Why is the cost of web consulting so confusing? What is the market price?

What exactly does web consulting do for you?

“We mainly provide ‘web strategy planning’, ‘website development’, and regular consulting services. Especially strategic planning is the most important and expensive part.”
Our main services are “web strategy planning”, “website production”, and “regular consulting (advisory)”. Strategic planning is the most important and can cost more than 1.5 million yen for a major company. Website production depends on the number of pages, but if it is done properly, it should cost around 300,000 to 1.3 million yen. Regular consulting includes report writing and improvement proposals, and the average monthly cost is 200,000-300,000 yen.

What should I look for when choosing a reliable web consultant?

“It is important to have a good range of responses and how much dialogue (communication) you can have with them. Make sure they can communicate their needs and share their goals.”
First, check the “scope of services” to make sure they can handle a wide range of issues that you want to discuss, such as SEO and advertising. Also, communication is essential to results. It is also important to know how much time you have available for dialogue per month, and be aware that cheaper plans may have extremely short dialogue time. Whether or not the company responds to each of your questions carefully when you inquire is also a key factor in determining a good company.

Can’t I just ask them to “leave it to me and make sales” because I don’t know much about the Web?

“Requests that are ‘left up to you’ should be avoided, as they are more likely to fail. By providing specific goals and conditions, you are more likely to get a good result.”
It is wise to avoid blanket orders, such as “just make the sales for now.” At the very least, present specific goals such as “I want the cost per customer acquisition to be within ¥0” or “I want 0 inquiries within 0 months. If it is difficult to set goals, the key to success is to find an honest partner who will work with you from there.

Web consulting services” that support corporate websites and IT. They may be influenced by the voices on the Internet and be considered “shady.

So, here is a general situation of the industry. We hope this will alleviate some of your concerns.

The description on the website is

• Technical terms make it hard to understand.
• It doesn’t have the information I want to know.
• It says “case by case” and you end up having to inquire.

Often, the

However, for example

• ‘About the amount of compensation (market rates, refunds, how to view fees, etc.)’
• Technical competence/level (competence/level of the person in charge and his/her area of expertise)
• What will you do for me, the scope of work (will you do what I want to do)?”
• As for “contractors,” do you prefer an individual, a large company, or is it different if it’s foreign or domestic?

I think these are the things you are concerned about.

Web Consulting Fees and Rewards

Web consulting costs are often unclear.

My services are packaged for clarity, but it is not always easy to do so, so there are many places where “consultation is required.

For example, if you look at the site

• Even an approximate estimate is not posted on the site and cannot be considered.
• Even if it is listed, the range is too wide, from 50,000 yen to 500,000 yen, to be of any use.
• Worries about whether refunds will be available, etc.

This is not uncommon. It is true that in the world of consulting, it is very difficult to determine the cost. This is because unless the web consultant has some understanding of the issues and can predict what needs to be done, he or she cannot see the time and cost involved. Our company charges a fixed fee, but we were very worried about the pricing.

From the perspective of a consulting company, the least risky thing for a consulting company is to “receive a consultation, examine the contents, and make a proposal that includes a budget. However, this is only for the convenience of the consulting company and the seller. It has nothing to do with you.

Therefore, I would like to see them put it on their website properly, and those that do are more likely to be thinking about you.

So, once again, what is the cost price of web consulting?

This is the market price, but I think it is roughly this much.

• Web consulting for a famous Japanese company F. Website production and renewal starts at 2,000,000 yen. Strategy planning and other enhancement and construction projects start at 1.5 million yen minimum. And monthly support starts at 250,000 yen minimum.
• Consulting service specialized in a specific sales model Approximate monthly consulting fee: 50,000 yen to 450,000 yen/month. (Costs for website renewal, strategic planning, etc. are not explicitly covered.
• Services offered on a small scale. Although inexpensive at around 30,000 yen per month, the content includes only “90 minutes of telephone consultation support” and “30 minutes of website update support” once per month. The website production plan is only 8 pages and costs about 300,000 yen, including smartphone support, while the larger “production fee is the market price, so consultation is required.

and some are somewhat clear, some not so much (starting at XXX million yen, because it means you don’t know how far up you’re going to go).

What does web consulting do for you?

To summarize what was said earlier,

Web Strategy Planning

It is the most important and the most difficult and therefore the most expensive.

