How much does a website actually cost?
Somewhere between free and fifteen thousand dollars, which is no use to anybody. Here are the real numbers for a local business in 2026, what each price buys you, and the costs that show up after the quote.
By Dan Horn, web designer in Caddo Mills, Texas · Prices checked October 2026
For a local business with 5 to 12 pages: doing it yourself on a website builder runs about $200 to $600 in the first year plus your evenings. A freelancer usually charges $1,500 to $5,000 up front. An agency starts around $5,000 and often lands near $10,000, and agency SEO on top averages $1,557 a month. A monthly plan that includes the site, hosting and changes runs about $100 to $300 a month.
Year one, route by route
| Route | Up front | Every month after | Year one, roughly |
|---|---|---|---|
| Do it yourself (Wix, Squarespace) | $0 | $17 to $50 for the plan | $200 to $600, plus your time |
| Freelancer | $1,500 to $5,000 | $10 to $50 hosting, changes billed by the hour | $1,600 to $5,600 |
| Local agency | $5,000 to $10,000 | $50 to $200 hosting and care | $5,600 to $12,400 |
| Agency site plus agency SEO | $5,000 and up | $1,557 average for local SEO | About $24,000 |
| Monthly plan (site, hosting, changes) | $0 to $1,000 setup | $100 to $300 | $1,200 to $4,600 |
Builder prices are the companies’ own published plans, billed yearly (Oct 2026). Freelancer and agency figures are typical quotes for a small local site and vary with scope. The SEO figure is the average local SEO retainer in Ahrefs’ survey of 439 providers.
Why one quote says $500 and the next says $15,000
They are rarely quoting the same thing. Two websites can look alike in a screenshot and be completely different amounts of work underneath. These are the things that actually move the number:
- How many pages, and whether each service and each town gets its own page or everything is crammed onto one.
- Who writes the words. If you hand over finished copy it costs less. If somebody has to interview you and write it, that is real work.
- Custom design or a template with your logo dropped in.
- Whether it has to talk to anything: online ordering, booking, a POS, a menu that updates itself, a quote form that lands in your CRM.
- Photos. Stock photos are cheap and look it. A shoot costs money and is worth it for restaurants, trades and anything visual.
- Whether the quote includes the search groundwork (page titles, Google Business Profile, site speed) or just the look.
- Who keeps it running afterwards, and what they charge to change your hours.
The costs nobody puts on the quote
The build is the number everybody compares. These are the ones that turn up later, and they are where cheap websites stop being cheap:
- Domain renewal, usually $10 to $25 a year. Make sure it is registered in your name, not the designer’s.
- Hosting. Free for the first year on some deals, then it renews at full price.
- Changes. “Can you update our hours” at $75 to $150 an hour adds up fast for a restaurant or a seasonal business.
- Apps and plugins: booking, ordering, forms, backups. Many are monthly subscriptions of their own.
- Email at your own domain, if it is not included.
- The redesign. Most small business sites get rebuilt every three to five years because nobody kept them up.
- SEO. A website that nobody finds is a brochure in a drawer. Most quotes leave it out, and it costs more than the site.
Pay once, or pay monthly?
Pay once makes sense if you have someone in-house who will host it and make changes, or if your business rarely changes. You own the files outright and you are not paying anybody every month.
Monthly makes sense if you would rather text somebody and have it done. Hosting, security, backups and changes are part of the price, and there is no big check up front. The catch is that you pay for as long as you stay, so only sign one that is month to month and leaves your domain, content and data in your name.
Red flags in a website quote
Any one of these is worth a direct question before you sign:
- The domain gets registered in their name or their company’s.
- There is no answer to “what happens to my site if I leave?”
- A contract longer than twelve months for a website.
- “SEO included” with no list of what is actually done each month.
- Ad spend that runs through them, with a percentage added on top.
- No price at all until the third meeting.
The same numbers, for me.
Month to month, with hosting, security and your changes included. You own your domain, content and data from day one.
| Plan | Monthly | Setup | Year one | Or pay once |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Get Found | $129 | $299 | $1,847 | $1,995 |
| Get Booked | $229 | $499 | $3,247 | $3,495 |
| Get Growing | $899 | $999 | $11,787 | Monthly only |
Get Found monthly passes its pay-once price in month 14. Pay once and hosting and changes are yours to arrange; stay monthly and they are mine.
Common questions about price
Sometimes. If you just need a page that says who you are, where you are and how to call you, a builder or a cheap freelancer will do it. It stops being worth it when the site is meant to bring in work, because the cheap version usually skips the parts that make that happen: speed on a phone, the search groundwork and a clear way to call or book.
Plain hosting runs about $10 to $50 a month. Website builders like Wix and Squarespace are about $17 to $50 a month on their standard plans, billed yearly. A managed plan where somebody else hosts it, fixes it and makes your changes usually costs $100 to $300 a month.
Anywhere from nothing (you do it) to a few hundred dollars a month. Freelancers and agencies often charge $75 to $150 an hour for changes, or sell a care plan of $50 to $200 a month that covers updates, backups and a set amount of edits. On my monthly plans, changes are included.
Usually close to the price of a new site, because most redesigns are rebuilds. If the site is in decent shape and only looks dated, a refresh of the design and the words costs less. Have someone check the current site first, so you do not pay to rebuild things that already work.
Two to six weeks for most local businesses. The build is rarely the slow part. The wait is usually on the words, the photos and the menu or price list, so having those ready is the fastest way to launch sooner.
A properly built site should come with the groundwork: page titles, a fast mobile site, your Google Business Profile set up, and a page for each thing you sell. Ongoing SEO, meaning new pages, more towns and steady work on your rankings, is a separate monthly service almost everywhere. My SEO price guide has the numbers.
Want a real number for your business?
Send me your current website, or tell me what you need, and you’ll get a straight price and what I’d do first. No charge, no pitch, and a reply from me rather than a sales team.