In 2026 a small business website costs about $200 to $600 a year if you build it yourself on a builder like Wix or Squarespace, $3,000 to $8,000 from a freelance WordPress developer, and $6,000 to $35,000 or more from an agency. Running costs add $16 to $350 a month. Most local service businesses I work with land between $3,000 and $8,000 to build, then $60 to $150 a month.
I have built websites as a freelance WordPress developer for more than ten years, over 670 projects across Fiverr, Upwork and a US agency partner, mostly for dental practices, law firms and auto service centers. The question I hear first on almost every call is “what will this cost?”, and the honest answer depends less on the size of the business than on three choices: who builds the site, who owns it afterwards, and who looks after it. This guide prices each choice line by line, adds up what you really pay over three years, and shows what should and should not be in a quote.
The Four Ways to Get a Small Business Website and What Each Costs
Every small business website is built one of four ways. The price gap between them is large, and so is the gap in what you own at the end.
| Route | Build cost | Running cost | Who owns the site | Fits |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Do it yourself on a builder (Wix, Squarespace) | Your time, plus $200 to $600 a year | $16 to $39 a month on yearly billing | You rent it; it cannot move to another platform | A new business testing an idea, a one-page presence |
| Freelance WordPress developer | $3,000 to $8,000 for 6 to 15 pages | $50 to $200 a month for hosting and care | You, fully | Local service businesses that want ownership without agency pricing |
| Boutique or specialist agency | $6,000 to $35,000 and up | $150 to $350 a month for a care plan | You, if the contract says so | Businesses that want strategy, branding and a team |
| Subscription “website as a service” | Low or no setup fee | A monthly fee for as long as the site exists | The vendor; leave and the site goes with them | Owners who want zero involvement and accept renting |
Sources: builder plans from Wix and Squarespace pricing pages (September 2026, compared in my Wix vs WordPress vs Squarespace guide); the freelancer and agency bands from GruffyGoat’s small business cost guide (updated October 2026: freelancer $1,500 to $8,000, boutique agency $6,000 to $35,000 and up, care plans $50 to $150 a month basic and $150 to $350 hands-on). The $3,000 to $8,000 freelancer band is my own and matches what I published for law firm websites and dental websites.
For a wider view, Shopify’s 2026 cost guide cites GoodFirms research in which 63% of agencies quoted between $1,000 and $15,000 for custom design and development. That is the band most small business sites fall into, whoever builds them.
What People Search When They Price a Website
Before writing this I pulled the US search volumes for the ways people phrase the question. The pattern is clear: most people ask the broad question first, then narrow it down to what it costs per month and what it costs to keep running.
| What people type into Google | Searches a month (US) |
|---|---|
| how much does a website cost | 3,200 |
| website cost | 1,700 |
| how much does it cost to make a website | 1,600 |
| how much does it cost to build a website | 1,400 |
| website design cost | 1,300 |
| website maintenance cost | 1,000 |
| website redesign cost | 800 |
| how much does a website cost per month | 500 |
| average cost of website design for small business | 450 |
| small business website cost | 300 |
Source: Ahrefs Keywords Explorer, US, October 2026. “Website maintenance cost” at 1,000 searches a month tells you something useful: plenty of owners only discover the running cost after the site is built. This guide covers both.
The Line Items in Year One
Whichever route you choose, the same handful of things make up the bill. Here is each one with a real 2026 price.
| Item | Typical 2026 price | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Domain name (.com) | $12 to $20 a year | Add $10 to $15 a year for privacy if your registrar charges for it (Elementor, 2026) |
| Hosting, shared WordPress | $2 to $4 a month at first, $8 to $18 a month at renewal | The renewal price is the real price; see my web hosting cost guide |
| Hosting, managed WordPress | $28 to $35 a month | The host handles speed, backups and updates |
| Website builder plan | $16 to $39 a month on yearly billing | Hosting included; apps and premium features extra |
| Design and build | $0 (DIY) to $3,000 to $8,000 (freelancer) to $6,000 and up (agency) | The biggest line, set by the number of distinct page designs |
| Premium theme | $40 to $80 one time | Optional on WordPress (Elementor, 2026) |
| Premium plugins | $15 to $200 a year each | Forms, booking, SEO, backups; most small sites need two or three (Elementor, 2026) |
| SSL certificate | Free | Included with almost every host and builder now |
| Copywriting | $0 if you write it, or a few hundred to a few thousand dollars | The line most often forgotten in budgets |
| Photography | Free (your phone) to hundreds or thousands | Real photos of your team and premises beat stock every time |
Two lines decide most of the total: the build and the words. A developer can build pages quickly; waiting for text and photos is what stretches projects and budgets. If you can write your own service descriptions, even roughly, you save money and get a site that sounds like you.
