Why are websites so expensive?
The Factory Floor · Episode 24 · July 10, 2026 · 41 min
Transcript53 sections · auto-generated, so expect the odd wrong word
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the factory floor. I'm joined by Corey Haines and Zach Stevens. We are the founders of Conversion Factory and we're going to be talking about websites, marketing, all the good stuff. Um we have been loosely discussing websites and the cost-benefit analysis of websites. Um and Zach was mentioning that buying a website is like buying a house. And so I want to kind of leave it to him to intro that as like what does that mean? Um if you could maybe like tell us a story like you know, what >> Yeah, what >> [laughter] >> this it's a No, it's not weird, but it's a little bit different of a metaphor. So uh intro us to why is buying a website or get a website like a house?
>> Well, um you may you know me with analogies. >> [laughter] >> If it's not food, it's something else that's highly edible. And so we had I remember there was a client who um told us that they got their first website for six grand and it took a month. They weren't happy with it. And so this has been stewing in my mind because um and it's just an interesting comment for somebody to make. And I like trying to get into the mind of somebody who's looking to buy a service from Conversion Factory. And at the same time I get these emails from Redfin because my my wife loves looking at houses. I do too, but um >> We all do. >> I was looking at What's that? We all do. >> do. It's like a a secret addiction for
everyone. >> Yeah, I hit 27 and now my joys in life come from browsing the houses and >> [laughter] >> pretending that you could live there. >> on Redfin and Zillow. And so I was thinking about it and looking at these houses and you can set your filters and stuff for things like, you know, amount of rooms, the amount of bathrooms, um um etc. But even so, you get these houses that have a very wide range of value, even if they have the same amount of bathrooms, the same amount of bedrooms, which is what I would equate to pages on a website. It's like, I only need these this amount of pages, or I only need this amount of bathrooms and this amount of bedrooms. So, if that's the case, why is the value
between two houses that have the same features like that vastly different? And I wanted to unravel that and think about the comparative attributes with websites and houses. So, it's like I think the core premise of this is this: room and bath or bedroom and bathroom count is a very myopic view of value for a house, the same way that page count is a terrible proxy for value on a website, cuz there's a lot more than that. And I've thought through what the other things would be that you would compare, that you would invest your time into, and that's what I want to go through and talk about with you guys. >> Yeah, yeah, we can kind of dive into that a little harder. I I agree. I think that I it's tough because like page count
it's like what's on the page? You know, like >> [laughter] >> page count is like we we're kind of like trapped in this box of like it's the same as like room amount of rooms or bathrooms, where like page X amount is the cost for a page, which is a very difficult thing to like truly quantify in terms of its value and quantify in terms of it like the the actual value it's bringing to the business. Um so, maybe we can like kind of deep dive, like what about those pages makes them valuable? >> Well, I've got I've got different elements listed out, if you want to pull up our our notion doc. I have some key things that I think we could talk about with this. Uh, but to back up your point on that, uh,
so Conversion Factory has a a set price for our starter kit on new websites and then additional pages because we run a more productized service, but even with that, we would charge differently for a single page than somebody else might. So, you get this weird like it's there it there is no like universal value placed on a page. You know, like not the same way that you can put a value on a dollar or like I'm just going to say a staple like milk or or gas or something like that, but then even those tend to vary based on locale and, you know, the type of brand and other stuff, but aside from getting into the weeds on other consumer goods, focusing on websites, there's like I said, I think the I was How many did I list? I think I
had eight. I have eight elements that I would go through with the value of a website. The first one is very obvious, it's aesthetic. The design craft of the website is something that provides more value. The same way that on a house, a you know, something that has a more architecturally interesting build or, you know, a unique room layout or even things that are very detail-oriented like if you go to a house that has a very well-done doorway, like that's just a doorway, you immediately have a greater sense of value in that house. And the same thing would be applied to things like a button on a on a website, you know, like if I grab a door handle and it feels really janky and like it's made of tin, it's going to snap. I'm not
