It's easy to fall into the trap of thinking that the term cost applies only in the narrowest sense, to money. In fact, just as important to consider when developing a website are the other two main costs - time and effort.

In general, monetary costs come from:

• services - programming, design, hosting, domain registration
• marketing - ads, press releases, travel, conferences
• specialized software - graphics
• network and hardware - Internet connection, servers, security

When forecasting your costs it is important that you take all three into account simultaneously. While it is often appropriate, as a point of priniciple, fight the temptation to think:

I will handle everything myself because I don't want to pay for stuff I can do

because you may be surprised by how time, as the saying goes, does turn out to be money.

By way of an example, consider this simplified competitive business scenario between Mark and John who both start identical Web businesses on the same day:

The point is, protecting cost at the expense of time and effort can be fatal. In so far as there are differing shades of fatal, this lesser mistake can sometimes be as fatal as reckless overspending.