On hosting, the intro price is a marketing number. Hostinger’s Premium plan, for example, starts at $2.99 a month on a 48-month term and renews at $10.99. This site runs on Hostinger’s Cloud plan, and you can see their current plans here. (That is an affiliate link: if you sign up through it I may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you.) Whatever host you pick, budget for the renewal price, not the first-term one.
What a Website Costs per Month
Once the site is live, these are the monthly costs that keep it running:
| Setup | What you pay each month | What is included |
|---|---|---|
| Website builder (Wix, Squarespace) | $16 to $39 on yearly billing, more on monthly billing | Hosting, security, the editor; apps cost extra |
| WordPress you look after yourself | About $10 to $20 at renewal, plus premium plugins | Hosting and domain; updates and backups are your job |
| WordPress with a freelancer’s care plan | $50 to $200 | Hosting or hosting management, updates, backups, monitoring, small edits |
| Agency care plan | $150 to $350 | The same, plus a support team and often reporting |
| Shopify store | From $29 billed yearly, plus apps and payment fees | Hosting, checkout, security (Shopify, 2026) |
A care plan sounds like an extra, but it is the line that protects the build. Updates, backups and someone checking the site after each update are what stop a plugin conflict from taking the contact form offline for a week. Elementor’s 2026 guide puts a one-off malware cleanup at $200 to $1,000 or more, which is several months of care, and the cleanup does not bring back the leads you lost while the site was down.
The Real Cost Over Three Years
Quotes compare the build price. Owners pay the build plus every month after it. So here is the same site priced over three years, using the numbers above. None of the top-ranking guides I read adds the years up, and it changes which option looks cheap.
| Route | Build | 36 months of running costs | Domain, 3 years | Three-year total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DIY on a builder | Your time | $828 to $1,044 (Squarespace Core $23 to Wix Core $29 a month) | $36 to $60 | About $860 to $1,100, plus your time |
| Freelance WordPress developer | $3,000 to $8,000 | $2,160 to $5,400 ($60 to $150 a month hosting and care) | $36 to $60 | About $5,200 to $13,500 |
| Boutique agency | $6,000 to $35,000 | $5,400 to $12,600 ($150 to $350 a month care plan) | $36 to $60 | About $11,400 to $47,700 and up |
How to read it:
- The DIY total is the cheapest only if your time is free. Building a decent site on a builder takes most owners several weekends, and it needs updating as the business changes. If the site is meant to bring calls, the real question is how many extra jobs a better site would bring, not what the subscription costs.
- The freelancer and agency totals overlap. A simple agency site can cost less over three years than a large freelance build. Compare like with like: same page count, same content work, same care plan.
- Running costs catch up with the build. At $150 a month, three years of care costs $5,400, which is more than many builds. That is fine when the care plan does real work. It is not fine when it pays for a site you do not own.
What Pushes the Price Up, and What Should Not
The things that legitimately raise a quote:
- Distinct page designs. A site with one home page design and one design shared by ten service pages is quicker to build than a site where every page looks different. Price follows templates, not page count.
- Content work. Writing every page from scratch, or rewriting an old site’s text, can cost as much as the build.
- Integrations. Online booking, payments, a CRM, a customer portal, an inventory feed. Each one is setup, testing and a monthly subscription on top.
- Online store. Products, variants, shipping and tax rules. My Shopify vs WooCommerce guide covers the platform choice and its running costs.
- Migration. Moving hundreds of old blog posts, keeping their URLs or redirecting them, so you do not lose the search traffic you already have.
- Branding. A logo, colours and type designed alongside the site.
- Accessibility and speed done properly. Building to WCAG 2.1 AA and passing Core Web Vitals costs little when it is done from the start and a lot when it is fixed later. My WordPress speed guide shows what that work involves.
The things that should not raise a quote: a “premium” charge for responsive design (every site must work on a phone), a per-page price for pages that share one template, and stock photo licences billed at hundreds of dollars when a phone and good light would do better.
What My Projects Cost
My own numbers, for a local service business that wants a WordPress site it owns:
| Project | Pages | What is included | Build | Timeline |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starter site | 4 to 6 | Home, services, about, contact, a request form, mobile-first, basic on-page SEO | From about $1,500 if you supply words and photos | 2 to 3 weeks |
| Local service business site | 6 to 12 | One page per main service, reviews, a request form, tracking, speed that passes Core Web Vitals, redirects from the old site | $3,000 to $6,000 | 4 to 6 weeks |
| Larger or specialised site | 10 to 15 | The above plus booking or intake integration, multiple locations, content written with you | $5,000 to $8,000 | 5 to 8 weeks |
After launch, hosting and care is $60 to $150 a month depending on the host and how many edits you need. Most of the timeline is not development; it is waiting for photos and approving text. Niche projects follow the same bands: I break them down for law firms, dental practices and auto repair shops, and you can see examples of the work on my pages for dental practices, law firms and auto service centers.
