Melbourne website design quotes vary wildly — for the same brief, we've seen $1,800 and $24,000 land in the same inbox. The range isn't agencies being greedy, it's the cost stack underneath. Four brackets cover what's on offer in Melbourne in 2026, with what each one buys.
Why Melbourne pricing is its own thing
Three forces drive Melbourne quotes higher than regional or interstate equivalents. CBD studios pay $850–$1,200 per square metre in rent. Senior designers in Melbourne agencies earn $110k–$140k. The labour market for digital talent is one of Australia's tightest, with offer rates up 18% in the last two years. A studio's overhead lands in the quote whether it's named or not.
$2,000 in Melbourne
One-page Squarespace or Wix build by a freelancer or junior. A template chosen, content dropped in, one round of changes. Five to ten business days. You get a working site. You won't get custom design, real photography, or much support after launch.
This bracket is fine for a side hustle or a brand-new business that needs to look reputable before paid traffic starts. The Landing Page Sprint sits in this bracket nationally — $2,000 flat, one page, three weeks, custom build.
$5,000 in Melbourne
Four to eight pages, Squarespace or a mid-tier Webflow build, contractor or small studio. Custom layout (not a template), basic photography brief but you provide images, conversion tracking installed. About four weeks of work.
Where the corners get cut at $5k: brand strategy (assumed to exist), copywriting (often the client writes it), post-launch support (limited to bug fixes for 30 days). Anything beyond those is the next bracket.
$10,000 in Melbourne
Eight to fifteen pages, Webflow or custom WordPress, small Melbourne studio. Custom design end-to-end, brand alignment, photography shoot included, integrations with one or two systems (CRM, booking, payment), performance budget set and tested. Six to eight weeks.
This is where the Novus Glass build sat. The right bracket for an established Melbourne SMB that needs the site to do real lifting — not just exist.
$20,000+ in Melbourne
Mid-size or boutique studio. Strategy phase upfront. Content writing included. Photography and video shoot. Multi-system integrations (CRM, marketing automation, payment, inventory). Three months minimum.
You should only be in this bracket if you have a content team or a six-figure annual ad budget that the new site has to serve. Any Melbourne agency selling this tier to a one-person business is selling you a problem.
What we charge and why it's published
Our pricing page lists actual numbers: Landing Page Sprint at $2,000, monthly retainers from $500. We publish for a reason — opaque quoting is how the Melbourne market got to a place where the same brief gets quoted from $1,800 to $24,000. The relationship to the national bracketing is in the small-business cost note.
Two questions to ask any Melbourne quote
- What's not included? If the answer is vague, the quote is missing things on purpose.
- What does month 13 look like? A studio that won't answer this is selling you the build, not the relationship.
The takeaway
Pick the Melbourne bracket where the new site can earn its build cost back in 6 to 12 months. If a $15,000 site can't do that for the business you're running, you don't need a $15,000 site yet.