Web Design Estimate Calculator

Web Design Estimate Calculator

Are you trying to get more leads for your web design business? An estimate calculator could be the answer! Let’s have a look at how one of our cost calculators for web design services can help elevate your website and turn traffic into clients.

What is a web design price calculator?

A web design cost calculator is an advanced form that sits on your website. The form contains a series of questions that gather information from the user. The answers to these questions are then used to automatically calculate an estimated cost of the service they require. Check out our example web design estimate calculator .

Why does my web design business website need a Cost Calculator?

There are many benefits to having a cost calculator on your website, here are a few:

1. Save Time

   Dealing with enquiries and trying to get on with work at the same time can be a nightmare. This is especially true when trying to design and build websites. Having a cost calculator allows you to automatically provide estimates while you get on with doing what you do best, designing and building websites!

2. Improved Conversion Rate

   Our price calculators convert web traffic into actual enquiries far more easily than a standard contact form. This is because your users know they are going to get the information they need quickly without the need for a lengthy back and forth. A more detailed chat can come once the initial contact has been made, but the initial contact is the most important one to get.

3. Blow the Competition Away

   Having a price calculator on your web design website is going to take your website to another level. They look good, provide a great experience and show that you take your business seriously.

Web Design Pricing Estimate Calculator in detail

Take a look at our example web design pricing estimate calculator in more detail to see all of its features.

Service Selection

When your website user opens your estimate page, the first part of the estimate calculator they will see is the “Select Service” page. This is pretty self explanatory, but just to be clear, this is where they select the service that they wish to receive an estimate for.

In our example we just offer “Web Design”, but other services cam be added (SEO, logo design, branding etc..). Each service then has its own set of questions.

Question Types

There are three question types: Choice, Quantity and Text. Let’s have a look at each of these in more detail.

• Choice

  Choice questions are the most simple type of question and what we like to use for 90% of all the questions on an estimate calculator. The user is presented with a question and then has a choice of answers. Their answer is selected by clicking on their choice if using a desktop/laptop or tapping on their choice if using a touch device. Ideally all your questions would be choice questions. The reason for this is that they are the most user friendly, especially for users on mobile.

  

  The reason for this is that they simply have to tap the answer of their choice and they are taken through to the next question. This means that it is super easy to use and they can get their estimate ridiculously quickly.

• Quantity

  Quantity questions allow your users to increment the amount of an item that they require. We haven’t seen a need for quantity questions in our web design example, however your specific situation might require one. Take a look at an example from a different industry to get an idea of how it looks. The same result could be achieved by using a choice question. This is a matter of personal preference.

  

• Text

  Text questions are questions that allow the user to enter some text. These are useful for instances where you want your website user to provide information that wouldn’t work with a pre-set answer. One such instance of this can be a question that asks “What is the web address of your current website?”. These questions cannot have an impact on the estimate that is generated, but they are useful for gathering information.

  

Images

Answers can have an accompanying image. This is a good way of making your web design price estimator look even better. Images won’t be required in every instance, so we have the option to include them or exclude them on each specific answer.

Make it simple for your users

When it comes to getting website users to submit their details into your online web design price estimator – simplicity is key. The simpler it is to use the better. That’s why we have added in some handy “More info” abilities where it is not completely obvious what your question or answers mean, or if more info is required to help the user understand and make the correct selection. We have created 2 types of “More info”. These are a “slideover” to add supplementary information to go with the question. And a more info dropdown to give more information to a specific answer. Let’s have a look at these in more detail.

More info slideover for question

Sometimes you will want to have a question that requires a longer amount of text or an image (or both) to help you describe or explain exactly what you mean in the question. An example of this is shown in one of the questions for our example Web Design service.

The question “Do you have a preference what technology is used to build your website?” may be confusing for a user. As these are not necessarily familiar platforms to the average person. Because we want to keep the question as simple as possible, we don’t want to have a long description displayed with an image on the page along with the question. So instead we have a clickable link saying “I don’t know”. When the user clicks this link, the “more info” slideover is displayed, showing an explanation of what they should do if they are unsure. An image can also be included in this slide-over if required. This keeps our question page clear and simple and provides a great user experience.

