The State of Bigger Budget Website Projects
A London college had £250,000 to develop a new website.
A California transportation planning agency anticipated spending $100,000–$200,000 over four years on website development and support.
And an international climate organization published a $125,000 ceiling for the ongoing development and maintenance of its WordPress ecosystem.
All three were accepting proposals in October.
They were among 65 website and related digital-service opportunities in our research tracker whose bidding periods closed during the month.
Here's what those projects reveal about the kinds of work organizations are commissioning, the budgets they're publishing, and what agencies need to compete.
At a glance
Our October 2026 research found:
65 website-related opportunities whose bidding periods closed
10 with verified client-stated financial figures
55 without verified client-stated financial figures
Reporting period: October 1–31, 2026
These figures cover tracked solicitations, including some related digital-service and smaller-budget work. They do not represent all website projects commissioned during October or confirm that contracts were ultimately awarded.
Who was commissioning work?
Public institutions featured prominently among the opportunities.
Cities, transit authorities, planning agencies, colleges, and school districts were seeking website development and related services.
Nonprofits, professional associations, and charitable organizations also issued substantial solicitations.
Three projects illustrate the range of work being commissioned.
£250,000 for a new college website
Capital City College in London sought a contractor to research, design, build, and launch a new website that would serve as its primary recruitment, information, and self-service platform.
The college's revised procurement notice specified £250,000 including VAT for development alone.
Hosting, software licensing, support, and maintenance were to be priced separately. The notice estimated the broader contract value at £400,000, including VAT.
The college required a new website capable of supporting its recruitment cycle, extensive content migration, and WCAG 2.2 AA accessibility requirements.
One especially revealing detail: the procurement weighted quality at 85% and price at 15%.
The college wasn't simply asking which supplier could build a website for the lowest price.
It was looking for evidence that a supplier could deliver a critical organizational platform.
Proposal deadline: October 27, 2026.
$125,000 for an existing digital ecosystem
The Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy, through C40, published an RFP with a maximum budget of US$125,000, including taxes and charges.
The organization supports a network of more than 14,000 cities and local governments.
Rather than commission a conventional redesign, it wanted a partner to maintain and improve an established WordPress ecosystem.
The work included hosting, database management, technical maintenance, new functionality, interactive tools, and ongoing development.
This was an opportunity to become a long-term technical partner, not merely complete a website and hand it over.
Proposal deadline: October 16, 2026.
$100,000–$200,000 for website development and ongoing support
California's San Joaquin Council of Governments sought a qualified firm for website design, development, migration, hosting, and ongoing support.
The agency anticipated $100,000–$200,000 for an initial four-year contract.
The first year covered implementation. The remaining three years included hosting, maintenance, and support.
The solicitation also required experience with comparable public-sector websites, an open-source CMS, accessibility, secure administration, and the ability to transfer the website to another provider.
Proposal deadline: October 15, 2026.
These projects show how different the responsibilities can be, even when the underlying service is described as website development.
What were organizations prepared to spend?
Among the ten opportunities with verified client-stated financial figures, the budgets and ceilings varied considerably.
Here are several examples:
Capital City College: £250,000 for website development, including VAT
San Joaquin Council of Governments: US$100,000–$200,000 over four years
Global Covenant of Mayors / C40: Up to US$125,000
JASS (Just Associates): Approx. US$60,000 for branding and website work combined
Landforce: US$40,000 for branding and website work
Vancouver Writers Fest: C$20,000–$30,000
City of Edgerton: Less than US$30,000 for required base scope
Columbia County Tourism: Up to US$25,000 in Year 1
Firstport: Up to £15,000, excluding VAT
These aren't interchangeable amounts.
Some cover website development alone. Others include brand strategy, several years of support, or additional services. Published ceilings also don't establish what a contract eventually costs.
But they demonstrate a meaningful range of client expectations.
For example, the Vancouver Writers Fest wanted a redesigned WordPress website with better search, event discovery, integrations, accessibility, and ticket-purchasing experiences.
Its stated budget was C$20,000–$30,000, with maintenance excluded.
Meanwhile, the City of Edgerton, Kansas wanted a website redesign and municipal code system, with a budget below $30,000 for the required base scope.
The city also requested content migration, interactive forms, searchable documents, emergency alerts, accessibility improvements, staff workflows, and analytics.
These two examples highlight an important reality: the same general category of work can carry very different scopes, technical requirements, and commercial expectations.
What were these organizations actually buying?
Across the October solicitations, several recurring needs stood out.
They wanted websites employees could manage.
CMS selection, publishing permissions, documentation, and training frequently appeared in the requirements.
They needed systems to work together.
Website assignments involved membership management, ticketing, event calendars, public records, databases, analytics, and other existing organizational systems.
They expected accessibility and security to be part of delivery.
Accessibility conformance, secure hosting, content governance, privacy, and technical reliability were frequently specified.
They were buying more than the initial build.
Many solicitations requested ongoing hosting, maintenance, support, and service arrangements alongside implementation.
These requirements help explain why website projects with superficially similar descriptions can involve substantially different amounts of work.
Even the expectations around AI varied
Two October RFPs illustrate how differently clients were approaching emerging technology.
Edgerton included search visibility in AI systems among the goals for its new municipal website.
C40, however, instructed prospective suppliers to keep AI-supported tools to an absolute minimum. Its RFP also prohibited AI-generated text and visuals and required disclosure of any AI-assisted methodology.
Both organizations were commissioning website services. But their requirements reflected different priorities.
It's a useful reminder that winning larger projects isn't simply about offering the newest technology.
It's about understanding what the client wants, what the contract requires, and whether your team can deliver accordingly.
What October tells us
The most interesting conclusion from these solicitations isn't that organizations were willing to pay substantial amounts for websites.
It's what those organizations expected their websites to accomplish.
A college needed a better recruitment platform.
An international climate network needed dependable technical infrastructure.
A regional planning agency needed a public information system it could maintain over multiple years.
A literary festival needed to make its programs and events easier to discover.
A municipality needed residents to find services, public records, and important information.
The website wasn't the entire problem.
It was one part of the solution.
For independent designers and agencies hoping to win larger projects, that distinction matters.
Moving upmarket isn't necessarily about doing more of the same work at higher prices.
It often requires demonstrating the ability to solve more complicated problems, manage greater responsibility, and support an organization beyond launch.
The opportunity is not simply to build more expensive websites. It's to become capable of solving the problems that make those websites worth paying more for.
About this report
The State of Bigger Budget Website Projects is a monthly research publication from Bigger Budget Projects.
This edition examines website and related digital-service procurements recorded in the BBP portal with proposal submission deadlines between October 1 and October 31, 2026.
This report is an account of procurement opportunities—not a complete survey of the website industry or a measurement of awarded contract spending.
Budgets are reported only where client-stated figures are available in our research. They may represent project estimates, contract ceilings, or combined service budgets, not final awards. The sample includes some adjacent services and projects below our usual $10,000 target.
