How much does a website cost?

The short answer

These are typical ranges for a small site of about five pages, rounded. Treat every row but mine as an estimate to plan with. Prices vary a lot by city and by who you ask.

What changes the price

• How many pages. Each page has to be written, laid out and checked on a phone.
• Who writes the words. Writing is often quoted separately. Ask.
• Selling online. A store with payments, stock and shipping is a much bigger job than a site that gets you calls.
• Booking and forms. A simple contact form is small. Online booking tied to your calendar is more.
• Photos. Your own photos cost nothing. A photographer is extra.

What you pay every year

Three things recur, whoever built the site.

• The domain, your web address. Usually $15 to $25 a year.
• Hosting, the computer the site lives on. From nothing to a few hundred dollars a year for a small site.
• Care: small edits and fixes when something breaks. Some people do this themselves. Others pay monthly.

A website builder rolls all three into one monthly plan. That is why its first year looks cheap and its fifth year does not.

What should be included

Whatever you pay, the site should do these things. If it does not, the price was not the problem.

• The first line says what you do and where.
• Your phone number is a button on every page.
• It opens in under two seconds on a phone.
• Your name, address, phone and hours are written into the page code, where Google and AI assistants read them.
• Calls and forms are counted, so you know what the site brings in.
• It is linked from your Google listing.

You can check most of that list on any site in a few seconds with the website grader.

Seven questions to ask before you pay

1. Who owns the site and the domain when it is done?
2. What happens to the site if I stop paying you?
3. Is the writing included?
4. How many rounds of changes do I get?
5. When do I see a first version?
6. What do I pay every year after, and for what?
7. Will you set up my Google listing and link it?