going to have the same kind of appreciation for it. In the same way that if I hover over a button on a website and it has some kind of thought and intentionality put behind it, I'm going to perceive that it is of a higher value. So, the first one that is This is not something that you can necessarily quantify the way that you could the total count of rooms or bathrooms, but aesthetic brings value. And it's also something that I think incurs time cost as well, but worth it. Right? The same way that choosing these very specific uh not even decorations, just like the actual build of your material and rooms incurs time, but also increases value. >> Yeah, it's interesting. I was when you were when you um initially like posted
some of your thoughts and sent some of your like notes on this comparison of buying a house and buying a website, my first thought was a friend of mine who had bought a house in like a development area where they're like they're not uh like prefab homes or anything. They're like they're new builds is like kind of the phrase, which is like 10 to 20 to 50 like brand new homes that are kind of the same style all built in the same like, you know, tract all next to each other. Um and then I was talking to someone else about that same development and they were like they're crap. Like they're just built so fast. Like they're like there's no like they were priced so low because they're like saving so much
money on the quality in which they're building them. Um and it made me like think on this question deeper, which is that you know, there's just because something has a certain number of rooms or certain number of you know, square footage or whatever and even like a certain number of a a certain amount of aesthetic value doesn't quantify the functionality or the I guess the word's like power, like the ability of the site or the ability of the um the home. Like just because there's three bedrooms doesn't mean that bedroom number three is a good place to live. >> [laughter] >> You know what I'm saying? Like bedroom number three could be actual garbage.
>> [laughter] >> And the doorway, like just because you know the or the kitchen is X amount of cabinets and X square footage that the format of the actual like cabinetry and the like island and the stove, like the you know the the cabinet could open into the wrong direction and totally mess the whole thing up. >> Well, now you're getting into element two, which is functionality. But >> Well, >> [laughter] >> tell us about functionality. What How does that play into aesthetic also? >> Well, before before that I did want to hear um what Corey's take would be on this cuz so Corey launches things very fast and it um you know, Corey has frequently referred to our teams as the polishers for a lot of the stuff that you know, Corey ships
cuz Corey ships really fast but he's not a designer or someone who like it's not that he doesn't value aesthetics but he's not going to take the time to try and push it that additional 20% that is going to make it feel bespoke and intentional. So, curious Corey, what's your take on aesthetic and its value? >> Yeah, well that as you're thinking about it, I like the the translation over to houses um like I said, certain people can have different preferences for style. Like I really love Spanish architecture. Um and maybe more like Victorian even potentially. But there's certain styles that I really don't like and even if it like checked all all boxes of the specs, I'd be like, well, this is not really the type of place that I
want. And I think about it for websites because sometimes people people are looking for a really specific aesthetic. Maybe they're into the the more minimalistic, designery, dark mode, um aesthetic. And that could be even a little bit cookie-cutter. And so, no matter what you put in front of them, if it's not that, they're just going to be like, nah, it's not really what I want, not really what I'm looking for, even though the value um if that's not really like uh related to the value of the website. Like ultimately, a website is there to get you some sort of result, right? It is a a marketing asset. And so, it's not that it doesn't matter, but people do subjectively put their own value on something based on the way that it
looks and if it fits their preference. Right. >> So, it's it sounds like to you like there's you have very specific taste. And I mean, Victorian houses and Spanish architecture that's very specific very specific, you know, compared to something that's a little bit more um like post-modern and almost brutalist, right? Like that's right for you. But I would find that very interesting. You know, like the the house that you see in Joshua Tree that are very geometric and not um ornate would be the ones that like I think are very beautiful. And so, that's the interesting piece is that, you know, the subjectivity of the value regarding aesthetic is so vast. And so, when you have something like a website and if
that's something that matters to you, having someone that can actually walk through that and help you guide like they're not just going to be like the developer who's like, I'm going to make this thing cuz I like it, like the development of this group of townhomes, but I'm making something that's bespoke and crafted to suit you and your taste. Which is where I think that that's It's a it's a very difficult measure of value to pinpoint. >> [snorts] >> Yeah. And And if someone was going to build you a custom home, you would want them to have a good perspective on all the different aesthetics and styles and how to create your vision and something that fits what you have in mind without being a hodgepodge of random things.
