Building a corporate website with a team in Mexico gets you the same working hours as the US, a bilingual team and competitive costs compared with agencies in your own market. As a concrete reference, at Play.Interactive a landing page starts at USD $3,500 and a custom website or web system at USD $5,000. The price isn’t driven by “the design”: it’s driven by scope, integrations, whether you migrate content without losing your rankings, and who owns the code. Below is what moves the price, what each tier should include, the costs nobody mentions in the quote and the red flags in a quote that’s too cheap.
Why two quotes for the same site look nothing alike
If you asked for three quotes and got three numbers that have nothing in common, it doesn’t mean someone is trying to rip you off (not necessarily). It means each vendor understood something different by “website.” One quoted a template with your logo. Another, a custom build. The third included migrating your content, the redirects that keep your Google rankings, and a year of maintenance.
Comparing only the total is like comparing two house prices without knowing how many bedrooms each has. The first step is getting the quotes to speak the same language.
The tiers, with our prices as a reference
| Project type | Who it’s for | From (Play.Interactive) | Typical timeline |
|---|---|---|---|
| Landing page | A campaign, product or specific service that needs a page that converts | USD $3,500 | 3 to 5 weeks |
| Custom corporate website | Companies that need to explain several services, generate leads and show up on Google and in AI | USD $5,000 | First working version in 6 to 8 weeks |
| Redesign with migration | Sites with traffic and history that need a refresh without losing rankings | USD $5,000 | 6 to 8 weeks, plus phases for large content |
| Platform or portal | Sites with users, payments, catalogs, CRM or ERP integrations | USD $5,000 | First version in 6 to 8 weeks; the rest in phases |
These are floors, not fixed prices: the final number comes from the scope. We publish them because I’d rather a client know up front whether the project fits, than find out after three calls.
What actually drives the price
Number of templates, not pages
Ten service pages with the same structure cost far less than ten different pages. You pay for each distinct design and behavior, not each URL.
Integrations
Connecting the site to your CRM, ERP, payment gateway or booking system is usually what varies most. Each integration has its own complexity, so list them in the brief.
Custom functionality
Quote builders, private areas, dashboards, search, approval flows. Anything beyond “showing information” is software development and gets priced as such.
Content and migration
Migrating hundreds of pages or articles, with their redirects so you don’t lose rankings, is its own job. If your current site has traffic, this isn’t optional: it protects what you’ve already earned on Google.
Languages
A bilingual site isn’t just translated copy: it’s routes, metadata, structured data and signals so Google shows each version in the right market.
Search visibility from day one
Pre-rendering so AI crawlers can read the content, structured data, speed, a sitemap. It costs far less to do it right from the start than to fix it later.
Support and maintenance
Monitoring, security updates and tweaks after launch. A website is a living thing; if the quote doesn’t say what happens on day 31, ask.
The costs that aren’t in the quote
On top of the build budget, add these, which almost nobody mentions on the first call:
- Hosting and domain. From basic plans to managed servers; it depends on traffic and whether there’s a backend.
- Licenses. Paid plugins, themes, fonts, form or chat tools that renew every year.
- Content. Copy, photos and video. If your team writes it, count their hours; if not, budget it separately.
- Maintenance. Updates, backups, security and small changes throughout the year.
- Scope changes. Whatever wasn’t in the brief gets quoted separately. A good brief is the best discount there is.
Red flags in a cheap quote
Cheap doesn’t always end up expensive. But these signs almost always do:
- They don’t hand over the code, domain or credentials. If the site lives in the vendor’s account, you’re a hostage. Get in writing who owns everything at the end.
- “SEO included” without saying what that means. Redirects? Structured data? Speed? Indexing? If it isn’t spelled out, it won’t get done.
- Nobody asks about your current site. If you have traffic and the proposal doesn’t explain how to migrate without losing it, you’ll start from zero on Google.
- The site depends on JavaScript to show content. It looks modern and is nearly invisible to AI crawlers. Ask them to show you what a crawler sees.
- There’s no plan for after launch. No monitoring, no updates, nobody on call if something breaks.
- A template sold as custom design. If you can find the same site with a different logo, it isn’t custom.
The question that separates good vendors from the rest
“How will we measure whether the site works?” If the answer is “you’ll love how it looks,” keep looking. The right answer talks about speed, indexing, leads and rankings.
How we quote
We start with a brief where we map goals, scope, timelines and references. Within 3 to 5 business days we deliver a detailed proposal broken down by phase, with timelines, deliverables and costs per block. The proposal is free. If the scope doesn’t fit your budget, we present up to two alternatives with adjusted scope. And if none of them works, we part ways respectfully.
If you’re a US company considering a team in Mexico, what that looks like in practice —time zone, communication, contracts— is on our nearshore web development page. If your site already exists and has traffic, see corporate website redesign or, if it runs on WordPress, WordPress migration without losing SEO. And before you request quotes, you can compare your current site against Mexico’s largest companies: in 20 seconds you’ll know whether your problem is the design or that Google and AI can’t read it.
If what you need is a system rather than a site —a client portal, an automation, a custom ERP— the numbers and the questions change; they’re in how much custom software costs. And if you want to track how you’re doing on Google and in AI on your own afterward, that’s why we built AEON42.
Frequently asked questions
It depends on scope. At Play.Interactive, a landing page starts at USD $3,500 and a custom website or web system at USD $5,000. The final price depends on the number of templates, integrations, custom functionality, content migration and post-launch support.
A premium landing page ships in 3 to 5 weeks. A corporate site or platform has its first working version in 6 to 8 weeks, and larger projects are planned in phases with incremental deliveries.
Scope by phase, number of templates, integrations, who produces the content, how existing content is migrated without losing rankings, what technical SEO is included, ownership of the code and domain, and what happens after launch: support, maintenance and response times.
Not if it’s done right. The key is a redirect map from every old URL to its new equivalent, keeping the content that already ranks, and verifying indexing after the switch. If the proposal doesn’t mention this, that’s the risk.
You get the same time zone as most of the US, a bilingual team and international-quality work at competitive costs compared with agencies in your own market. The keys are clear communication, written ownership of the code and a defined post-launch plan.