A small business website costs anywhere from a few hundred dollars a year on a DIY builder to $15,000 or more with an agency. Most professionally built small business sites land between $5,000 and $15,000, plus $500 to $5,000 a year to keep them running. Where you land depends on who builds it and what it has to do.
That's a wide range, so let's break it down. You'll see what each option costs, what drives the price up, the costs that most quotes leave out, and how to tell which option fits you.
The three ways to get a website
| Option | Upfront cost | Yearly cost | Your time | Good for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DIY website builder | $0 | $180 to $1,200 | High | Testing an idea, very small budgets |
| Freelancer | $1,000 to $7,000 | $500 to $5,000 | Medium | Simple sites with a clear brief |
| Agency or studio | $6,500 to $15,000 and up | $500 to $10,000 | Low | Sites that have to bring in leads |
Sources for these ranges are in each section below.
- DIY builder, per year$180 to $1,200
- Freelancer$1,000 to $7,000
- Agency or studio$6,500 to $15,000 and up
- Upkeep, per year$500 to $5,000
DIY website builders
Builders like Squarespace, Wix, Webflow and Shopify charge a monthly fee and give you templates to fill in yourself.
| Builder | Entry plan | Mid plan | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Squarespace | $19/month | $29/month | Billed yearly1 |
| Webflow | $15/month | $25/month | Per site, billed yearly. CMS on the mid plan2 |
| Shopify | $29/month | $79/month | Billed yearly. For online stores3 |
Prices from each company's pricing page, November 2026.
What it really costs. The fee is the small part. The big cost is your time: picking a template, writing every page, sourcing photos, and setting up forms and tracking. Most owners underestimate this by weeks.
When it fits. You're testing an idea, your budget is under $1,000, or you mainly need an online business card.
Freelance web designers
A freelancer designs and builds the site for you, usually on a builder or WordPress.
Typical project prices. A GoodFirms survey of more than 100 web development companies put a small business site at $1,000 to $7,000, and a 5 to 10 page site at $1,000 to $15,0004. That survey dates from 2024, so treat it as a floor.
Typical hourly rates. On Clutch, agencies working mainly in builders like Wix, WordPress or Webflow typically charge $25 to $49 an hour5. For context, the median US web and digital interface designer earned $104,000 a year in May 2025, as an employee6.
When it fits. You know what you want, you can write the content, and the site doesn't need to do much more than look good and collect enquiries.
Agencies and studios
An agency brings strategy, design, copy, build and launch under one roof, usually with a small team.
Typical project prices. WebFX's 2026 pricing guide puts basic small business web design at $6,500 to $15,000, mid-sized business sites at $15,000 to $50,000, and enterprise sites at $50,000 to $100,0007. Those ranges mix survey data with WebFX's own prices.
What clients actually paid. Clutch reports that most web design projects reviewed on its platform cost less than $10,0005. Its average is much higher, about $38,100, because a few large projects pull it up5.
Typical hourly rates. Clutch's shortlisted firms typically charge $100 to $149 an hour in the US, Canada and Australia, $50 to $99 in the UK, and $25 to $49 in Poland, Spain or Ukraine5.
When it fits. The site has to bring in leads or sales, you don't have time to run the project yourself, or you need copy, SEO and tracking done properly from the start.
What pushes the price up
Two sites can look alike and cost three times as much.
These are the usual reasons.
- Number of page types. Ten pages built from two templates cost less than five pages that are all different.
- Copywriting. Writing the words is a big share of the work, and the part most often underestimated. Bring your own and the price drops.
- Online store. Products, payments, shipping and tax rules add a lot. WebFX prices e-commerce functionality alone at $5,000 to $25,0007.
- Integrations. Booking systems, CRMs and member logins all need setup and testing.
- Custom design. A design made for you costs more than a template restyled.
- Languages. Each extra language adds translation, layout checks and SEO work.
- Accessibility and speed. Doing these right takes time, but skipping them costs more later. 95.9% of top home pages have detectable accessibility errors8, and the European Accessibility Act now applies to many online services in the EU.
