You ask three companies for a quote and get R$ 2,800, R$ 11,000 and R$ 34,000 for what looks like the same website. The gap is rarely about greed. It is about scope, technology, who writes the copy, and what happens after launch day.
This article explains where every unit of currency goes, shows realistic investment ranges for the Brazilian market, and teaches you to compare two proposals line by line.
Why quotes vary so much between agencies
Seven variables explain nearly all the difference:
- Number of unique screens. Not page count, layout count. A site with 40 blog posts has one blog layout, not forty.
- Custom design or template. An adapted template costs a fraction of a layout drawn from scratch for your brand. Both are legitimate; they are not the same delivery.
- Who writes the copy. Hand over finished text and the price drops. Ask the agency to interview you, structure the argument and write it, and that is real work.
- Technology. WordPress with a visual builder, a static site generated from React, and a custom backend have very different production costs.
- Integrations. A form that sends an email is cheap. A form that writes to your CRM, triggers automation and validates tax IDs is not.
- Performance and technical SEO. Shipping a site that passes Core Web Vitals takes work that a merely attractive site never does.
- Warranty and support. Thirty days of fixes, six months, or nothing at all? That is priced in.
Before looking at numbers, decide what format you actually need. Landing page or full website covers that choice and keeps you from buying the wrong thing done well.
Tier 1: the landing page
A landing page is a single page with a single job: generate a lead, a signup, or the sale of one specific product.
Usually included: one responsive page, a form that delivers by email or WhatsApp, analytics setup, domain configuration and publishing, basic speed work, and search title and description.
Usually excluded: blog, login area, product catalogue, a second language, photography, brand identity, and paid traffic management. Each of those is its own budget.
When the goal is conversion, structure beats decoration. Read the anatomy of a landing page that converts before approving a layout.
Tier 2: the institutional website
This is the full calling card: five to twelve screens, typically Home, About, Services, one page per core service, Portfolio, Blog and Contact.
Usually included: information architecture, design of the unique screens, a blog with an admin panel so you can publish alone, baseline technical SEO (sitemap, robots, structured data, canonical tags), a spam-protected form, and training on the panel.
Where the price climbs: a fully translated second language, a client area, a filtered catalogue, online scheduling, and ERP integration.
Tier 3: e-commerce
A store changes the nature of the project because other people money is involved. Payment gateway, shipping calculation, stock control, invoicing, return policy and a much higher security bar all enter the picture. Getting HTTPS and security headers right stops being optional.
There is also a structural cost decision: a subscription platform, which charges monthly and sometimes a percentage of sales, versus a custom build with a higher entry cost and lower recurring fees. The math flips with sales volume. A small store rarely justifies a custom build.
Tier 4: custom software
Here you are not buying a website, you are buying software: a client portal, an operations dashboard, a quote calculator, a subscription area, integration with internal systems. Pricing stops being per page and becomes per feature, estimated in hours.
Projects like this are almost always delivered in phases. If someone commits to a fixed price and a short deadline for custom software without a requirements phase, treat that as a warning.
Investment ranges in the Brazilian market
The figures below are a market estimate observed among Brazilian freelancers and agencies. They are not the result of formal research and shift with city, team seniority and real complexity. Use them to start a conversation, not as a price list.
| Scope | Estimated range | Typical timeline | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Single landing page | R$ 2,500 to R$ 8,000 | 1 to 3 weeks | Campaign, launch, one service |
| Institutional site (5 to 12 screens) | R$ 6,000 to R$ 25,000 | 4 to 10 weeks | Businesses that sell by relationship |
| E-commerce | R$ 12,000 to R$ 60,000 | 8 to 16 weeks | Direct product sales |
| Custom software | From R$ 40,000 | 3 months or more | Operations with their own rules |
The five costs almost nobody puts in the quote
The project price is only the entry fee. A website costs money to exist every month.
- Domain. A .com.br address renews yearly through Registro.br for a few dozen reais. Cheap, but if it lapses the site disappears. Turn on auto renewal and check the contact email on file.
- Hosting. From a few reais a month on shared hosting to a few hundred on dedicated or cloud. The choice affects speed and stability, not just cost. See shared hosting, VPS and cloud compared.
- SSL certificate. Free certificates such as Let's Encrypt cover most sites and renew automatically. If someone charges a lot for basic SSL, ask why.
- Maintenance. Platform and plugin updates, bug fixes, tested backups and uptime monitoring. Without it a site ages until it breaks. Here is the minimum maintenance routine.
- Copy and new content. New page text, blog articles, photography. A frozen site does not rank. If you plan to write it yourself, this copywriting guide covers most of it.
A quote broken into line items
An honest quote for an eight-screen institutional site looks like this:
| Item | Description | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Discovery | Kickoff meeting, sitemap, goal definition | R$ 1,200 |
| Copywriting | Text for 8 screens based on interviews | R$ 2,400 |
| Design | 5 unique screens, desktop and mobile | R$ 4,500 |
| Development | Build, blog with admin panel, form | R$ 5,000 |
| Technical SEO and performance | Sitemap, structured data, images, Core Web Vitals | R$ 1,500 |
| Launch and training | Domain, DNS, HTTPS, analytics, 1h training | R$ 900 |
| Project total | R$ 15,500 | |
| Recurring | Hosting and monthly maintenance | R$ 350 per month |
Your numbers may differ. What matters is that every line exists and can be argued about.
How to compare two proposals line by line
Build a spreadsheet with one column per vendor and answer, for each:
- How many unique design screens are included?
- Who writes the copy, and how many revision rounds are covered?
- Which technology, and who else can maintain it later?
- Can you publish content without depending on the vendor?
- Are there dated milestones, and what happens if they slip?
- How many layout revision rounds are included?
- What is the warranty after launch?
- Do the domain, hosting and analytics accounts sit in your name? Check who actually owns your website.
If one quote is 40% cheaper, one of those lines is usually blank. Finding out which is the whole point. How to evaluate a web design proposal goes deeper into the common traps.
Checklist before you sign
- Scope is written as verifiable items, not adjectives.
- The schedule has dates and lists what it needs from you.
- The contract states that code and content are yours after final payment.
- The domain is, or will be, registered under your company.
- You hold admin access to hosting, the panel and analytics.
- Automated backups are included and a restore has been tested.
- A monthly maintenance figure exists, even if optional.
- Nobody promised first place on Google.
With those eight settled, price stops being a risk and becomes a choice.
At ALB Seven, based in Belo Horizonte, every proposal ships with an itemised scope, dated milestones and full ownership in your name. See our work in the portfolio and get in touch for a fully itemised quote.