How much does a small business website cost?

The three ways to get a site

There are three common routes, and they are priced in different ways, which is why quotes are hard to compare.

• Do it yourself on a website builder. Low cost to start, a monthly or yearly subscription that never ends, and your own evenings spent building it.
• Hire a freelancer or a one-person shop. Usually one fixed price for a set number of pages, sometimes with an optional monthly fee for upkeep.
• Hire an agency. A higher price, a longer process with more meetings, and often a monthly retainer for hosting, changes and marketing.

The costs that are not the build

Every website has running costs. Some are real and small. Some are a markup on something that costs the seller very little. Know which is which.

A domain name is a yearly fee paid to a registrar. For a .com it is a modest amount: when I last checked the big registrars on 2026-09-27, renewals ran from about $10 to $23 a year. Hosting is the computer your site sits on. For a small service site it can be free or a few dollars a month on a modern host. If you are being charged a lot more than that for hosting alone, ask what else is in the fee.

• Domain renewal, yearly.
• Hosting, monthly or yearly.
• A business email address, if you want one on your own domain.
• Paid plugins, booking tools or payment processing, if the site uses them.
• Changes after launch, which are charged by the hour, by the job, or bundled into a monthly plan.

Why two quotes for "a website" can be far apart

A low quote and a high quote are usually for different things. Ask each seller to write down what is included, then line the lists up.

• How many pages, and who writes the words on them.
• Whether photos are yours, stock, or shot for you.
• Whether it includes booking, payments or a catalog.
• How many rounds of changes you get before extra charges start.
• Who owns the domain, the site files and the hosting account at the end.
• What happens, and what you keep, if you stop paying a monthly fee.

Work out the three-year number

Take the upfront price. Add the monthly fee times thirty-six. Add three years of domain renewal. That is what the site costs you. A cheap start with a monthly fee often ends up costing more than a higher one-time price, and a free site that is yours only while you subscribe is a rental.

Neither model is wrong. A monthly plan can be good value if it includes real work you would otherwise pay for. Just make sure you are comparing totals, and that you know what you walk away with.

A worked example with my own numbers

I will use my own price so that no figure here is a guess about anybody else. The build is $500 once. Hosting is $0 a month, so thirty-six months of it adds $0. A .com renewal ran from about $10 to $23 a year when I checked, so three years is $30 to $69.

Add those up and the three-year number is between $530 and $569, before any changes you ask for after launch.

Now do the same sum for every quote on your desk. Write down the upfront price. Write down each monthly fee and multiply it by thirty-six. Add the domain. Add anything the seller says is extra, such as a setup fee or a charge per change. Put the totals side by side. The order often changes once you do this, and the cheapest first invoice is not always the cheapest site.

What each route costs you in time

Money is half the price. Your own hours are the other half, and no quote lists them.

A website builder asks the most of you. You choose the template, write every word, find every photo and work out why the phone layout looks wrong. Owners who enjoy that do fine. Owners who do not tend to stall with a half-built site.

A freelancer asks for less, but not nothing. Somebody has to send the list of services, the towns, the photos and the answers to questions. A build that is waiting on content from the owner can sit for weeks. An agency adds meetings and approvals on top. Ask each seller plainly what they need from you and by when.

What to have ready before you ask for a quote

You will get tighter quotes, and more comparable ones, if every seller is pricing the same job. Write this down once and send it to each of them.

• The services you want a page for, in order of how much they matter to you.
• The towns or areas you cover.
• Whether customers need to book, order or pay on the site, or only call and send a form.
• Where your domain is registered and whether you can log in there.
• What photos you have of your own work.
• Two or three sites you like, and what you like about each.
• Who will make changes after launch: you, or the builder.

Questions to ask, and what a good answer sounds like

The answers matter less than how clearly they are given. A seller who is vague before you pay will not be clearer after.

• "What exactly do I get?" A good answer is a written list with a page count. A poor one is "a full custom site".
• "What will I pay each month after launch, and to whom?" A good answer names each fee and what it covers.
• "If I stop paying you, what do I keep?" A good answer is the domain, the site and the logins. A poor one changes the subject.
• "What counts as a change, and what does a change cost?" A good answer gives a rate or a fixed price before the work starts.
• "When will it be live?" A good answer is a date that depends on when you send your content, and says so.
• "Can I talk to somebody you built a site for?" A good answer is yes.

Common mistakes

These are the ones owners tell me about afterward.

• Comparing the first invoice and not the three-year total.
• Signing a long contract for a site you have not seen.
• Letting the seller register the domain in their own name because it was easier that day.
• Paying for features you will not use, such as a blog nobody will write.
• Assuming hosting, email and changes are included because nobody said they were not.
• Choosing on design alone and never opening the site on a phone.

Signs a price is too good or too vague

Be careful with a quote that has no page count, no list of what is included and no answer on ownership. Be careful with "free website" offers tied to a long contract. And be careful with anybody who folds a ranking promise into the price, because nobody controls where Google puts you.

What I charge, so you have a reference point

Novyx is one person building sites for local service businesses. Website is $500 one time for 5 pages. Booking, ordering or payments are included if you need them. Hosting is on your own account at $0 a month, and anything I built that breaks in the first 30 days is fixed free. The monthly services are separate and optional.

Questions people ask