Like they can still keep you within the guardrails of something that's going to look good even if you have some wacky ideas that don't fit the Spanish architectural style usually, right? It's not going to be this Frankenstein of styles. Um whereas, you know, you could go to a builder and they could be like, "Sure, we can have a little Spanish here. We can have a little Victorian there. We can have a little brutalist over there." And then you end up with something really ugly. >> Yeah. >> And you get the pizza with everything on it. >> Exactly. [laughter] >> So, you guys are saying that having a uh paying lowest amount of dollars to someone who's going to use a template home or a template website is not ideal?
>> It might work. I'm just saying that it's I think that it's up to you to decide whether that's a piece of value or something that you value or not, but it does have an impact on the price, you know? Like so if you want something that is bespoke, that is going to like actually speak to to visually communicate what you want people to feel about your company, then that's a measure of value that you have to take into consideration when you were looking to buy this. The same way that you would take it into consideration if you were going to have somebody build you a custom home. >> Yeah. I It hearkens me back to when I first started building websites. And I was following, you know, a bunch of people
on Twitter and just kind of like in ingratiating myself in the world of people building websites for a living. And someone had posted like "Hey, I just learned how to websites on Webflow 2 months ago and I just sold a this ex-big client on a $50,000 website using a template and I was like Oh, no. >> [laughter] >> There are bad people out there like who are and this isn't like just a general hate on templates. It's just that it it and I'm my assumption is that the company didn't realize that they were buying a template. >> Mhm. >> And that they weren't buying something bespoke and they weren't buying something that was as picked based on the aesthetic or the importance that they you know that they held.
It was completely like hey hey this is just this is what it is and he was just kind of shooting from the hip and they said yes. >> And to Zach's point earlier too, yeah I build and ship a lot of things um but I still and but like I don't try to make everything look exactly the same and I also don't work off of like a singular template like I want everything to have its own unique bespoke aesthetic and something that matches what it is and I can get it maybe 80% the way there but then I do try to go the extra mile and thank God I have some talented designers on our team who can help me go the extra mile because that last 20% is what takes it from you know a B to an A+ and that can be a big difference in value the same
way that you know you would going from a uh a nice maybe um >> modular home. >> Yeah, a nice modular home or something that still fits a specific style and maybe it has some like Spanish architecture fundamentals versus like a custom built crafts home that I like designed by someone from Spain. >> Mhm. >> Yeah. >> Aesthetic, it's a big one. But anyway, so that is one of the things I would keep in mind as you are buying a site. No different than your house, the aesthetic is something that won't show up on a spec sheet, but you know that it adds value. Element number two, I'm actually going to combine element number two with element number five. This is functionality and framework underneath.
So, this came up because my wife and I are in the process of getting new windows for our house and our house had some modifications that were made to the windows that made them not like traditional size windows. So, windows come in very specific sizes that are typically used in new construction builds unless you get something that's completely bespoke. The issue is is that you have to then make these custom windows that cost more and are more difficult to work with because there's like further lead times and all that. And this reminded me of like, you know, building in Webflow or even custom code with specific frameworks in mind. In Webflow, it was you know, everybody was shooting from the hip and then you got things like
Client-First, like Mast and Lumos, which are conventional frameworks that make it easy for somebody to come in and work with their stuff the same way that it would have been much easier for a general contractor to come into my house and get windows for us and even like retrofit them and save us a bunch of money. It's not the case. So, having that framework underneath that is adhered to, that you can easily identify and say, "Yes, they're building in Tailwind. It's like, you know, Tail or React 18 or 19, whatever it is now, but there is at least a framework that is going on here that is uh recognizable as a pattern. That's element number one as far as functionality and frameworks. Number two would be
things like, you know, the functionality of a house is stuff that's sub-structural. It's beneath the surface. It's things like the plumbing and the foundation and the electricity. And it this would be the same thing on your website based on like what you need it to do. Is this an e-commerce website? Is this meant to drive leads? If so, what is it connected to cuz there's going to be things that are outside of your your house that are connected to your sewer and your power grid. Uh, and there's going to be certain things in your website so like is it connected to specific CRMs? Is it connected to Slack? Is it connected to billing? Or like what kind of tagging and attribution do you have so that we
can actually monitor all these things and figure out if they're not working. So, if functionality or and sorry, you could even extrapolate that out to like quoting tools or calculators or real-time booking or configurators or gated libraries and membership areas. There's a whole litany of different functionalities that you could add which is becoming a little bit easier now with AI but you have to think through that entire experience and make sure that the functions are going to work. Cuz if you don't, it's the equivalent of having lights that don't turn on and toilets that don't flush. >> I think it kind of like hearkens back to your I would say one of Zach Zach's core life uh, um, frameworks.
