LinkfaWhat a Website Costs in Nigeria and What Drives the Price
A website in Nigeria costs anything from ₦30,000 for a landing page to over ₦20,000,000 for a custom platform, and the scope you agree decides where yours falls. TrustAm's cost guide puts landing pages at ₦30,000 to ₦100,000 and business websites at ₦100,000 to ₦300,000. Its e-commerce stores run from ₦200,000 to ₦1,000,000 or more, and custom web apps go above ₦2,000,000. Nexoristech puts a 3 to 5 page WordPress business site at ₦200,000 to ₦500,000 and an e-commerce store at ₦800,000 to ₦3,000,000, with custom platforms going past ₦20,000,000.
Why two guides price the same site differently
Both guides agree on the order. A landing page is the cheapest job and a custom application the most expensive, with stores in between. They disagree on the level, especially for stores: TrustAm starts e-commerce at ₦200,000, Nexoristech at ₦800,000.
TrustAm says its figures come from verified service providers and real bookings across 13 Nigerian cities on its platform, while Nexoristech is a development company publishing its own guide. Two "e-commerce stores" can also be very different builds. A quote only means something next to a description of what is being built.
The five things that actually move the price
How many pages, and who supplies the content
A developer who writes your copy and lays out ten pages does far more work than one who drops your finished text into a template.
Whether it is a template or built for you
A WordPress or Shopify theme with your logo on it costs a fraction of custom code. A template asks your business to fit its structure; custom code is shaped around how your business already works.
That second case is why Linkfa built a full school management system for a Nigerian university: its website plus a portal for admissions, students and records. A ready-made package would not have fitted how the school runs those processes, so the system follows the school's process instead of the school bending to the package. Most small businesses do not need that. A school with its own admissions rules does.
Whether money moves through it
A site that takes payments is a different project from a site that describes a business.
Whether people log in
User accounts and dashboards are where small projects turn into large ones. Every login screen implies password resets and security work.
Whether it has to talk to something else
An accounting package or an existing internal system needs integration work, and integration is where estimates usually slip.
The parts clients underestimate
In our website projects, clients most often underestimate content, payment integration and what happens after launch. The design is rarely the expensive part.
Content is easy to underestimate because a homepage mock-up can look finished early. As an example, an online store with eighty products needs eighty sets of photos and descriptions with prices, and somebody has to write them. If that somebody is the developer, it is billed. If it is you, plan the hours before the build starts, because a site cannot launch with placeholder text.
Payments look like a single button and are closer to a small project of their own. Connecting Paystack is the start. Each payment then has to be tested end to end, the customer needs a receipt, your records need to match what Paystack received, and a refund has to work when an order goes wrong. A quote that says "Paystack integration" without saying which of those it covers is incomplete.
A rough map of what each type of site involves
Exact figures belong in a quote, but the shape of the work is predictable.
- A one-page or brochure site: a handful of sections and a contact form, with no logins.
- A multi-page business site: service pages plus a blog. More content work than code.
- An online store: a catalogue and cart with payments, plus keeping stock accurate.
- A booking or ordering system: availability checks and a way to change a booking.
- A custom web application: accounts and dashboards, usually tied into systems you already run.
What you keep paying for after launch
A quote for building a site differs from the cost of owning one. In Linkfa's projects, clients keep paying for email subscriptions, hosting, the domain and maintenance after launch, and many come back for new features once the system is in use.
Budget for each of these as a running cost:
- The domain name, renewed every year.
- Hosting or a server, usually monthly, and higher for sites with logins or heavy traffic.
- Email addresses on your own domain.
- Maintenance, meaning security updates and backups, plus fixing what breaks.
- New features, which arrive once the business starts using the site and sees what it wants next.
A cheap build with no maintenance plan can cost more over a few years than a higher quote that includes updates and backups. Ask what happens in month thirteen.
How to read a quote before you pay
A quote you can compare is itemised. One that says "business website" next to a single total is not, and it becomes the source of every argument later. Ask for these in writing:
- What pages or screens are included, listed one by one, and what is explicitly not included.
- Who supplies the words and pictures, including product data.
- Which parts of the payment flow are covered, including receipts and refunds.
- How many rounds of changes are included.
- Where the site will be hosted, and what hosting and maintenance cost each month.
- Who owns the code and the domain when the project ends.
The last line matters most. A business that does not own its domain or code is renting its website from its developer, whatever the invoice said.
Paying in stages protects both sides
Paying everything up front leaves you with no hold if the work stops. Paying nothing until launch leaves the developer carrying the risk. A deposit to begin and the balance on delivery, with a payment in between at an agreed milestone such as a finished design, works better, as long as each stage is something you can look at and agree is done.
Where Linkfa fits
Linkfa builds custom web and mobile applications, and a project's price follows the scope agreed on a call rather than a published rate card. We have built Paystack payments into client systems, and the systems we maintain run on Docker with a deploy pipeline, so updates ship without taking the site down.
The work page shows past projects, and the software development page covers how projects run. If your site needs paid traffic once it is live, the advertising page explains how Linkfa manages Google Ads.
Book a free call with Linkfa (https://linkfa.de/talk?ref=what-a-website-costs-in-nigeria).