How Much Should a Website Cost for a Small Business?

A small business website costs about $0 to $300 a year if you build it yourself on a basic builder plan. Hiring a designer usually runs $2,000 to $10,000 or more, with simple sites starting near $500. A hired-out site then costs $10 to $300 a month to keep running, depending on paid maintenance. Quotes vary mostly with how many pages get built and who writes them.

Ranges from Hostinger and Housecall Pro (both updated January 13, 2026) and Wix (updated September 2026), all checked October 4, 2026. All three sell website tools, so read the low ends as optimistic. The point about pages comes from building sites for service businesses, including my own.

What does a small business website cost at each level?

Four common routes. The ranges overlap because "a website" can mean three pages or forty.

Small business website cost by route, with the source linked in each row
Route	Typical cost	What you're really paying for
Do it yourself on a builder or WordPress	$0 to $300 a year on a basic plan (Hostinger). With paid apps and add-ons, $0 to $450 upfront plus $15 to $150 a month (Housecall Pro).	A template. The writing, photos and fixes are on you.
Professional web designer	$500 to $10,000 or more (Wix), or $2,000 to $10,000 or more for a designer or agency (Housecall Pro). A typical small business project runs $5,000 to $10,000, at $30 to $80 an hour (Hostinger).	A finished site. Ask who writes the pages. Often nobody does.
Design agency	$3,000 to $10,000 or more for a fully custom site (Wix)	A team and a process, with their overhead built into the price.
Custom-coded build by a developer	$5,000 to $30,000, with developers at $61 to $80 an hour (Hostinger)	Custom code. More than most local service businesses need.

The designer row is wide because the sources start in different places. Wix says the low end usually buys a simple, multi-page site. Housecall Pro starts at $2,000. Hostinger puts the typical small business project at $5,000 or more. For a check from someone who doesn't sell websites, the Bureau of Labor Statistics puts median pay for employed web developers and digital designers at $47.85 an hour (May 2025). A freelancer's rate also has to cover their own overhead.

In my experience, the cheapest quotes are the ones that leave the writing to you.

So why does one designer quote four figures and another quote five for the same business? Usually it comes down to:

How many pages: one per service, one per town you serve
Who writes the copy, you or them
Add-ons and custom features, priced below
Whether basic SEO setup is included or billed later

If I had to trim a budget, I'd cut design flourishes before I cut pages. Someone searching for one specific job lands on the page that names that job. A pretty homepage with a single "Services" list gives them nothing.

What add-ons change a website quote?

Taking payments online: a builder plan that accepts payments runs $23 to $49 a month (Wix)
A premium theme: $20 to $200 (Hostinger)
Premium plugins for backups and maintenance: $49 to $499 a year (Hostinger)
A custom feature like online booking or an instant quote tool: $500 to $5,000 per feature (Hostinger)

How much does a one-page website cost to build?

Less than a multi-page site, usually near the bottom of each range above, because there is less to design and write.

For an event, one page can be plenty. For a service business, I'd push back. One page rarely ranks well for roof repair, gutter installation and skylights at once, because each is a separate search with a separate customer, and competitors have a page for each.

So what should a small business actually spend?

Here's how I'd set the budget, based on where the business is today.

Just starting out

Build it yourself on a builder (the first row above). Write one page for each service you sell. Spend real money once the site brings in calls.

Your phone depends on the site

Hire a designer and plan on $5,000 to $10,000, Hostinger's typical project range, not a few hundred. Make sure that buys a page for every service and town.

Several locations or towns

Plan for the top of the designer range, because each location needs its own pages. A custom-coded build at $5,000 to $30,000 only makes sense if you need software no builder offers.

Whatever you spend up front, add the running costs below. If you run a plumbing company, I cover the trade-specific pieces in how much a plumber website costs.

How much should a website cost for a small business per month?

Wix puts the monthly cost of keeping a website running at $10 to $300. Hosting alone usually runs $10 to $50 a month. Maintenance, updates or security add $50 to $200 a month on more complex sites.

Years two and three below use renewal prices, because the first-year hosting deal rarely lasts.