Bad word frameworks cuz we just used framework. >> Mantra? >> Mantra, there we go. Which is that um, you know, everything is has trade-offs. And so, functionality and framework has trade-offs. Having windows that are a specific side size maybe uh, supports a specific very specific goal. And the trade-off is does that Yeah, hey, I want this window to be this exact size so I get this amount of light in this specific room. Does that support the overarching goal which is what is the house for? >> Mhm. >> And so the house you know the functionality and the framework of the house every decision that you go into you know to make about the size of the windows how well the plumbing functions how you know you're going to organize the
hallways and the doors and all this stuff all of that should be in support of the goal of the home. >> Right. >> the same as it goes for a website which is what framework are we using to build a website that should be in support of the goal of the website. So we have this conversation with clients all the time which is where should I how should I build my website? Should it be custom coded or should it be on a a website builder? And it's just like Zach's like mantra which is there's a trade-off. Do you want bespoke like everything exactly pinpointed or do you want easy build for anyone who joins your team like you know that and there there's a ton of intricacy that lies underneath all of those all those decisions
but ultimately like you need to kind of like throw all of those questions out and decide what and make sure that you're focused on the the goal of your home or the goal of your website. >> And long-term long-term trade-offs as well cuz it's not just about right now it's about a year or two down the line. Are you going to be able to can you build on top of >> this house? >> Right. >> Can you add a room on? >> Can you add a room on? Mhm. Exactly. It makes me think of we had a conversation with some folks at a conference a couple months ago who they built their website on like a custom built uh CMS that pulled from Google Docs because the person who did this thought that that would be faster and easier for
them to create pages and it achieved that goal too well because then they had literally thousands of pages that then were sort of these orphan throwaway pages that they had to end up quelling and wanted to migrate off of because um it sort of created this giant uh you know that there were so many weeds and there's all this mess everywhere. Um and so it was almost like the wrong kind of functionality for them. >> It was Yeah, people make decisions like that without analyzing the long-term effect of how you're going to build later. Just like the lady who owned my house before me made a bad decision with her custom windows.
