Ask "how much does a website cost?" and you'll mostly get the same answer: "it depends." True — and completely unhelpful when you're trying to budget. So here's the version with real numbers in it: what it actually costs to do it yourself, what hiring it out generally runs, the costs nobody puts on the pricing page, and what we charge — straight answers, no runaround.
The short answer
- Do it yourself on a website builder: roughly $17–$50/month on the plans most small businesses pick (more for the top tiers), plus a domain — and a lot of your own hours.
- Hire a freelancer or agency: anywhere from a few hundred dollars to five figures up front, with hosting, upkeep, and changes usually billed on top.
- A custom build, then managed (what we do): a one-time build from $249, then $49/month for hosting & management — hosting, security, backups and updates handled for you, and your phone, hours and banner editable in your client portal.
Now the honest detail behind each of those numbers.
Doing it yourself: the real cost of DIY
The big builders are refreshingly public about their prices. As of this writing, Wix's plans run from $17 to $159 a month (billed for the year, paid up front), and Squarespace's from $19 to $99 a month. Add your domain — typically $10–$20 a year — and on paper a DIY website costs a few hundred dollars a year. For a hobby or a side project, that's genuinely a fine deal.
For a business, the sticker price is only the start, because the subscription doesn't build the website — you do. You learn the editor. You write every page. You pick the template, wrestle the layout onto phones, figure out the settings that help you show up on Google, and get the contact form working. That's routinely dozens of hours before launch — hours that come out of evenings or out of running your business. And the cheapest tier is rarely the one you end up on: need a feature that's locked one plan up, and the price steps up with it.
Then there's the part nobody budgets for: when something breaks, you're the support department. The builder's help team supports their tool — they won't write your pages, fix your layout, or tell you why customers aren't finding you. You're in help articles and support chats on your own time. None of that shows up on the pricing page, but it's the real cost of DIY.
Hiring it out: freelancers and agencies
The traditional route is paying a professional to build the site as a project. Quotes vary wildly because "a website" can mean a one-page template or a custom build with booking and payments — but broadly: freelancers commonly quote from a few hundred dollars to several thousand for a small-business site, and agencies from a few thousand into five figures, depending on size and custom work. You get professional results and your time back — both real advantages over DIY.
The catch is that the quote usually covers the build, and a website is not a one-time purchase. Hosting, security updates, backups, and every "can you change our hours?" after launch are typically extra — billed hourly, on a monthly retainer, or by surprise. And the service side matters just as much as the money: a website is a long-term relationship, and this is where the traditional model is weakest. Freelancers move on, get busy, or stop answering; at bigger agencies, small accounts wait in a ticket queue. Before you sign anything, ask two questions: "What does it cost after launch?" and "Who answers when something breaks — and how fast?" The answers are the difference between a website that's an asset and one that quietly rots.
The costs nobody puts on the pricing page
Whichever route you take, budget for the full picture, not just the build:
- Hosting — the always-on server your site lives on, a monthly cost for the life of the site.
- Your domain — renews every year, forever.
- Security & upkeep — updates, backups, and an SSL certificate (the padlock in the browser). Neglected sites get slow, broken, or hacked.
- Changes — new photos, updated hours, a new service page. Someone makes those, and someone gets paid to.
- Plan-tier surprises — the feature you need next year living on a more expensive tier than the one you budgeted.
This is why two "cheap" websites can cost wildly different amounts three years in — and why the only honest way to compare prices is the total cost of owning the site, not the cost of getting one.
What we charge — actual numbers
We publish our prices, because guessing games help nobody. Our pricing splits into two clear parts — a one-time build, quoted to your project, and a flat monthly price to keep it running:
- The build — from $249: a custom website designed and developed around your business, quoted to your goals, pages, and features. A focused one-page site can start at $249; larger sites are scoped individually.
- Hosting & management — $49/month: secure hosting, SSL, backups, monitoring, software and security updates, DNS, and a client portal where you update your phone, hours and banner yourself. Other changes are quoted first at $125/hour, and nothing is billed without your OK.
Bigger features — booking, payments, e-commerce, or a redesign — are quoted on top of the build, so you only pay for what you actually need. And when something breaks or needs changing, you don't file a ticket into the void — you message the team that built your site, and it gets handled. That's the part of the price that matters most three years in: professional results at numbers a small business can actually plan around, with a real person on the other end. The monthly plan is month to month, no contract.
So — how much does a website cost in 2026? A DIY builder costs a few hundred a year plus your evenings. Hiring it out costs hundreds to thousands up front, plus whatever keeping it alive turns out to cost. With us it's a custom build from $249 and a predictable $49/month that covers the rest. If you'd like an exact number for your project instead of ranges, ask us — you'll get it up front, with no surprises.
