No easy question - it's like asking "how much does a car cost?"

A lot depends on what type of site you're creating, how many aspects you handle yourself, contacts and resources you have, creative ways of keeping your overhead costs to a minimum, etc.

We launched our first website on a shoestring budget in 1999. We barely had two pennies to rub together...but we did mostly everything ourselves (web design, content production, prop building, graphics, post-production, marketing & promo).

Granted, we had an extremely unique niche with very little competition at the time, which made it somewhat easier. Our biggest expense was my time and labour.