Which >> Bad for you. But it might have been good for her, who knows. >> I don't know. Some of the other >> [laughter] >> decisions she's made with this house would make me question that. All right, element number four or sorry, element number three. Gosh, we got to move faster through these. >> I know. >> Is the buying arrangement. So I thought of this because if you own a house then you are responsible for everything and this is one of the reasons why Conversion Factory created its model was because it's a long-term partnership. Like you know, where we are supposed to be there to help you out with no matter what whatever this thing is that's on your website. You have us in your corner to help you add to it, to
refine it, to maintain it, to do whatever we can. If you buy a website outright, then it is like the responsibility becomes yours. There's no like no one else is involved. If you add a new page onto a website and it breaks or you hire like another contractor who's not the person who built the house originally and they do something to it that mucks everything up, that responsibility lies on nobody except you. So keeping that in mind, there are ways to incorporate this with your with your website because you could lease a website, you could have a maintenance program for it. You can buy it outright. The thing to assess here is the responsibility shift of if I buy this outright, I own it. And when we say you
own it, you own it. >> [laughter] >> Like it is yours. >> This goes right back to your to your mantra, which is trade-offs. There's trade-offs to this exact thing, which is Do you know, everyone says when you buy a house, you don't realize all the costs until you buy it, and then you're like, "Oh, this is bad, and I have to fix this, and you know, the the I need to repaint. I didn't even realize it. The landscaping is wrong." Like, there's all these ancillary costs that you don't think about, which kind of like reversing it back into websites is like the the new trend is like, "Hey, rent, don't buy." Just like wait on the market, wait on that stuff. And so, it's kind of the same idea with websites is
like, "Hey, it's the general consensus has always been buy, don't rent for homes. And I feel like it's kind of shifting to like, "Hey, you might need to rent depending on your situation." And the kind of the same thing is true for websites, which is if you're not at the level to take care of your site in the right way, it might be the the best decision to just rent it, or pay someone to get it up, and to continue to maintain it, and to add to it >> Yeah. >> in a rented format. >> I guess I could lump element number six in here, which would be staffing for ongoing maintenance that scales with complexity. Um because the bigger a house you have, the more ongoing help you need because you can't clean and take care of all
those rooms by yourself. And this is why people that have large houses typically have someone like a house manager or a property manager to um work with them. I would even equate this to like it's not even a house that you live in, but it's a house that you own that you expect to get some kind of value out of like one that you would rent. And in the case in that case, you hire somebody who their sole job is making sure that their prop- that property is up and running and that the renters are paying on time, that the electricity is dispatched, there's nothing wrong with the house. So, like consider that, you know, the bigger your venture on this, the more likely it is that you are going to have to outsource
some of your staffing. Now, whether that's done with things like AI tools or something else, I don't think it matters because people who buy houses like this and the same thing for people that buy websites as a investment in their business, typically are going to hand it off to somebody else so they can focus on what they are really good at. Like their job is not to manage the website and make sure that things are running smoothly, it's to do other stuff like build a product, go for the next new big marketing campaign that they are after or do sales, you know, the things that somebody else can't do. So, I would lump staffing in with that as well to the buying arrangement of are you going to have to staff up to make this thing run?
>> Yeah, I I think this kind of like maybe this um plays well into the next helmet that you have, but you know how like you go into someone's house and it's the small details that you see that are well taken care of or not well taken care of that kind of leave the full impression of what the house is about. Like hey, there's like I kind of can see some like the baseboards are a mess or there's like there's something like that weird that cabinet is the handle's broken or like it's the small details that kind of speak to the overall quality and the overall value of a home that things like staffing, like someone who's around all the time to clean, to fix, to change would resolve. That kind of leaves the
whole air of like what the home is about. Like you kind of have a preconceived notion when you go in and you see a small problem that expands across the whole home. >> It shows the seriousness that they have taken with that impression of themselves and their image and the way that people perceive them. So I think that there's that ties into aesthetic too, but like the maintenance and upkeep is the only thing like what it says is how much you care. >> [laughter] >> Yeah. And that ties into the furnishings. Tell us about number seven. >> Yeah. >> Uh we skipped one which was neighborhood, which is actually where I think Corey would be Corey would be really interested in cuz I thought of this too, you know, like if you there's
