The State of Web Design Agency Pricing: Insights from 500 RFPs

The data in this article comes from RFPs sourced for my leads newsletter for agencies in 2025.

Throughout the year, subscribers received 503 website design leads worth $37 million in potential work.

Here's what stood out.

The average project budget in 2025 was $73,000 (vs. $76K in 2024)

That was typically for a full website redesign with CMS implementation, content migration, and some custom functionality.

Pricing stayed virtually the same from 2024, indicating budgets are holding steady.

The breakdown of project budgets was:

• Under $25K: 11%

• $25K–$50K: 31%

• $50K–$100K: 38%

• $100K–$200K: 17%

• Over $200K: 4%

Nearly 60% of projects landing between $50K–$200K.

Education and government projects paid ~60% more on average than nonprofit projects

However, nonprofit projects were by far the largest category, making up 42% of all projects.

Nonprofit projects were 211 of 503 RFPs we sent (42%), and spent on average $58K for a website redesign

• The types of nonprofits we featured were typically mission-driven organizations, like: historic preservation groups, environmental foundations, rare disease research nonprofits, behavioral health providers, arts organizations.

• Budgets ranged the most widely in this category ($1,500 to $300K), but the work was some of the most meaningful we sent all year.

Government projects were 165 of 503 RFPs we sent (33%), and spent on average $91K for a website redesign

• These included: economic development authorities, transit agencies, public libraries, workforce development boards, tourism offices.

• There were almost no government projects under $25K — and most projects included multi-year support contracts.

Education projects were 33 of 503 RFPs we sent (7%), and spent on average $93K for a website redesign

• These were universities, community colleges, and school districts looking for website redesigns in 2025.

• The work often involved complex systems — student portals, multi-school platforms, research center sites.

Everything else was 91 of 503 RFPs we sent (18%), and these projects spent on average $71K for a website redesign

• These were the projects that didn't fit neatly into the other categories: tourism boards, clean energy authorities, airports, trade associations, healthcare organizations, and the occasional private company.

• Tourism and destination marketing work shows up more than you'd expect, often government-funded but with real creative latitude for the right agency.

You probably already adjust pricing based on client type, so here's a rough guide to see if it lines up with what you're doing: whatever you charge for nonprofit work, consider charging ~60% more for government and education, and ~20% more for everything else.

Half of all projects required accessibility compliance

49% of projects mentioned WCAG, ADA, or accessibility requirements.

This is likely driven by a rule change: in April 2024, the Department of Justice finalized new regulations requiring state and local governments to make their websites meet WCAG 2.1 Level AA standards by April 2026 or 2027 (depending on size). Public colleges and universities face the same deadline.

Given that government and education made up 40% of our RFPs, the spike makes sense — these organizations are now on the clock.

Multilingual support is following a similar pattern. 9% of projects requested it — usually English/Spanish — and those projects averaged $83K, about 27% more than non-multilingual projects.

Based on our data, multilingual projects paid about $17K more on average. Accessibility added about $4K.

"Accessibility went from 'nice to have' to 'legal requirement' for many clients after the wave of ADA lawsuits. WCAG compliance audits are now a standard part of most web projects, and I'm seeing accessibility budgets of $2,500-$5,000+ as standalone services." — Dawnena Key, SonZo AI

"Clients are now proactively asking about accessibility and even specifying the level of compliance in their requirements. It's easier to build it right from the start than retrofit it later." — Joshua, Radish

Projects mentioning AI increased 500% (and paid 30% more)

AI mentions jumped from 1% of projects in 2024 to 6% in 2025.

Projects that mentioned AI features averaged $94K — about 30% higher than projects without AI ($72K).

The breakdown of what AI features were most asked for (some projects mentioned multiple):

• General "AI integration": 45%

• Chatbots: 42%

• SEO/LLM optimization: 29% (making content discoverable by AI search tools like ChatGPT)

• AI-powered search: 19%

The demand for AI will undoubtedly only increase, so it's a great indication that making chatbot integrations and LLM optimization standard upsells to all your proposals would be a big win in 2026.

"AI demand exploded in 2025. Nearly every client conversation now includes AI. The biggest shift I saw was clients moving from 'should we use AI?' to 'how fast can you build it?' Pricing for AI projects ranges significantly — I'm seeing $5,000-$15,000 for custom chatbots and $7,500+ for RAG/document Q&A systems." — Dawnena Key, SonZo AI

"Most clients weren't asking for 'AI features' in the abstract — but most specifically wanted GEO / AI-focused SEO, with the goal of ranking better in AI-powered search results and assistants." — Irina Shvaya, ESEOSPACE

Median budget by platform

• WordPress: 195 projects, $50K median

• Drupal: 46 projects, $80K median

• Squarespace: 11 projects, $35K median

• Webflow: 2 projects, $23K median

(The rest of the projects didn't request a specific platform or were open to recommendations.)

Q4 had the most projects and the most money

Similarly to last year, Q4 had 23% more leads than average (up from 21% in 2024). As organizations get closer to year-end, they spend remaining budgets and lead volume picks up. Good reminder to plan your availability accordingly.

• Q1: 104 projects, $7.5M total

• Q2: 126 projects, $7.7M total

• Q3: 123 projects, $8.3M total

• Q4: 145 projects, $10.2M total – 23% higher

"CH Web Agency was able to pursue and win a quasi-government agency project in 2025 thanks to the consolidated Folyo RFP list. The competitive process was rigorous and transparent, involving detailed proposal requirements, a Zoom session where all participants met the team and asked questions, followed by a competitive interview and presentation." — Oxana & Joe, CH Web Agency

Pricing benchmarks for 2026

• Baseline website redesign: $50K+

• Government/education premium: +60%

• Multilingual support: +$17K

• AI features: +30%

• Drupal over WordPress: +60%

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Have a great 2026.