• A major company is sure to get at least 1.5 million.
• Even for non-big companies, if you have name value, you deserve 1 to 2 million.
• Where it is not, for example, an individual would take about $500,000 for a minimun.

■Home page production cost

They may make it look cheap by passing on the cost of consulting (this is usually the case with places that offer a discount if you also include consulting), and it also depends on the number of pages. Even if you think the price is low, they may only make 10 pages.

A properly designed site nowadays requires at least 30-40 pages from the outset, and often triple-digits ( our service site had over 300 pages at its most ).

On that premise, to make it properly,

• Generally estimated from around 1.3 million yen
• You should expect to pay 300,000-400,000 yen even at the cheapest place.

(In other words, if it’s cheaper than that, the quality is usually poor or it’s passed on to the monthly cost).

■Regular consultation (advisory fee)

• A large part depends on name value. If it is a large company, be careful because the level of personnel in charge will vary with its cost.
• There are places that will take it on the cheap, but in those cases, the worst newcomer might come in.
• Average is about 200,000-300,000 yen/month.

In the traditional consulting style, one consultant can only work with about 5-6 companies under the assumption of hard work, so the number of companies is inevitably limited to this level. Personnel costs are high. Also, the lowest price starts at 30,000 yen. If there is a mechanism to make it cheaper, it is good, but if not, you should check it out.

• However, sometimes things that are normally included in the package, such as the cost of a report, are extra.
• Many of them are actually at the level of +/- analysis report agency.
• Or even consulting only on specific measures, for example SEO only (if you are looking for SEOWeb consultants, of course, that is OK).

There must be exceptions, but this is about the general situation.

How much dialogue can we have? is also important

Communication is just as important to achieve consulting results! I can say this from experience. Therefore, the most important thing to check is “how well you can communicate”.

Therefore, as mentioned earlier, if you think it is inexpensive to have “90 minutes of telephone consultation support” and “30 minutes of website update support” once a month, the maximum is 120 minutes per month, and unfortunately many cases where you can only talk for 2 hours do not work out…. This is for people who can do things on their own and only need to ask questions once in a while.

Also, can we really achieve results with a maximum of 120 minutes of interaction per month…I know you will be offended to hear me say this, but I doubt it.

Scope and technology that can be handled by web consultants

Scope of support must be confirmed.

By scope of response, we mean how wide a range of measures they can recommend to us, or how broadly they can answer our questions. Or, how broadly will they respond to our questions?

This is very important. When it comes time to open the lid.

• All I know is SEO.”
• They always suggest social ads anyway.”
• I told them when I inquired that I was interested in listing ads, but when I asked them about it, they said they didn’t know because they didn’t have any experience.”
• The contents of the proposals and reference cases are too different in scale from each other to be of any use to us.

There are not a few mismatches like this.

It would be easier to understand if the web consultant/consulting company claims to be “specialized in XXX” from the beginning, but otherwise, people may think that “web consultant = all-rounded to some extent,” and accidents such as the one described above may occur.

In fact, a solid consultant is a jack-of-all-trades, and has a network to gather behind-the-scenes knowledge of what he/she doesn’t know (I am a jack-of-all-trades myself, but I have more than 10 partners who help each other in times of need).

We recommend that you choose a consultant for this area as well. When inquiring about services, pick out what you would like to do, even at the level of what you might do, and inquire about all of it.

If everything is returned in a proper manner, it is a good company.

On the other hand, if you do not reply individually, but rather provide a rough description such as, “I believe that most of your customers’ problems can be solved by utilizing ________,” this is a danger signal.

How to Request Web Consulting

This is another difficult point.

One thing you can be sure of is that they will be able to do what you want them to do. We definitely do not want to place an order by saying, “I don’t know much about the Web, so just help us make some sales….

at least

• The unit cost per customer acquisition should be no more than XXXX yen.
• Our goal is to get X number of inquiries from the web within X months.
• The current sales flow is like this, we can change this but not this.

If you can’t, find a company that will work with you on that. If you are unable to provide such a goal, please find a company that will think about it with you. A company that says, “Let’s think about it while we work on it for now,” is a company that only thinks about getting projects.

Of course, there will be many cases that do not fit this description. But even then, I am sure that if you think about developing your ideas based on this content, it will lead to a good result. If you have any comments or other questions, please let us know through the inquiry form if you like. Of course, we will not push our company.

We hope this content will be helpful to you.