More info dropdown for specific answers

Just like with questions, sometimes an answer needs more information to help the user decide if it is the correct answer to select. For these situations we have a handy dropdown to go with the answer. This can be seen in the same question as above from our web design estimate example. Under the answers WordPress, Laravel and Nuxt.js there are icons.

Clicking these icons will reveal a dropdown with more information about the option. Again, this helps your website user to decide if this is the answer they need to select without cluttering the page with too much information.

Back button

Our back button makes it simple for your users to return to previous questions if they feel they have made the wrong selection for their web design estimate. When the back button is click or tapped, the selected answer to the current question will be forgotten. But the question that you end up on (after clicking back) will have its selected answer in place still. This makes for a great user experience.

Customer details

The details page is (believe it or not) where the user enters their personal details before receiving their web design estimate. In our example we have opted to ask the user for their name and email address only. There is text to go with each input to indicate whether the field is optional or required. In our example both fields are “required” as we only ask for 2 and they are both essential. But you may wish to ask for a phone number and mark this as “optional”. The reason we would mark phone number as optional is because we don’t want to deter our users from submitting their details. Users are far more likely to leave the page altogether if they are forced to enter a phone number. However the email address is required in order to receive the web design estimate, so the user is forced to provide this if they wish to receive the estimate. If the user inputs invalid information, such as an email address that with errors, they will be shown an error message notifying them of this. They can then correct the information and re-submit their details.

Summary of answers

Below the customer details section is a summary of the answers provided.

Estimates emailed to your web design clients

Once a website user has submitted their answers, 2 emails are sent. One email is sent to the potential customer and one is sent to you, the business.

Potential web design client email

The email that is sent to your potential client contains 2 key pieces of information.

1. All of the answers provided to the online estimate calculator
2. Their estimate

Once this email is received by the potential customer they can reply to it directly to enquire further or let you know that they wish to go ahead with your estimate.

Web Design Business email (your email)

The email that is sent to you, the web design business, contains:

1. All of the answers provided by the potential customer to the online estimate calculator
2. Their estimate
3. Their details (name, email, phone number (if inputted))

Receiving this information yourself makes it quick and simple to follow up on any enquiries that don’t reply to the estimate email. For example, if you do not hear anything from a potential client, you could send them a special discount, or ask if they need anything clarifying about the estimate.

How we setup a web design estimate calculator for you

Setting up an estimate calculator for a web design business is easy, quick and painless. You contact us to let us know that you are interested in an estimate calculator. We will then ask you a series of questions to gain more information about your services and pricing. Once we have all the information required we will get to work building your web design pricing estimate calculator. We do this using our in-house built software. Once your estimate calculator is ready, we will install it on your website. You are now ready to start getting more enquiries!

How to use your web design cost estimate calculator for your business

Get your customers using your web design estimate calculator!

Once your Estimate Calculator is setup and active on your web design website, you will be able to make use of it. When potential customers land on your website, present them with a “call to action” where you have a button saying “Instant Estimate” or “Get Estimate”(we can help with this if you need it). Your website users will be far more likely to complete the estimate calculator form as opposed to a regular contact form. So when they click on your “call to action” button, they will be taken to your Estimate page. Here they will answer the pre-set questions, then enter their details. Importantly they will also enter their email address. They then submit the instant estimate.

Automatically calculate their estimate

Behind the scenes, their answers to the questions are handled by your estimate calculator, and an estimate is generated. This estimate is then sent to the website user along with the answers to the questions that they submitted. An email is also sent to you (the web design business owner) with the details of the estimate. The website user can now reply to the estimate to quickly express their desire to go ahead with the service, or they can just as easily reply with any queries they may have.

Follow up on enquiries

If you do not hear anything from the user who submitted the estimate request, you can follow up with them, as you have their email address (this will need to be mentioned in your website’s terms and conditions). This is great because you can ask them if they have any further questions, or even negotiate a deal with them if pricing is the issue. If you did not have an estimate calculator, many of your website users may glance at your website and leave without enquiring.