Website Redesign Costs
A redesign usually costs about the same as a new build, because the work is the same: new design, every page rebuilt, content checked. You save where you can reuse good content and photos. You spend more if the old site has years of pages that rank, because those URLs need to be mapped and redirected.
That last part is where cheap redesigns go wrong. If nobody keeps the old URLs or sets up redirects, a site can lose most of its search traffic within weeks of the new design going live. If you are redesigning, ask the developer how they will protect your existing rankings before you ask about colours. My guide to a website not showing up on Google has a recovery checklist if it has already happened.
Red Flags in a Website Quote
These are the lines I would question before signing anything:
- “Website as a service” with no exit. Ask: “If we leave in two years, do we keep the site, the domain and the content?” If the answer is not a clear yes, you are renting.
- The domain registered in the developer’s name. The domain should be in your name, on your account, from day one.
- An “SEO package” with no deliverables. A monthly fee should list what is done each month: pages written, issues fixed, reports. GoodFirms’ 2026 figures, cited by Shopify, put most SEO companies at $1,500 to $5,000 a month, so a $99 “SEO” add-on on a website quote is not the same thing.
- No mention of content or photos. If the quote does not say who writes the words, the job is either underpriced or about to grow.
- No admin access for you. You should get an administrator login for the site and access to hosting, even if you never use them.
- No plan for the old site. On a redesign, the quote should mention redirects.
How to Get an Accurate Quote
The fastest way to get a real number, and to compare quotes fairly, is to send every developer the same short brief:
- The pages you need, as a list (home, each service, about, contact, any location pages)
- Two or three websites you like, and what you like about each
- Who will write the text and supply the photos
- Any booking, payment, form or CRM integrations
- Whether you are moving from an existing site, and roughly how many pages it has
- Your deadline and a budget range
- Who will look after the site after launch
A developer who reads that brief can give you a fixed price with a clear list of what is included, which is how I quote every project. A range of “$2,000 to $20,000, depending” means they need more information or have not read the brief.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is $1500 a Good Price for a Website?
It can be, for a simple site. $1,500 can buy a clean 4 to 6 page WordPress site from an experienced freelancer if you supply the words and photos, and it sits at the bottom of GruffyGoat’s 2026 freelancer band of $1,500 to $8,000. It is not enough for a site with a page per service, written content, booking integration and a migration from an old site. Check what is included rather than the number.
How Much Does It Cost to Maintain a Website for a Small Business?
Most small businesses spend $600 to $6,000 a year on hosting, updates, backups and support, according to GruffyGoat’s 2026 guide. With a freelancer’s care plan that is usually $50 to $200 a month; mine is $60 to $150. A builder site’s subscription, $16 to $39 a month, covers hosting and security but not your time making changes.
How Much Does a Website Cost per Month?
From $16 a month for a website builder on yearly billing, about $10 to $20 a month for self-managed WordPress hosting and a domain at renewal prices, $50 to $200 a month for WordPress with a freelancer’s care plan, and $150 to $350 a month with an agency. A Shopify store starts at $29 a month billed yearly, plus apps and payment fees.
Is Web Design Still Worth It in 2026?
Yes, when the website has a job to do. For a local service business, the website is where people decide whether to call after finding you on Google or a map. A builder site you make yourself is a fine start; a professionally built site is worth it when more calls, bookings or consultations would pay for it within a year or two.
Can ChatGPT Actually Create a Website?
AI tools can now write a first draft of the text and generate page layouts or code, and several website builders include AI site generators. I use AI for drafts and code snippets every day. What it does not do is decide what your pages should say to win customers, connect your domain, forms and tracking correctly, or take responsibility when something breaks. Treat it as a fast assistant, not the builder.
Is WordPress Cheaper Than Wix?
Over time, usually yes on running costs, and you own the site. A self-managed WordPress site costs about $10 to $20 a month at renewal against $16 to $39 for Wix or Squarespace, but WordPress needs someone to look after updates. The bigger difference is ownership: a WordPress site can move to any host, while a Wix site cannot leave Wix. My Wix vs WordPress vs Squarespace guide compares them in detail.
The cheapest website is the one that brings in more work than it costs, and that depends on the pages, not the platform. My local SEO guide covers how a site and a Google Business Profile work together to bring calls.
If you want a fixed price for your own site, or a second opinion on a quote you already have, book a free 30-minute call and I will go through it with you, whether or not we work together.
