"How much does a website cost?" is a bit like asking how much a truck costs. It depends what you need it to haul. Here is what actually drives the price, what you will pay every month, and how to compare quotes that look nothing alike.
The main ways to get a site
Do it yourself on a builder
Wix, Squarespace and similar builders charge a monthly fee and give you templates to fill in. It is the cheapest way to get online. You pay with your time, and the result depends on how much of it you put in.
A freelancer
Prices vary a lot, from someone setting up a template for you to a developer building from scratch. Look at their past work, and ask who maintains the site after launch.
An agency
More people are involved: a salesperson, a project manager, designers and developers. That costs more, and it can be worth it for large or complex projects.
What pushes the price up
- Number of pages. Five pages and forty pages are different jobs.
- Writing. If you need the pages written for you, that is real work.
- Features. Booking, payments, quote calculators, customer portals, a store.
- Moving an old site. Carrying content over and redirecting old pages takes care.
- Connections. Linking the site to your CRM, calendar, invoicing or inventory.
What it costs every month
The build is one cost. Keeping it running is another. Plan for:
- Your domain name, renewed every year.
- Hosting, which may be included or separate.
- Business email, if it runs on your domain.
- Updates and changes, either your time or someone else's.
- Paid tools like booking software, chat or review widgets.
Ask every designer to list these. Two quotes can look far apart until you add up three years of each.
Red flags in a quote
- No examples of real, live sites they built.
- A guarantee of the top spot on Google.
- A long contract with a big fee to leave.
- Your domain registered in their name.
- A price with no list of what is included.
What to check about ownership is covered in who owns your website.
How I price
I do not have packages or a price list. Every site is quoted as one fixed price for that job, up front, after a conversation about what you need. You know the number before anything starts, and there is no long contract after. Details are on the pricing page, or you can ask for a quote.
