How much does a website cost for a small business?
A straight answer, the reason quotes vary by ten times, and what you are actually paying for in each case.
Ours is $499 to build and $49 a month to run. That covers the design, the build, the domain, the hosting, the certificate and small changes afterwards.
That is the short answer, and most articles on this question refuse to give one. What follows is why other numbers you have been quoted look nothing like it, and how to tell which kind of quote you are holding.
Why the quotes vary so wildly
Ask five people to price a small business website and you can genuinely get $0, $600, $4,000 and $20,000 for what sounds like the same thing. That is not because four of them are lying. It is because "a website" describes a range about as wide as "a vehicle".
Three things move the number more than anything else.
How much of it is new. A site that says who you are, what you do, what it costs and how to reach you is a solved problem. A site that books appointments against your existing calendar, or takes payment, or syncs with the system you already run, is not. The second one costs more because someone has to think, not because someone has to type.
How much of the process you are buying. A large agency quote is mostly not design and code. It is discovery workshops, account management, revision rounds, project management and the meetings that hold all of it together. Some businesses need that. A plumber with six pages does not.
Whether the scope is defined. An open-ended project is priced for the risk that it runs long, and that risk premium is inside the number you were quoted whether or not anyone mentioned it.
The four routes, and what each really costs
Build it yourself on a website builder
The subscription looks like the whole cost. It is not — your time is the cost. A weekend is optimistic; most people who tell us they tried this spent several evenings and stopped somewhere in the middle. Add the paid add-ons you discover you need once you are committed.
It genuinely works for some people. If you enjoy it and your needs are simple, do that instead of paying anyone.
Hire a freelancer
Usually the cheapest route with a person attached, and the quality range is enormous. The good ones are very good. The risk is not skill, it is availability: one person with other clients, and no cover when they are ill, busy or gone. Ask what happens to your site in six months, and get the answer in writing.
Hire an agency
Typical quotes for a small business site land in the low thousands and go up quickly from there, with timelines measured in months. You are buying process — and if your project genuinely has moving parts, process is what stops it failing. For a six-page site for a local business, you are mostly buying overhead.
Buy a defined service
A fixed price for a defined thing. Cheaper than an agency because the discovery and the open-ended scope have been removed, not because the work is worse. The trade-off is real: you cannot ask for anything at all, only for the thing being sold.
That last one is what we do.
The costs that turn up later
Whatever route you pick, ask about these before you commit. They are where a cheap quote stops being cheap.
- The domain. Who registers it, who renews it, and whose name is on it. It should be yours.
- Hosting. Included, or a separate bill you set up yourself and forget until the site goes down.
- The SSL certificate. The padlock. Browsers now warn visitors when it is missing, and a warning on your homepage costs you customers.
- Changes. New opening hours, a price update, a swapped photo. Ask whether those are included or billed hourly, because you will need them.
- Handover. If you leave, do you get the site. Ask now, not later.
What we charge, and what it does not cover
$499 once, $49 a month, live in three working days from the point we have your text and photos.
The monthly fee is not a maintenance retainer with nothing in it. It covers the domain, the hosting, the certificate, security updates, uptime monitoring and small content changes — the things that otherwise arrive as separate bills or as jobs you have to remember to do.
What it does not cover: online shops, booking systems that connect to your calendar, logo design, photography, or a mobile app. Those are real projects and we quote them separately rather than pretending a fixed price fits.
If you stop paying the $49, the site comes offline, because that fee is what pays for the hosting and the domain. But the work is yours — ask and we hand over the code and transfer the domain at no charge.
What to do next
If your needs are simple and you enjoy tinkering, use a builder and keep your money. If your project has genuine moving parts, get an agency quote and read it properly.
If you want a good website for your business without a discovery phase or a number with four digits in it, that is exactly what we built our website service to be.