How much a website costs for a small business in 2026

The short answer: from zero to infinity. The useful answer: for a small business a working website costs $800 to $5,000, and below we break down what makes up that price and where you can save without harm.

Three ways to get a website

DIY website builder: $0-400 per year

Wix, Squarespace, Tilda. You pay a subscription and build it yourself. Fine if you have time, taste and a simple task: a business card site with contacts and a few photos.

The catch: builder sites are easy to recognise, they load slower, and after a year of subscription you will have paid as much as a simple turnkey site costs. Most importantly: a business owner's time costs more than it seems.

Freelancer: $500-2,500

Cheaper than an agency, quality unpredictable. A good freelancer will do a great job, but you still need to find them, vet them and accept the work. A common story: the site is delivered, the freelancer vanishes, and there is nobody to change the phone number on the page.

Agency or studio: $1,000 to $10,000+

More expensive, but you are buying a result, not pages: a sales-oriented structure, copy, analytics and a person responsible for the site after launch.

What makes up the price

• Structure and copy. The most underrated part. A beautiful site with weak copy does not sell.
• Design and build. A template is cheaper, custom design costs more.
• Number of pages. A one-page landing is cheaper than a 10-page site.
• Technical setup. Domain, hosting, email, analytics, forms. Small things separately, half a day of specialist work together.
• Support. Who makes changes after launch and what it costs.

Hidden costs people forget

Domain ($10-30 per year), hosting ($0-150 per year), email ($0-7 per month per mailbox), SSL renewal (usually free, but check). And advertising: a website without traffic brings no customers, however good it is.

When a website pays off

Simple maths. If your average service ticket is $80 and the site brings 4 clients a month, that is $320 a month and $3,840 a year. A $1,500 site pays for itself in about 5 months. So the question is not "cheap or expensive" but "will it bring customers or not".

Our option

We built a starter package for small businesses: website, domain, email, Google launch, analytics and your first ad budget for $990. It is a way to get the whole foundation at once, without hunting for four different specialists. Details on the package page.