95.9%of the top million home pages have accessibility errors a scanner can detect.8
The yearly costs most quotes leave out
The build is a one-off. These come back every year.
| Cost | Typical yearly range |
|---|---|
| Domain name | $10 to $50 |
| Hosting or builder plan | $180 to $1,200 |
| Premium plugins or apps | $0 to $500 |
| Maintenance and updates | $500 to $5,000 |
| Content and SEO | $0 to several thousand |
These are my working ranges, based on the builder prices above and typical maintenance retainers. In WebFX's survey of 250 US marketing professionals, 57% of companies spent $501 to $10,000 a year on their website after launch7.
How to set your budget
Work backwards from what the site has to bring in.
- Estimate the value of one new customer. Say it's $2,000 over a year.
- Decide how many extra customers a better site should bring. Say five a year.
- That's $10,000 of value a year. A $7,000 site that lasts three years is easy to justify. A $40,000 site is not, at least for now.
Then add the yearly costs, and keep 10 to 20% aside for things you'll only discover once the project starts.
Try the website budget planner to run your own numbers.
How to compare quotes
Ask every designer or agency the same questions, so you compare like with like.
- How many page templates are included, and how many pages?
- Who writes the copy?
- What happens after launch, and what does it cost per month?
- Who owns the site, the domain and the design files?
- How will you measure whether the site works?
- Is the site built to pass Core Web Vitals and basic accessibility checks?
- Will search engines and AI tools be able to read our services, prices and FAQs? Ask about structured data.
That last question matters more each year. Fewer people click through from Google when it shows an AI summary, so the AI tools reading your site need clear facts to quote. See our web design statistics for the numbers.
What I charge
Every site I build has a fixed price, quoted after a 20-minute call. It covers strategy, copy, design, structured data and launch, and you'll know the yearly upkeep before anything starts. Book a 20-minute call and you'll get a fixed quote within two days.
Frequently asked questions
How much does a website cost for a small business?
Most professionally built small business sites cost between $5,000 and $15,000, plus $500 to $5,000 a year to run. A DIY builder costs $180 to $1,200 a year plus your time.
Is it cheaper to use a website builder?
Upfront, yes. Builders start around $15 to $30 a month. The real cost is the time it takes you to design, write and maintain the site yourself.
How much do web designers charge per hour?
On Clutch, shortlisted firms typically charge $100 to $149 an hour in the US, and $25 to $49 an hour for builder-based work or in lower-cost countries.
How long does it take to build a small business website?
A GoodFirms survey of web development companies put small business sites at one to twelve weeks4. Size and how quickly content and feedback arrive make most of the difference.
What ongoing costs does a website have?
Domain, hosting or a builder plan, plugins or apps, maintenance and content. Together that's typically $500 to $5,000 a year for a small business.
Sources
- "Pricing," Squarespace, plans billed annually. https://www.squarespace.com/pricing (accessed 7 November 2026) ↩
- "Pricing," Webflow, site plans billed yearly. https://webflow.com/pricing (accessed 7 November 2026) ↩
- "Pricing," Shopify, plans billed yearly. https://www.shopify.com/pricing (accessed 7 November 2026) ↩
- GoodFirms survey of more than 100 web development companies, 9 February 2024, as compiled in "Website development cost 2026," Digital Applied. https://www.digitalapplied.com/blog/website-development-cost-2026-complete-pricing-data (accessed 7 November 2026) ↩
- "Web Design Pricing Guide," Clutch, updated September 2026. Based on Clutch's agency database and verified client reviews. https://clutch.co/web-designers/pricing (accessed 7 November 2026) ↩
- "Web Developers and Digital Designers," Occupational Outlook Handbook, US Bureau of Labor Statistics, May 2025 pay. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/web-developers.htm (accessed 7 November 2026) ↩
- "Website Design Pricing," WebFX, updated October 2026. Combines a survey of 250 US marketing professionals with WebFX's own pricing. https://www.webfx.com/website-design/pricing/ (accessed 7 November 2026) ↩
- "The WebAIM Million: The 2026 report," WebAIM, updated 30 March 2026. https://webaim.org/projects/million/ (accessed 7 November 2026) ↩