Small business website cost over one and three years, low to high
Scenario	Year one	Each year after	Three-year total	Per month over three years
Build it yourself, basic builder plan	$0 to $300	$0 to $300, if the plan price holds	$0 to $900	$0 to $25
Build it yourself, with paid apps and add-ons	$200 to $2,350	$200 to $1,900	$600 to $6,150	About $17 to $171
Designer, before paid maintenance	$5,046 to $10,200	$34 to $1,089	$5,114 to $12,378	About $142 to $344, before maintenance
Designer, with paid maintenance	$5,646 to $12,600	$634 to $3,489	$6,914 to $19,578	About $192 to $544

How I got there: a $5,000 to $10,000 designer build, hosting at $3 to $15 a month the first year and $2 to $80 a month at renewal, and a domain at $10 to $20 the first year and $10 to $129 at renewal (all Hostinger). Maintenance is $50 to $200 a month (Wix). The add-ons row uses Housecall Pro's $0 to $450 upfront, $15 to $150 a month and $20 to $100 a year for upkeep.

How much does it cost to host a website?

Basic hosting starts around $3 to $15 a month (Hostinger), and Wix puts shared hosting at $3 to $10, with hosting bought separately running up to $250 a month if you need your own server. Those are first-year prices. Hostinger lists renewals from $2 to $80 a month, and Wix says renewal rates on third-party hosts are often 2 to 3 times the introductory price. Builder plans with hosting included start as low as $17 a month (Wix).

Before you buy, check the renewal price, not just the first-year deal. If you pay someone monthly, get in writing that small text and photo changes are included.

How often should you update your website?

Whenever something a customer would notice changes: services, towns, hours, phone number or photos. Beyond that, check it every few months for broken forms. That's why a monthly fee that includes small edits is worth more than a cheaper one that doesn't.

You rarely need a full redesign on a schedule. I'd redesign when the site stops working on phones, can't hold the pages you need, or the calls dry up. If you're torn between rebuilding and getting found, read website redesign vs SEO.

Should you build it yourself or hire someone?

Build it yourself if you're just starting, money is tight, and you'll actually write the pages. Hire someone once your phone depends on the site.

A builder plan costs a few hundred dollars a year at most. What it really costs you is the evenings spent writing pages and fixing what breaks.

I've done both. My own business, Liquid Breathwork, ran on a dated course template. I rebuilt the site and rewrote it around how people actually search, and it went from 17 to 1,647 clicks a month (Google Search Console).

Google Search Console report for liquidbreathwork.com after the rebuild, monthly clicks from 17 in the lowest month to 1,647 in the peak month — Google Search Console, liquidbreathwork.com. Monthly clicks, Aug 2025 to Jun 2026. Low: Feb 2026 (17). Peak: Jun 2026 (1,647).

Read the Liquid Breathwork case study. That's my business, not a promise for yours.

If you run a trade and you're weighing a builder against a designer, I go deeper in contractor website design.

Is web design still worth it in 2026?

Yes, if your website is where calls come from. Templates look fine now. What earns the cost is the structure: a page for each service, your towns named, tap-to-call, and fast pages.

That structure matters for AI search too. When someone asks ChatGPT or Gemini who to hire, a site that never names your services or towns gives those tools little to work with. That's the AI visibility side of the work.

Getting the finished site found is its own budget. I break that down in how much should I pay for SEO services.

What should a website quote include in writing?

Before you sign, ask for each of these:

A page list, and who writes each page
The domain registered in your name
Where the site is hosted, and whether you can move it
What the monthly fee covers, including small text changes
Basic SEO setup: page titles, descriptions, Google Business Profile link

Here's how I do it. You get a hosted site you own outright, updates are included while we work together, and the website and marketing are billed as one. I quote on a free call, and the price mostly follows how many services and towns need their own page, whether I write the pages or you do, and what has to move over from your current site. See how I build websites for small businesses.

If you're holding two quotes that don't match, bring them to that call. I'll tell you what each one actually buys.

How much should a website cost for a small business?