If you've searched "how much does a website cost for a small business," you've probably seen answers ranging from free to $50,000 and come away more confused than when you started. Both ends of that range are real. What you actually pay depends on who builds the site, how many pages it needs, what it has to do, and what you keep paying every month after launch.
This guide breaks the price down the way a small-business owner needs it: what each option costs up front, what it costs over five years, and what you get for the money.
How much does a website cost for a small business? The short answer
Most published estimates land in the same general bands, even if they disagree on the details:
- DIY website builders (Wix, Squarespace, GoDaddy): a few hundred dollars to get started, then a monthly subscription. WebsiteSetup puts Wix plans at roughly $17–$159 a month and Squarespace at roughly $23–$120 a month, depending on plan and billing.
- Freelance designers and developers: commonly quoted at $1,500–$8,000 up front for a small business site.
- Small studios and web development companies: industry guides put a basic five-page brochure site at around $1,000–$4,000, with larger custom builds in the $3,000–$10,000 range.
- Agencies: often $10,000 and up, and well past $25,000 for sites with integrations, custom design systems and ongoing strategy work.
For a sense of what businesses actually spend, a 2024 Clutch survey (cited by TechLion) found 36% of small businesses spent between $1,000 and $10,000 on their website, with a median around $5,000.
Treat all of these as rough benchmarks. Most of the guides publishing them sell websites, and each draws the lines a little differently.
What drives the price of a website?
Four things move the number more than anything else.
1. Number of pages
A one-page site and a 20-page site are different projects. Every page needs layout, copy, images, mobile testing and search basics (title, description, headings). This is why most studios, including us, price by page range.
2. What the site has to do
A brochure site that shows your services and takes contact-form leads is the simplest build. Costs rise with:
- Online booking or scheduling
- E-commerce (products, checkout, taxes, shipping)
- Customer logins and portals
- Integrations with a CRM, payment system or internal tools
3. Template vs custom design
Builder templates are cheap because thousands of businesses share them. Fully custom design takes more time but gives you a site that looks like your business, loads faster and isn't carrying code for features you don't use.
4. Who writes the content
Copy and photos are the most common cause of delays and surprise costs. If you supply finished text and photos, the price stays lower. If you need copywriting, budget for it. Many studios charge per page.
Website cost by type of provider
DIY website builders
Up front: low. Ongoing: monthly, forever.
Builders are a reasonable choice if you have more time than budget and only need something simple. The catch is that you're renting. Current third-party pricing guides list Wix's entry paid plan (Light) at about $17 a month billed annually and Squarespace's Basic at about $16 a month billed annually, with higher plans needed for selling online or booking. Those prices change often, so check each platform's official pricing page before you commit.
You also pay with your time. Building a decent site yourself usually takes a few weekends, and keeping it current is on you.
Freelancers
Freelancers vary more than any other option. A great one can deliver agency-level work at half the price. A poor fit can leave you with a half-finished site and nobody answering the phone. Ask who owns the code and the accounts, and what happens if they're unavailable after launch.
Small studios
A studio sits between a freelancer and an agency: a defined process, fixed quotes and someone accountable after launch, without agency overhead. This is where 602 Group sits.
Agencies
Agencies make sense when you need strategy, brand work, content production and a team. For a local service business that mainly needs a fast site that produces calls and form leads, it's often more than you need.
What 602 Group charges
We publish our starting prices on the packages page:
- Landing page: $149 flat. One page, with leads emailed straight to you and Resend email set up on your domain so those emails land in the inbox instead of spam.
- Launch: from $799. One to five pages, the right size for most local service businesses.
- Business: from $2,499. Six to fifteen-plus pages, for businesses with multiple services, locations or a lot to explain.
- Custom: from $7,500. Online stores, customer portals and web apps.
Every site is hand-coded, not built on a template, and you get a fixed price in your quote before work starts. When it's paid for, you own the site, the code and the content. You can read more about how we build on the websites page.
Ongoing costs: what a website costs per month after launch
The launch price is only half the picture. This is where builder sites and owned sites differ most.
Hosting and domain
A domain typically costs around $10–$20 a year. Hosting ranges from free to hundreds a year depending on the site. Most simple, modern sites (including most of ours) run on free-tier hosting set up in your name, so there's no monthly hosting bill. Sites with databases or stores may have a small hosting cost, and that should be spelled out before you start.
Website maintenance cost
Industry guides put small-business website maintenance anywhere from about $30 to $500 a month. GoDaddy's 2026 maintenance cost guide uses a $50–$500 monthly range, and WebsiteSetup puts a basic small-business site at $30–$250 a month including hosting, domain and security. The spread comes from what's included: a WordPress site with a dozen plugins needs regular updates and security patching, while a hand-coded static site has far less to maintain.
Our approach is simple: small tweaks (text, photos, hours, prices) are free up to 30 minutes a month, and anything bigger is $95 an hour with an estimate first. There's no monthly subscription from us.
Builder subscriptions
If you're on a builder, the subscription is the maintenance cost. You can't stop paying and keep the site.
The five-year math
Here's a simple way to compare. Take a builder plan at $17–$40 a month, which is where most small businesses end up once they need a custom domain, no ads and a few features. Over five years that's roughly $1,000–$2,400 in subscriptions alone, before premium apps or booking add-ons, and at the end of it you still don't own anything you can move.
Compare that with a one-time build in the $799–$2,499 range on free-tier hosting. After the build, your ongoing cost can be close to zero: your domain renewal and whatever changes you choose to pay for.
Neither option is wrong. But when you compare quotes, compare five years of cost, not just the launch price. We go deeper on that comparison in custom website vs Wix and Squarespace.
How to avoid overpaying
- Get a fixed quote with a written scope. Hourly billing with no cap is how a $3,000 site becomes an $8,000 site.
- Ask who owns the code, domain and hosting accounts. They should be in your name.
- Ask what a small change costs after launch. "Change our Saturday hours" shouldn't trigger an invoice for a full hour.
- Start smaller than you think. A focused one-page site can generate leads while you work out what else you need. Our guide to landing page cost covers what that page needs to include.
- Look at real work. Ask to see live sites the builder made and still maintains. Hunter, who founded 602 Group, builds and runs Minnesota Lake Homes, a lakefront real-estate platform, which is the kind of proof that tells you more than a mockup.
FAQ
How much should a small business spend on a website?
Most small businesses spend between $1,000 and $10,000, according to survey data cited by industry guides, with a median around $5,000. A local service business can often get a strong lead-generating site for less, especially if it starts with a focused one- to five-page site.
Is $500 enough for a website?
It's enough for a builder subscription and some of your own time, or a simple one-page site from a studio with published pricing. It usually isn't enough for a multi-page custom site from a freelancer or agency.
How much does a website cost per month?
Anywhere from nearly nothing to several hundred dollars. Builder plans run from about $16–$17 a month on annual billing to well over $100 for advanced plans. An owned site on free-tier hosting may only cost you the domain renewal.
Why do website quotes vary so much?
Because providers include different things: copywriting, photography, SEO setup, hosting, revisions and post-launch support. Compare quotes line by line, not just by total.
How long does a small business website take to build?
Industry guides typically say 4 to 12 weeks. Smaller hand-coded sites can go live in days when the content is ready. Content and approvals are almost always the bottleneck, not the build.
Get a real number for your site
Ranges are useful, but your business doesn't need a range. It needs a price. Tell us what you do and what the site needs to accomplish, and we'll send you a fixed quote within one business day. Get your free quote.