Website maintenance typically costs $150-350/month for hosting, security, backups, updates, and monitoring. Add $300-1,500/month if you're actively creating content and updating products. That's $1,800-21,000 per year. Budget for maintenance as part of your total cost of ownership. Prevention is much cheaper than fixing a hacked or broken site.
The most common mistakes are being too vague about what you want, not including a budget range, setting unrealistic timelines, sending to too many agencies (making evaluation overwhelming), using the RFP just to price shop, not explaining how you'll evaluate proposals, and forgetting to mention required integrations with other business systems.
Even if you have a preferred agency, an RFP can be useful. It forces you to clarify your goals and requirements internally. Sending it to 2-3 other qualified agencies gives you a benchmark for pricing and shows you what else is possible. It also demonstrates due diligence to stakeholders or leadership who need to approve the project.
Sayenko Design offers a free website design request for proposal template that includes all the sections covered in this guide, with sample language and real examples. The template is a customizable Word document that works for any website platform or project type. You can download it and have your RFP ready to send within an hour.
A web design RFP is a formal document that introduces your company, describes your project, and asks agencies to submit a proposal for how they would handle it. It's a professional way to gather information from multiple vendors so you can compare approaches, experience, and pricing fairly.
The cheapest options are DIY platforms like Wix, Squarespace, or WordPress.com ($10-30/month). You can build a basic site yourself for a fraction of the cost of a website design from a professional. The trade-off: limited customization, limited features, limited ability to integrate other tools, and you’re doing all the work yourself. For a business, cheap websites often cost more in lost opportunity and frustration than professional websites. [...]
Look at whether it converts. Does it answer visitor questions? Can they find what they're looking for? Is it fast? Does it rank in search results? These metrics matter more than whether it was designed by AI or a human. A slow, confusing website built by AI is worse than a fast, clear website built by anyone. A great website uses whatever tools work - human or artificial. [...]
Not necessarily. Adding AI features makes sense if you're already planning a redesign or if there's a specific problem you're trying to solve (like low conversion rates or SEO performance). Don't upgrade just for the sake of using AI. Focus on whether new features will actually impact your business goals.
For professionals: Figma, Webflow, Framer, and plugins in WordPress are where most of the AI innovation is happening. For DIYers: Wix, Squarespace, and Weebly all have AI builders now. For SEO and content: ChatGPT, Jasper, and specialized AI SEO tools. For analytics and optimization: Google Analytics, Semrush, and conversion rate optimization platforms with AI features.
Early AI tools had that problem. Modern AI is much better at generating variations and working with custom inputs. When a human designer is involved (which they should be), they customize the AI suggestions to make something unique. The problem isn't AI-generated sameness. The problem is using AI without human direction.