“How much does a website cost?” is the first question almost every business owner asks — and the hardest one to answer in a sentence. Ask five web designers and you can get five quotes ranging from a few hundred dollars to twenty thousand, all for something that sounds the same: a website for your business.
The difference is rarely about who is greedy. It's about what you actually get. This guide covers typical price ranges in the US market, what moves the price up or down, and how to compare quotes without paying twice.
Typical price ranges
These are rough ranges we see in the market, not our price list. Any serious quote should start with a conversation about your business.
- DIY website builder (Wix, Squarespace): roughly $200–$600 a year in subscriptions, plus your own time. Fast to start, but it looks like thousands of other sites and SEO is up to you.
- Template site from a freelancer: commonly $1,000–$3,000 for a handful of pages on a ready-made theme.
- Custom website for a local business (5–15 pages): typically $3,000–$10,000 from a small studio, depending on design, copywriting and features.
- Larger sites with booking, multiple locations or languages: often $8,000–$25,000.
- Online stores: from about $5,000 for a small shop to $30,000+ for large catalogs and custom integrations.
On top of the build, budget for ongoing costs: a domain ($10–$20 a year), hosting, business email and — if you don't want to touch the site yourself — a monthly maintenance plan.
What drives the price
1. Number of pages and amount of content
A one-page site and a site with a dedicated page for every service are not the same job. Those service pages are also what gets you found: for every service people search for, you need a page that answers exactly that search.
2. Template or custom design
A ready-made theme is cheaper, but you adapt your business to it. Custom design starts from your services and your customers, which is why it usually converts more visitors into calls and requests.
3. Who writes the copy
Copy is the most underestimated part of a website. Writing it yourself lowers the price but often delays the project by weeks. When the studio writes it, you're also paying for keyword research and words that sell.
4. Features
Online booking, quote forms, multiple languages, a blog, a product catalog, payments, CRM integrations — each one adds design, build and testing time.
5. Technology
WordPress with a stack of plugins is cheaper upfront, but needs constant updates and is often slow. A site built with a modern framework like Next.js costs a bit more at the start, but it's faster, more secure and cheaper to maintain over the years.
6. SEO and Google presence
Some sites are handed over with no SEO foundation at all: no meta descriptions, no structured data, no sitemap, no Search Console. A site like that can look great and still never be found. Always ask what SEO is included in the price.
Why the cheapest website is often the most expensive
A cheap site can be fine to start with. The problem begins when it's slow, when Google doesn't show it, or when it looks less trustworthy than the competitor next to it in the results. Then you pay twice: once for the cheap site and again for one that works. Meanwhile, a slow site quietly costs you customers every month.
Questions to ask before you accept a quote
- Is the price fixed, and what exactly does it include?
- Who writes the copy and who sources the photos?
- Is the design custom or a ready-made theme?
- What SEO is included — meta data, sitemap, structured data, Search Console?
- How fast does the site load on a phone? Ask for an example with a Google PageSpeed score.
- Who owns the domain, the code and the content?
- What do hosting and maintenance cost after launch?
How we price a project
We don't publish a price list, because two websites rarely need the same work. After a free 20-minute call we send a plan with a fixed price and timeline for the whole project within one business day. Payment is split in two — a deposit to start and the rest at launch — with no hidden costs.
If you want to know what your website would cost, send us a message or book a short call.
