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Key points
- Why the mockup is the best investment in your web project: Moving a pixel in Figma takes 30 seconds.
- The three levels of mockup and their prices: €150 to €300 per page
- What blows the quote up (or keeps it down): A 50-page site may have only 8 different templates.
- The process that works: 1.
- How to cut the budget without sacrificing quality: Supply your final content.
Website design, mockups only with no development, runs $1,000 to $6,000 for a small site in the US market. A single page mocked up on a marketplace averages around $199. Custom multi-template design at an agency runs $5,000 to $20,000, and enterprise work starts around $30,000.
Cost scales with fidelity, and then with the number of unique templates. This page breaks down what each level of fidelity is worth paying for, and why the page count in your brief is usually the wrong number to be quoting against.
The three levels of fidelity
Wireframes
Grey boxes. No color, no real type, no imagery. The point is to settle what goes on the page and in what order, before anyone argues about a shade of blue.
Wireframes are usually billed as a phase inside the design fee, commonly 10 to 20 percent of it, rather than sold separately. Bought standalone from a freelancer or marketplace, a set for a small site runs $200 to $1,500. Skipping them is the most expensive shortcut available, because layout decisions get made anyway, just later and more expensively.
Mid-fidelity mockups
Real hierarchy, real type sizes, placeholder imagery, still restrained on color. This is where you validate that the page works before finishing is paid for. Expect $800 to $3,000 for a small set.
High-fidelity mockups
Final visual design: type, color, imagery, spacing, states. This is what a developer builds from and what a stakeholder signs off. $1,000 to $6,000 for a straightforward site, and $5,000 to $20,000 once the template count and interaction detail rise.
For context on the whole project, a complete website in the US, design and build together, runs $5,000 to $50,000 for a small business, and template-based builds start at $300 to $2,000.
What actually drives the quote
Unique templates, not pages
A 40 page site with six distinct layouts costs less to design than a 12 page site where every page is bespoke. Count layouts. When a designer asks how many pages you have and you answer with a sitemap, you are answering a different question than the one that sets the price.
Responsive breakpoints
Desktop, tablet, and mobile are three designs, not one design resized. Some quotes cover desktop and mobile and treat tablet as interpolation. Ask which breakpoints are in scope. This routinely accounts for 30 to 40 percent of the design hours.
States and micro-interactions
Empty states, error states, loading, hover, focus, disabled buttons, form validation. A mockup set without them is not buildable without the developer inventing them, and developers invent them badly. If interaction specification is out of scope, know that before you sign, not during the build.
Brief quality
A brief with a sitemap, real copy, and reference sites cuts the revision cycle sharply. A brief that says "modern and clean" buys you rounds of exploration you will pay for. Real copy matters most. Designing around lorem ipsum and then receiving text twice as long means redesigning.
Design system versus one-off pages
If the mockups are meant to seed a component library, the work costs more and saves more later. If it is a marketing site you will replace in two years, a component system is money spent on durability you do not need.
The process that works
- Scoping. Objectives, audience, competitors, what the site has to make someone do.
- Sitemap and content inventory. What pages exist and what is on each. Before design.
- Wireframes on key templates. Approved before any visual work starts.
- Visual direction. One or two routes on the highest-stakes template, usually the home page. Pick one.
- High-fidelity mockups on the remaining templates, at the agreed breakpoints.
- Handoff. Files, spacing and type specs, exported assets, and a walkthrough with whoever is building it.
Approving the wireframe and the visual direction as two separate gates is what keeps a project from stalling at 80 percent.
Cutting the cost without cutting quality
- Design the templates, not the pages. Six layouts covers most marketing sites.
- Write the copy first, or at least an accurate draft with real lengths.
- Cut the page count for launch. Add pages later against an existing system, which is far cheaper than designing them now.
- Buy fewer breakpoints if the traffic justifies it. Check your analytics before paying for a tablet layout nobody uses.
- Supply photography and brand assets rather than paying for sourcing hours.
What you should receive
- Editable source files in the tool used, usually Figma, with the layers organized.
- All agreed breakpoints for every template.
- A specification of type scale, spacing, and color values.
- Exported assets: icons, images at the right resolutions, favicons.
- Interaction and state documentation for anything not obvious.
If any of that is not listed on the quote, it is not in the quote.
Where Design Elite fits
Design Elite works on a monthly subscription instead of a per-project quote. Prestige is 949.90 EUR excl. VAT a month, Elite is 1,399.90 EUR, and Commando is 2,099.90 EUR with no commitment or 759.90 EUR a month on a 12-month term.
For mockup work that means the design phase runs inside a plan, with unlimited revisions, and the same team stays available for the pages you add after launch. You receive the source files and full rights.
Design Elite does design, not development. If you need the site built as well as designed, you will still need a developer or a build partner, and the quote above does not cover that.
FAQ
How much does a mockup cost?
A single page mocked up through a marketplace averages around $199. A small website mocked up properly, design only with no development, runs $1,000 to $6,000. Custom multi-template design at an agency runs $5,000 to $20,000. Wireframes alone, bought standalone, run $200 to $1,500 for a small site.
How much should I charge for a web design?
Price on the number of unique templates and breakpoints, not the number of pages. A template-based build justifies $300 to $2,000, semi-custom $2,000 to $7,500, and fully custom $5,000 to $20,000. Design-only work on a small site sits at $1,000 to $6,000. State how many revision rounds and which breakpoints are included, because those two lines cause most disputes.
Is $1,500 a good price for a website?
For a template-based site with light customization and no bespoke design, yes, $1,500 is a fair market price. For a custom-designed site with original layouts across desktop and mobile, it is well below cost and you should expect a template with your logo on it. Ask specifically whether the design is original or adapted before comparing quotes at that level.
How long does a complete mockup take?
Two to four weeks for a small marketing site with four to six unique templates, assuming copy is ready and feedback comes back within a couple of days. Larger sites and design systems run six to twelve weeks. The variable that moves the timeline most is not the designer's speed, it is how long each approval round sits waiting on your side.
Do you need to mock up every page?
No. You mock up every unique layout, then the remaining pages are variations built from the same components. A 40 page site often needs six or seven designed templates. Paying to mock up all 40 is one of the most common ways a design budget gets spent on nothing.
How to mock up a website for free?
Figma's free tier, Canva, and Penpot all let you build mockups at no cost, and free UI kits give you components to start from. That works for testing an idea, showing a layout internally, or briefing a designer. What it does not give you is the judgment about hierarchy and typography that makes the difference between a layout and a design.
