What a small business website really costs
Every guide to this question answers "it depends" and then sells you a call. Here are the actual numbers, including the ones that make me look expensive.
The five bands
| Band | What it is | Right for |
|---|---|---|
| $0 – $50 | You build it on Squarespace, Wix or Shopify. Platform fee only. | Anyone with more time than money, and a business that is not visual |
| $150 – $500 | A freelance marketplace. A template, your content dropped in, no strategy. | A business that needs an address on the internet and nothing more |
| $900 – $3,000 | A solo designer-developer. Custom design, built to your brief, launched properly. | Most small businesses that are actually trading |
| $5,000 – $15,000 | A small agency. A team, a process, research, and account management. | Businesses where the website is the sales channel |
| $15,000+ | A named studio, or something genuinely bespoke and technical. | Funded companies, and buying a reputation as much as a site |
The interesting thing about this table is not the top or the bottom. It is how little separates band two from band three in what you are shown, and how much separates them in what you get six months later.
The three costs nobody quotes
1. Content — and it is usually the biggest
Almost every quote you receive assumes you supply the words and the pictures. Almost every project that runs late runs late for exactly this reason. If you need copywriting, that is $300 to $1,500 on top. If you need photography, $400 to $2,000 depending on the shoot.
This is the single most useful thing to know before you ask for quotes: a site with its content ready costs what was quoted. The same site where you have not written a word can cost twice that and take three times as long.
2. What happens after launch
A website is not finished when it goes live. Updates, backups, security patching, and the small changes you will want every month. Budget $50 to $200 a month, or your own time, or accept that the site slowly decays until something visibly breaks.
When comparing two quotes, ask each one: what does a text change cost me in March? The answers vary from "nothing, it is included" to "$120 an hour, two-hour minimum", and that difference is worth more than the price on the front page.
3. The things that renew
Domain $10 to $20 a year. Hosting $60 to $400 a year, or included. SSL normally free. Shopify from $29 a month plus transaction fees. Premium plugins and theme licences $50 to $300 a year, and this is where DIY builds quietly accumulate — five plugins at $59 is $295 a year forever.
Where I sit, and when to ignore me
Five-page sites, brand identities, stores with both: band three, deliberately — quoted in writing after a free call rather than listed as a menu — and I have no interest in pretending band three is right for everyone.
Spend less than this if:
- You are testing whether the business works at all. Build it yourself, badly, and find out.
- You need an address on the internet so people can check you exist.
- Your customers all come from Instagram or word of mouth and always will.
Spend more than this if:
- The website is your main sales channel and a percentage point of conversion is real money.
- You need someone on call, with cover when they are ill. One person cannot offer that, and I say so on the service page too.
- You need research, testing and a documented process to justify the spend internally.
A cheap site is not the expensive mistake. The expensive one is paying band three prices for band two work — a template with your logo on it, sold as custom. The tell is simple: ask to see three sites they have built and open them on your phone. Fifteen seconds tells you more than any proposal document.
Questions people actually ask
What is the cheapest way to get a decent website?
Build it yourself on Squarespace or Shopify, and spend the money you saved on photography instead. A competent DIY site with excellent photographs beats a professionally built site with bad ones, every time. If your business is visual — food, hair, property, anything you look at before you buy — that is genuinely the best use of a small budget.
Why do quotes for the same brief vary so much?
Because the brief is never the same brief. One quote assumes you supply finished copy and photographs; another includes writing them. One assumes a template; another a custom design. One includes hosting and a year of updates; another hands you a zip file. Ask each quote what happens after launch and the range usually collapses.
Should I pay monthly or once?
Once, if you can. Monthly website deals are convenient and they are also rental: at $99 to $250 a month you pass the one-off price somewhere between year one and year two, and in most of them you do not own the site at the end. There are good reasons to rent — cash flow is a real constraint — but know which one you are signing.
Is a $500 website always a bad idea?
No. A $500 site from someone competent, on a template, with your content, is a perfectly good answer for a business that needs an address on the internet and nothing more. It becomes a bad idea when it is sold as something else, or when nobody tells you that changes afterwards are not included.