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How much does a website cost? Real price ranges for DIY builders, freelancers, and agencies, plus the ongoing costs most quotes quietly leave out.
QUICK ANSWER
A small business website typically costs between $2,000 and $15,000 in the US, with most professionally designed sites landing around $5,000 to $15,000. DIY builders run roughly $15 to $50 per month. E-commerce and booking builds commonly run $10,000 to $50,000. After launch, hosting, maintenance, and content usually add somewhere between $50 and $500 per month.
A website costs anywhere from a few hundred dollars to six figures because the word “website” describes wildly different things. A five page brochure site for a plumber and a 200 page site with booking, payments, and a customer login are both websites. Price tracks scope, how much is custom, and how much strategy happens before anyone opens a design tool. Once you know which one you need, the range narrows fast.
None of this is secret. Google's own SEO starter guide covers the same fundamentals, from the source.
The biggest cost driver is not page count. It is how much of the work is custom. Templates are cheap because the hard decisions are already made for you. Custom design, custom copy, and custom functionality all mean someone is thinking from scratch, and the thinking is the expensive part. Most quotes you receive are really a bet on how many hours that thinking will take.
Here is what each route typically costs in the US market. Treat these as ranges rather than quotes, because they shift with your city, your industry, and how complicated your business is behind the scenes. Use the table to sanity check whatever lands in your inbox. If a quote sits far outside the band for its category, that is not automatically wrong, but it deserves a direct question.
Most small businesses that want a site to generate leads, not just exist, end up in the $5,000 to $15,000 range with a small agency or a strong freelance team. Below roughly $2,000 you are usually buying a template with your logo dropped into it. That is a legitimate choice when budget is tight, as long as you are honest that it is what you are buying.
| Option | Typical cost | Best for | Main tradeoff |
|---|---|---|---|
| DIY builder (Squarespace, Wix) | Roughly $15 to $50 per month | Testing an idea, simple brochure sites | Your time, and a look everyone recognizes |
| WordPress theme you set up yourself | Often $200 to $1,000 in year one | Owners comfortable with software | You are the support desk |
| Freelance designer | Commonly $1,000 to $5,000 | Small sites with tightly defined scope | Availability, and no team for edge cases |
| Small agency, custom design | Commonly $5,000 to $25,000 | Businesses where the site drives revenue | Higher upfront cost, longer process |
| E-commerce or booking build | Often $10,000 to $50,000 | Sites that take money or appointments | Complexity and testing time grow fast |
| Enterprise or custom platform | Six figures and up | Large organizations, custom applications | Long timelines, heavy process |
Rule of thumb
If your website is a brochure, buy cheap. If your website is your main source of new customers, the cost of a bad one is far higher than the cost of a good one.
Launch is not the last invoice. Every website has running costs, and quotes that look suspiciously cheap often leave them out. Budget for hosting, a domain, software licenses, and someone to keep the thing updated. For a typical small business site, expect ongoing costs somewhere in the $50 to $500 per month range, depending on how much you handle yourself.
The line people underestimate is maintenance. Plugins, themes, and core software need updating on a schedule or the site eventually gets compromised, and cleanup costs more than prevention. If you plan to handle it yourself, put a recurring reminder on the calendar. If you do not, price a care plan into the budget from day one rather than discovering it in month four.
| Ongoing item | Typical range | Can you skip it? |
|---|---|---|
| Domain registration | About $12 to $20 per year | No |
| Hosting | Roughly $10 to $100 per month | No |
| SSL certificate | Often included free with hosting | No |
| Plugin, theme, or app licenses | Roughly $100 to $600 per year | Sometimes |
| Maintenance, updates, backups | Commonly $50 to $300 per month | Not safely |
| Content edits and new pages | Varies, often $100 to $500 per month | Yes, if you do it yourself |
| Business email hosting | About $6 to $20 per user per month | No |
Watch for
A quote with no line for hosting, maintenance, or content updates is not a cheaper website. It is the same website with the bill split into pieces you find later.
Two quotes differ that much because they are quoting different work, even when the brief is identical. The cheap one usually assumes you supply the copy, the photos, and the sitemap, and that a template covers the design. The expensive one usually includes discovery, custom design, written copy, SEO structure, and a real testing phase. Neither is dishonest. They are answering different questions.