that houses that are more expensive are the ones that are in crowded areas and you know, have a high um demand and the same thing is true of websites. It's just different you're not competing for land, but you're competing for eyeballs and this comes in the form of search engine results pages, um inquiries, content, SEO, your ad strategy and it you know the site costs versus the market that you're competing in. I think also has to be taken into consideration. Like if you are going up against if you're in like a in emerging market where there's not a lot of competition, you probably aren't going to have to pay as much for a new website. But if you are going up against someone like you know, where your competition is a
Salesforce or a more enterprise like going up against like a linear or a Notion or Slack or Loom or whoever's like if there's a big swingin ding-dong competitor in your in your market, you're probably going to have to pay more for your website in order to compete head-to-head. >> Yeah, >> [clears throat] >> this reminds me of the offensive versus defensive marketing stuff where like yeah, you you got to rise to the level of your competition. And um that kind of sets the bar. Like who are your competitors? What are their What's their web presence like? How aggressive are they with their marketing? What is their design acumen? Uh you're always trying to find an edge, right? And so sure, if you're in a
uncompetitive market where maybe it's just a bit a bunch of sleepy incumbents or flailing startups, then yeah, you can get away with something that's a little bit more DIY duct-taped or um you don't have to put as much into the website per se. But yeah, if if you're in a competitive, crowded, noisy market with some high-spending incumbents and some really aggressive, flashy emergent startups challengers, then you're going to have to rise to the occasion. And um And that does say a lot, right? You you don't want to be the uh the ugly duckling of the group in the lineup when people are are doing all of their comparison shopping. And then they get to your site and they're like, "Hmm, doesn't seem as professional. Doesn't
seem as fill in the blank X, Y, and Z." >> Right. Well, I think that so ugliness could be equated to cognitive load. And if you were requiring somebody to have a high cognitive load on your site, then you were robbing them of calories and making it more difficult for them to make a decision because you are killing them slowly. So, or faster than the than your competition is. >> [laughter] [gasps] >> Yeah. Some fascinating stuff. Okay, Nick, we wanted to keep moving on to >> Yeah, yeah, do you I know we have element eight still. I think that's your last one. >> We have seven and eight. >> Oh, so you still have seven. Oh, furnishings. Okay, cool. >> Seven Well, seven's interesting because so I put furnishings as something different
than the aesthetic of the home because in thinking about it, >> [gasps] >> um furniture within a website is one of the pieces that like can really make or break your your home, right? Like if you walk into somebody's house and they have cheap furniture like imagine walking into a mansion and there's lawn chairs in the living room. You're going to be baffled. Like it's not going to make sense whatsoever. >> Or you're going to think it's baller. >> [laughter] >> Yeah, it's the You know who You know who would do that? It's some rap star, for sure. It's like, "It's my house. Got a got a Tommy Bahama chair in the living room right next to my 100-in flat screen." But you know what I mean? Like you get
weird stuff like if your if you get a weird vibe if your furniture is off. And the same thing happens in your website, but instead of chairs, tables, coffee tables, rugs, and paintings, it's photography, video, illustrations, um the copy and the contents cuz it's not the same as the design necessarily cuz it changes from page to page. But putting effort into those elements almost yields just as much value as the design and build of the home itself. Like what you pick. And if you see a house with really tasteful, well-designed furniture, you think, "Man, the person who lives here cares a lot and they got great taste. I trust them with the decisions that they have made because wow, this room is an experience
from the painting that is on the wall to the vases that are on side on their their console table, all the way down to the or to the decoration of the chairs. Even the napkins that go on their their dining room table. They care quite a bit. And I think this is one of the harder parts to realize is that that stuff is actually one of the harder things to make cuz it's the most tedious and the most time-intensive with everything else. Like cuz pages can be templated. The content on them regarding the imagery, the iconography, the illustrations, the videos, that all still has to be done in a bespoke fashion. And cohering all of that is harder than building the website. >> Yeah, it it really I think it is cuz it's the
it's the glue that like connects all the elements together. It's like the copy and the way that the text is laid out and the way that the images and illustrations and videos are all laid out and the rounding of the borders are laid out. Like everything kind of like ties together correctly. >> I would even say that like so the things that you're mentioning, I would put that as the what we talked about before which is just like the aesthetic of the home, right? It's like the wrappers around that. I would equate that to like the hallway or the floors or like, you know, the walls that everything is on. Think things like coffee tables and chairs, right? Where it's like that is you can buy off-the-shelf stuff for that, but if
