How much does a website cost? If you’re like most therapists, you don’t have any idea. I certainly didn’t when I was a therapist!
Today I’ll provide a frame of reference for what to budget at various stages of your career.
First, let’s start with the most foundational question, in case you’re wondering:
Do you even need a therapy website for your private practice?
Short answer: If you want to grow your practice, YES.
Even with a strong word-of-mouth game, your website is the cornerstone of your marketing efforts.
Why? Clients who have been referred to you are far more inclined to reach out after they’ve visited your website and thought “Yeah, this person seems like a good fit.”
Your website establishes a connection for you before a client even makes first contact.
How much you should spend on your marketing overall each year?
I’m not here to tell you what to do with your business. But, I do know that we don’t learn about the business of private practice in grad school! So I thought some data might be useful for you.
When researching for this article I found a big range in the recommended percentage of annual revenue to spend on marketing–anywhere from 2%-10%!
The consensus is that there isn’t a “right” answer–of course– because every business is unique.
But here are some good questions to ask yourself when budgeting for marketing:
Business Stage: Are you just starting out? Or are you established and scaling your practice? When you are just starting out, you have more free time to DIY versus when your business is further along, and hiring out is more of a necessity.
Business Goals: Are you looking to increase awareness of your practice and build a caseload? How much do you actually need or want to grow? I like to ask myself this often because we are steeped in a culture of “grow grow grow” but if that’s not grounded in anything real it just causes unnecessary spending (and stress!).
Ideal Client: Where is your ideal client most likely to spend their time? Put your money towards channels and strategies that will resonate with your audience. For example, don’t spend hours making TikTok videos when your client doesn’t spend much time on social media.
“Return on Investment” (aka, are you getting something back from what you spent?): Will paying for an amazing web design or website writing allow you, for example, to get more private pay clients? It’s about weighing the potential revenue against the cost (and the cost includes time spent because when you are a business owner time is money!).
OK, let’s get into the numbers!
The “Getting Started” Website Budget: $200 or less
You’re just starting your practice. This is the “bootstrapping” stage where you don’t have much cash flowing in, so you need to keep your costs low.
Good news: Though there may not be cash, you have something else that’s really valuable…time! This is the perfect stage for DIY.
If you’re doing your own website, the best approach to make it polished is to keep it super simple. Your website does not need to be pages and pages of content. It can be a simple landing page to start!
Free resources for making a therapy website yourself:
Our Essential Guide: What Makes a Great Therapist Website?
How to DIY Your Headshots (and why you need photos of yourself on your website in case you are wondering)
The “Building Momentum” Website Budget: $500-$1000
In this stage, your caseload is growing and it’s time to upgrade your website. However, you may still have a moderate budget and it’s unlikely you’ll be able to find a web designer to do your whole website at this price point.
But fear not! In this season of your biz, a therapy website template is the perfect option.
Why?
You’ll get expertly crafted design without the price tag.
Use the advice and tools that come with your template to walk you through each step for a more refined, polished result.
Your starting point will already be top-notch instead of staring at the dreaded blank page
Our templates are specifically designed for therapists and save you time and effort trying to make your business fit into a different mold. You can personalize the design and content to align with your niche and attract your ideal clients.
Did you know we offer live support to help you build your website just the way you want it?
Book a 1:1 live support session where we can make live changes to anything you're stuck on, help with any confusing tech, make writing updates, install extra features, and more!
The “Expanding Your Reach” Website Budget: $1000-$5000
At this stage you:
Have a steady flow of client inquiries and a steady caseload, some strong referral sources, and more predictability in your annual income.
You have a good sense of what clients you want to work with and how you want to work with them.
You’d like to differentiate yourself from other providers so that clients know exactly what you’re about and feel informed and ready to work with you before they even inquire.
Enter “Semi-Custom Web Design".”
What the heck is that, you ask? Great question. It’s a process that designers made up to help people in this middle-budget range.
What does it look like? It usually starts from a website template (you can purchase one wherever you like, or sometimes the designer may have some of their own) and then you’ll work with the designer to customize it for you.
It cuts down on the time the designer would need to spend on creating a site from scratch, saving you money!
Semi-custom services may have different names such as:
Website in a Week
VIP Day
Design Day
Template Customization
The “Ready to Scale” Website Budget: $5000 and up
At this stage, you have a steady practice and predictable income and you are:
An expert in a particular niche
Looking to scale beyond 1:1 work into things like courses, speaking, workshops, consulting, etc
Or starting a group practice
When you hire a designer for a fully custom website design, why does it cost so much?
The designer is experienced with complex business needs and has invested a lot of time and money into developing those skills (just like you!).
Making a website look “simple and clean” is harder than it looks. It’s easy to just throw things on a website. It takes experience to know what to include and what to leave out.
Your designer is skilled at truly understanding your unique goals and creating a strategy to achieve them.
You will get a unique “brand strategy”– that is a color and typography (aka fonts) system that is going to be recognizable as completely your own and helps people develop a positive feeling about your business and helps to establish you as an expert.
Your unique website will help you stand out from other sites in a crowded market
I can’t speak to the practices of other studios, but I know when you work with me you also get:
All your website content written for you
SEO best practices
Guidance on marketing your practice and using your new site to meet your goals
Final Thoughts
I hope this is a helpful place for you to get started with your website journey, whether you work with me, or another shop, I want therapists at every stage to be able to have a beautiful online home for their private practice.