The fastest way to compare is to ask every bidder what happens to the price if you supply finished copy and photography. If the number barely moves, they were never planning to write anything. If it drops a lot, you now know what portion of the fee was content production, and you can decide whether you actually want to take that job on yourself.
Do this before you compare
Send every bidder the same one page brief and the same list of pages. Vague briefs produce vague quotes, and vague quotes produce change orders.
A fair quote is specific enough that you could hand it to a different vendor and get roughly the same build. Run any proposal through this list before you sign anything. Anything that cannot be answered clearly in writing has a habit of turning into a surprise invoice halfway through the project.
Website design at Kihan Marketing starts at $5,000. That covers a custom designed site rather than a template with a new logo dropped in, and the price moves with page count, functionality, and how much of the copy and content we produce for you. Every project is scoped against a written page list, so the number in the proposal is the number on the invoice.
If you want the site to bring in search traffic, that is separate ongoing work. SEO starts at $1,500 per month, and growth packages that combine SEO with continuing site work start at $3,000 per month. Everything is month to month with no long term contract, which means the work has to keep earning its place every month.
On timing, expect early movement within the first few weeks as technical fixes and new pages get picked up, and meaningful traction in 60 to 90 days. Anyone promising page one in 30 days is either targeting keywords nobody searches or is about to disappoint you. If you want a straight answer about your specific site, call (425) 954-3452.
Straight answer
Website design starts at $5,000. SEO starts at $1,500 per month. Growth packages start at $3,000 per month. Month to month, no long term contract.
Most small businesses in the US spend between $2,000 and $15,000 for a professionally built website, with a common landing zone around $5,000 to $10,000 for a custom designed site of five to fifteen pages. DIY builders cost roughly $15 to $50 per month if you do everything yourself. E-commerce and booking sites run higher because there is more to build and test. After launch, hosting, maintenance, and content typically add somewhere between $50 and $500 per month.
Because they include different work, not because one vendor is greedy. The lower quote usually assumes a template, your copy, your photos, and minimal strategy. The higher quote usually includes discovery, custom design, written copy, SEO structure, testing, and post launch support. Ask both bidders the same question: what changes if I supply finished copy and images? The gap between their answers tells you exactly what you are paying for. Also confirm who owns the domain, hosting, and files afterward, because that is where cheap builds get expensive.
Plan on roughly $600 to $6,000 per year for a small business site, depending on how much you outsource. Domains run about $12 to $20 annually. Hosting is commonly $10 to $100 per month. Plugin, theme, or app licenses often add $100 to $600 per year. Managed maintenance covering updates, backups, security, and small edits commonly runs $50 to $300 per month. Skipping maintenance is the most expensive saving available, since cleaning up a compromised site usually costs more than a year of prevention.
A small brochure site commonly takes three to six weeks. A custom fifteen to thirty page site more often runs eight to twelve weeks. E-commerce and anything with third party integrations can run longer. The biggest cause of delay is content, not design. Projects stall waiting on copy approvals, photos, and service details from the client side. If you want to move fast, gather your text, images, and product information before the project starts, and name one person who can approve things without a committee.
It depends entirely on what the site has to do. If you need an online business card so people can find your hours and phone number, a template is fine and spending more is waste. If the site is how customers find you, compare you, and decide whether to call, then design, copy, load speed, and search structure directly affect revenue, and the difference shows up in leads rather than in looks. Decide based on the job the site has to do, not the sticker price.
Not always, but usually if you want search traffic. A well built site includes technical basics like clean structure, fast loading, proper titles, and schema markup. That makes you findable, not competitive. Ongoing SEO is the separate work of earning rankings through content, internal linking, local signals, and authority. Kihan Marketing prices SEO separately, starting at $1,500 per month, because it is continuing work rather than a one time build. Expect early movement within weeks and meaningful traction in 60 to 90 days.
Yes, with real tradeoffs. Squarespace, Wix, or WordPress with a purchased theme can produce a respectable site for roughly $15 to $50 per month plus your time. Budget dozens of hours if you are learning as you go, and be honest about what those hours are worth to your business. DIY works well for simple brochure sites in less competitive markets. It works badly when you need e-commerce, custom functionality, or to outrank established competitors in search results.
Kihan Marketing gives you a written scope and price within one business day. No pressure, and nothing to sign to see it.
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