Probably not the opinion you're looking for, but I can give you a bit more insight from our end of things.
First, a brief context - the site we offer are all built on the same platform. This platform has nothing templated except the dashboard, but it's fairly automotive-specific in the sense that many of the function and "blocks" we've developed are all built around inventory and other dealership-specific things. We offer websites that fall into the price category you've stated so I may be able to shed a bit of light on the situation.
This is the only place we really deviate from what you initially explained. We custom-tailor a design from scratch for each client unless they specifically request a theme someone else has. That's only a difference in the initial setup though, so shouldn't affect the rest of the question.
When it comes to Automotive websites, there are a few extra costs involved in the process. It's not $1000 worth of costs obviously, but it's more than just hosting.
Hosting - anywhere from $5 a month to $65 a month depending on traffic numbers. This cost is doubled because we would setup a redundant copy of the site that clones everything in the event of any downtime we have a full-failover as opposed to just a static failover that mimics the site.
DMS Integration - most DMS integration for vendors is done through a third party like HomeNet (especially if the client is using a Reynolds system) and there's a per-rooftop cost for this as well.
VIN Decoding - everyone has different costs for this depending on how much data you ask for, but we pay per website for this data.
Inventory Photos - believe it or not, we're still paying per website for all stock photos for new and Used Inventory. This includes exterior and interior shots and is not as cheap as you would think.
Inventory Videos - we integrate with a video provider so the platform automatically generates a video for any vehicle with 5 or more photos. It was requested by many clients so it's there, but we pay to resell this service.
Backups - Personal storage for backing up your home is cheap, but corporate backup is a whole different ballgame. I need servers that can handle high network speeds and hard drive write speeds so I can backup an entire website in a short period of time in order to not tax the server for longer than a few moments.
Custom Requests / Support - this may not apply to all vendors, but a significant portion of our costs ends up being support hours. Some custom work falls into a paid category, but items that may help all clients or platform enhancements get rolled into the monthly fee and I haven't had a single month go by yet where we haven't rolled out dashboard enhancements, new widget options, SEO updates or new utilities for the clients to manage their inventory.
Reporting - as much as this seems automated, there is still some human consolidation required for good reports. Depending on what reports you're getting, this can take over an hour per website.
Anything above and beyond this is usually charged out as a separate package, but these are the core costs on our end.
I wish a $750 website charge made us $740 in profit, but it simply doesn't add up that way when all of OUR vendors are charging us as well. That said, there's certainly profits in the price because our business model is entirely different than that of a website development studio. As a matter of fact, we've been discussing offering our platform under that pricing model as well because we're not opposed to it. The issue I have with that pricing model is that I have to charge the client for each upgrade to the platform or bundle a certain number of them every so often. As mentioned before, we update the platform every week - sometimes it's security or SEO changes I would consider mission critical.
I won't get into the value of a company that knows the automotive industry beyond mentioning that we have twice now tried to make a website that did not adhere to standard automotive website practices, deviated entirely from the herd and made it eCommerced based, retail centric or some other strategy. While all other sites switching from X to the new platform see a minimum 40% increase in organic traffic over 3 months, both of these sites saw between -20% and -30%. It's not a perfect science by any means, but the automotive-specific website themes we developed perform well above and beyond the generic or retail-centric ones we have tried.
Long story short, there are more than standard costs associated with a dealership's website.
If you want to do it on the cheap, use Wordpress with an Inventory plugin and a solid theme. You won't lose as bad on the SEO front and you'll save a fortune. Just make sure your website provider understands inventory integration and lead submissions. Also, don't pay $20,000 for a website you could have paid $1000 a month for - you'll have to redevelop at least a portion within 20 months or you'll fall behind the curve and then your cost will continually stay above that of a provider.
