Why quotes differ so much
Two suppliers looking at the same brief can price very differently because they are assuming different answers to unstated questions. Understanding the variables lets you compare quotes properly and move the number deliberately.
1. How many genuinely different page types
Not how many pages — how many distinct layouts. Twenty pages using four templates is a fraction of the work of twelve pages each designed individually, and it is the single biggest lever you control.
2. Whether the content exists
Copy is the most common cause of delay on otherwise healthy projects, and design around placeholder text breaks when real words arrive. Who writes what, by when, belongs in the spec that gets quoted.
The cheapest way to reduce a website quote is to reduce the number of unique layouts, not the number of pages.
3. Integrations
A booking system, a CRM, a payment provider, a stock feed. Each is a dependency on someone else’s API and permissions, and unnamed ones are the change requests with a date on them.
4. Who needs to edit it afterwards
A site non-technical staff can safely update costs more to build than one only developers touch — and costs far less over its life, because a site you can’t update is already out of date.
5. Migration from what exists
Old URLs, old content, and old data all need mapping and redirecting. Skipping it is how a redesign loses the visibility it had, and doing it properly is real work.
6. Whether performance and accessibility are requirements
Treated as constraints from the start they cost little; retrofitted at the end they cost a great deal. Both are cheaper as design decisions than as clean-up.
Ask any supplier which of these their number assumes. The ones who can answer precisely are the ones whose quote will survive contact with the project.