Budget building a professional portfolio.
A portfolio budget separates cleanly into one-off build costs — design, photography and producing each case study — and a small recurring cost for the domain and hosting. Distinguishing them matters because the first year looks expensive and every subsequent year is trivially cheap. Dividing the first-year total by the number of case studies gives a per-piece figure worth comparing against what one new client is worth.
Portfolio build and run cost
One-off = design + photography + case studies x cost each; first year = one-off + annual hosting; per case study = first year / case studies
Four to six strong ones. Reviewers rarely read past the third, so depth on a small number beats a long list, and a weak entry actively damages the impression the strong ones create.
Only in fields where visual design is the product. For most professions a good template with genuinely well-written case studies outperforms a bespoke site with thin content, at a tenth of the cost.
Mostly time rather than money — several hours each to write and lay out. The cash element is usually imagery, licensing or a screenshot tool, which is why the per-page figure defaults low.