Feb 14, 2025·Strategy·5 min read
The honest cost of a website rebuild
Why the 'cheap quote' from a freelancer almost always ends up costing 3x what an agency rebuild would. The full breakdown.
S
Sudewa Jayanath
Founder · Uniix Studio
Every quarter we get the same call: 'We hired a freelancer 6 months ago and now we need to rebuild it.' The quote was $2,000. The total cost of the redo, including the lost SEO and conversion lift, usually clears $30,000.
Where the hidden costs sit
It's not the redesign itself. It's the migration of broken URLs, the SEO recovery, the brand inconsistencies that need to be unlearned by the audience, and the team time spent managing a vendor who can't articulate trade-offs.
A serious rebuild prices in the operating cost — not just the build cost.
