A redesign is rarely cheaper than a new build, and anyone who tells you otherwise has not looked at your current site. The work is not the layout. It is deciding what to keep, rewriting what stays, moving what matters, and redirecting everything else so you do not lose the rankings you already have. Market pricing lands in the same place as new builds, which is low four figures with a freelancer, mid four to five figures with an agency, and a few hundred if you move it to a template and do the work yourself.
The genuine drivers are page count, content and integrations. Twelve pages is a different project than ninety. If your existing copy is usable, migration is mechanical. If it was written in 2016 and reads like a brochure, somebody is rewriting it and that is the real budget. Every form, booking tool, payment processor, chat widget and tracking script has to be reconnected and tested. Then there is the redirect map, which matters more than the design, because a redesign that drops old URLs without redirects can quietly erase years of search traffic in a week.
What is margin: a discovery phase that produces a strategy deck, a full rebrand attached to a site project you did not ask for, and per page content fees on pages that only needed a light edit. Also watch for quotes that exclude the redirect work, the testing and the launch day checks, then bill them as extras once you are committed. Those are not extras. They are the project. And as always, check whether the new platform lets you export your content if you ever leave.
Any redesign should include a content inventory, a redirect map, mobile first rebuild, reconnected forms and tracking, and a post launch check that nothing broke. Low four figures should add refreshed copy on your main pages, review display and on page SEO cleanup. Mid four figures and up should add custom design, new content for gaps you have, speed work and analytics configured properly. If you are paying monthly after launch, updates should be included, because the first ninety days after a redesign always surface small fixes.
Judge a redesign quote by what it says about the old site. A good vendor asks for access to your analytics and your current page list before quoting. A bad one quotes off a phone call and a look at your homepage. Ask specifically how redirects are handled, who tests forms after launch, and whether search traffic is checked in the weeks after. Heights rebuilds for a $750 flat fee, then $399 a month covering unlimited updates, monthly content, monthly SEO for Google and AI search, and Google Business Profile.
| What you are buying | What it usually runs |
|---|---|
| Move to a template yourself | A few hundred, plus a lot of your time |
| Freelancer redesign, content reused | Low four figures |
| Agency redesign with new copy | Mid four to five figures |
| Enterprise style replatform | Five figures and up |
| Heights Digital | $750 build, $399 a month |
If yours is not here, ask it on the call. You will get a straight answer.
(210) 729-4008It can, and that is almost always a redirect problem rather than a design problem. If old URLs change without a redirect to the matching new page, the search equity those pages earned goes nowhere. Ask for the redirect plan in writing and check your traffic weekly for the first month after launch.
If the site loads fast, works on a phone, and the content is accurate and findable, you probably need content and search work, not a redesign. If it is slow, hard to edit, broken on mobile, or you dread sending people to it, rebuilding is usually cheaper than patching it for another two years.
Send the site over. We will tell you what is broken, what you could rank for, and whether AI search knows you exist. No charge and no pitch deck.
