back on only once a quote request was confirmed recording.

A good quote says who sets tracking up and who tests it. “Google Analytics installed” is not the same as “every form submission tested and recording”.

Forms That Go Somewhere, with the Right Notices

Ask where form enquiries will be delivered, and who will test them. Then ask about the privacy side. Principle 3 of the Privacy Act 2020 requires organisations to make sure people are aware, when their personal information is collected, of things like the purpose it is collected for and who will receive it. A privacy policy linked from your forms is the usual way sites cover that, so check it is in the quote and ask who is writing it.

Industry and Regulatory Pages

Some businesses cannot launch without specific pages. When we built sister sites for Indus Mortgages, the regulatory detail was part of the build: licence and adviser registration numbers, a disclosure statement or credit guide, a complaints process and market-specific general-advice wording. If you are in finance, health, law or another regulated field, check that each quote includes these pages and knows what goes on them. A cheap quote that assumes a standard five-page site has not priced them.

The Words

Copy is the line item most often assumed to be yours. That is fine if you know it going in. It is not fine if you find out when the designer sends a page of placeholder text and a deadline.

On “Free” Hosting and Other Bundles

Here is an opinion I would rather state plainly: hosting is never free. When a quote includes a year of free hosting, the cost is either in the build price or in year two. Neither is wrong, but you should know which one it is before you sign.

Bundles themselves are not the problem. We sell a hosting and care plan that combines hosting, updates and support, and plenty of businesses are better off paying one monthly fee than managing it themselves. The problem is a bundle you cannot leave. So ask two questions of any quote with hosting in it: what does it cost from year two, and if I want to move, will you give me a working copy of the site? If the answer to the second is no, you are renting a website, not buying one.

When the Cheap Quote Is the Right One

This is an odd thing for an agency to put in writing, but sometimes the cheapest quote is the right one.

If you are a new business with no existing site, you do not run ads, you will write your own words, and you need a handful of pages that tell people who you are and how to call you, then you do not need redirects, conversion tracking or a compliance review. Paying for them would be a waste. Pick the cheaper quote, make sure the domain and accounts are in your name, and put the savings into your Google Business Profile and asking happy customers for reviews.

The cheap quote becomes the expensive one when your situation is different: you have an old site with rankings, you run Google Ads, you are in a regulated industry, or the website is where most of your leads come from. Then every missing line item in the table above is a cost you will pay later, usually in lost enquiries rather than an invoice.

What to Send Back to Each Supplier

The fastest way to make quotes comparable is to ask every supplier the same questions, in writing. Copy this, adjust it, and send it to each of them:

Thanks for the quote. Before I decide, could you confirm the following in writing?

Whose name will the domain, hosting and analytics accounts be in?

Who owns the design, code and content once the site is paid for?

What will hosting and any platform or licence fees cost from year two, and can I move the site elsewhere?

How many pages are included, and who is writing the copy?

Will the old site’s page addresses be redirected to the new ones?

Will you set up and test analytics, conversion tracking and every form?

How many rounds of revisions are included?

What happens if something breaks in the first month after launch?

The replies will tell you as much as the quotes did. A supplier who answers clearly and quickly is showing you what working with them will be like. So is one who does not.

Start with a Brief Everyone Can Quote From

Most mismatched quotes start with a vague brief. If three suppliers each fill in the gaps differently, you get three different jobs priced. Our free website project brief template is the same structure we use to scope projects, and it covers pages, content, functionality and budget so that every supplier quotes against the same document.

If you would like a second opinion on the quotes you already have, get in touch and we will walk through what each one includes and what it leaves out.