you see someone's couch in their house and it looks exactly the same as somebody else's couch, you don't find it as interesting. But if it's a bespoke piece of furniture, you tend to notice it and it has a different feel to it. Same thing with a coffee table. And I would equate that to the images, videos, and stuff that are housed within the containers that are built on pages. Like does that make sense or am I Did I lose the >> You're off, dude. You're so off. >> [laughter] >> No, maybe >> about like the difference between someone who's like an interior designer versus like a staged home versus someone who has Like, you could have someone who buys a nice house and then furnishes it really poorly and it just becomes like
cluttered or tacky or >> gaudy >> Or gaudy, yeah. Or just like doesn't match the exterior of the house, either. Um And and that again does make a difference. I was thinking about this the other day because I went to a website and um they had like really, really good pop-ups, which is pretty rare. Because a lot of times when you go to a website and you see a pop-up, it's like kind of obviously this element that doesn't really match the rest of the website. And it like kind of flickers and then you know, it's just like this >> Yeah, yeah, it doesn't feel the same. It's sort of like putting a billboard in front of your house. Um And I know what this website and they had these really nice pop-ups that were
super clean. Obviously matched the rest of the site exactly. Had these really smooth transitions. And I was like, "Huh, these guys know what they're doing." Like these are this is some pretty advanced stuff cuz there were like different pop-ups for different pages. Um And that's what I think of, too, when I think of these like furnishings and these little extra features in the house that make it obvious that there was a lot of care and a lot of attention and yeah, exactly. >> Yeah, well, hey Zach, we're we're we're over time. So, can you wrap us? Um I I want to take us back to the start, which is this idea of >> Mhm. >> someone who said, you know, "The first company I worked with had a you know, it was $6,000 and it took 1
month and that kind of stuff. >> Yeah. >> You know, the the you get what you pay for that kind of thing. Um can you kind of wrap us up with kind of your final thoughts on on on this debate and the like website is like a house thing? >> [laughter] >> Yeah. So, the thing to keep in mind here is that looking at this simply from the view of page count is myopic and it's not going to help you decide what the site is actually worth if you are looking to buy one. Here's some things that I think you should ask that are better questions. What is the craft and the detail level that you are looking for? What are the functional outcomes that you are looking to get from the site regarding leaves leads conversion and clarity of your
message? What are the systems that are behind the website that you need to work and operate in order for this to be a good investment for you? Who has the ownership and responsibility of this? Is this something that you are looking to take on yourself and fully manage or are you going to need help and that could be for a multitude of reasons. Maybe you are not equipped to do this. You're not a handyman. And it it's just without a outside your remit to work on this or it's a huge project and you are going to need hands because you simply can't be in 30 different pages at once even with the help of AI. What is the competitiveness of your neighborhood? Who are you going up against because that's going to impact
what you should be spending on this. What kind of framework and documentation do you need to make this thing grow without your help or with the help of your team? And finally, what kind of assets and content are you looking to put on here and do you have the capability to furnish the site in a manner that is appropriate and commensurate with the amount of money you're looking to get return on it? I guess the biggest thing to think about with this is that there's a $6,000 website and a $30,000 website, they both have the same number of pages. And it's not the same house. Because they are completely different. >> Amen. >> Boom, mic drop. I do think that's a very good point. It It really is because
when you're when you're shopping for a house, it becomes so apparent that the price is going to be so different for every single house. And sometimes you end up buying a house uh for cheaper even though it's sort of more valuable, like you would choose it over a more expensive house. And sometimes you realize, "Oh my gosh, the house I really want is in a completely different price range than I originally expected because of all these things that I care about that I didn't realize that I originally cared about." And it's only when you go searching for the lower cost options that you realize what these differentiating factors are. And so putting a $6,000 website up against a $30,000 website up against a million-dollar
website is kind of a moot point and like it becomes obvious once you look at each of the websites. You can't just scale down to the cheapest one because what you're getting is going to be drastically different. >> Yep. >> Or compare them based on pages. Like they could all have the same amount of pages. >> Yep. >> It could be vastly different as far as why they cost that much. >> Yeah, there there are agencies in our in our same world that charge $300,000 for a website. $100,000 for a website. So you got to evaluate all the intricacies, all the details. Um either way, fantastic. I love the premise of website and house. So it's great. Um if you have questions or comments or you want to talk to us about it, feel free
to reach out. But, that's it for the factory floor. Appreciate you guys. Thanks, Corey, Zach. We're signing off. See you on the next episode. God bless.
Why page count is a terrible way to price a website, argued through the metaphor that makes the whole thing click: buying a website is like buying a house.