What you are actually buying
A website quote is a bundle of six things, and most of the price variation comes from how many of them are included and how well.
- Structure. Which pages exist and why. A site with a page per service and per town you serve ranks; a site with one "Services" page listing everything does not. This is thinking work and it is often skipped.
- Copy. The words. Writing that says something specific about your business, with the terms customers search for, is the single biggest driver of whether the site brings in leads. Cheap quotes assume you will provide it. You will not, and the site will launch with placeholder text or two sentences per page.
- Design and build. How it looks and how it is put together. The visible part, and the part owners focus on, but only a third of the value.
- Technical foundation. Speed, mobile layout, security, correct page titles and descriptions, local business schema, a sitemap, analytics. Invisible to you, decisive to Google.
- Local search setup. Google Business Profile, consistency of your name, address and phone across directories, and a way to collect reviews. For a local business this is often worth more than the site itself.
- Handoff and upkeep. Can you change your hours yourself? Who owns the domain? What happens when something breaks in eight months?
The price bands, honestly
| Price | What you typically get | What is usually missing | Right for |
|---|---|---|---|
| $0 to $500 DIY builder, or a friend | A template on Wix, Squarespace or GoDaddy with your logo and photos. Live in a weekend. | Structure, copy, technical foundation and local search setup. Often slow on phones. You are the support department. | A brand-new business testing whether it exists, or a business whose customers all come from referrals and never search. |
| $500 to $1,500 Freelancer, template-based | A template customized with your content. Sometimes a basic contact form and a Google map. | Copywriting, service and area pages, schema, analytics events, Business Profile work. Often built on a platform the freelancer controls. | A business that has the content written and just needs it assembled competently. |
| $2,400 to $6,000 Independent professional | Structure planned around search, copy written or edited for every page, custom design, fast modern hosting, full technical foundation, local search setup, analytics on calls and forms, written handoff guide, 30 days of fixes. | Ongoing content and link building, which is marketing rather than a build. Complex integrations. | Most established local service businesses, childcare and schools, clinics, studios and shops that want the phone to ring from search. |
| $6,000 to $15,000 Small agency or custom build | Everything above plus e-commerce, booking or portal functionality, multiple stakeholders, brand work, photography, more revision rounds. | Usually nothing, but check whether the price is for capability or for the agency's overhead. | Multi-location businesses, e-commerce, anything with customer accounts or custom logic. |
| $15,000+ | Agency retainer, custom platform, or you are paying for a brand name. | Ask what specifically you get for the difference. | Companies with marketing departments, not small businesses. |
My own web design work starts at $2,400 for a five-page site and $4,800 for a full site, with custom sites and stores from $8,500. I am telling you that so you can read the rest of this with the bias in view.
When the cheap option is the right one
A page builder is the correct answer more often than people who build websites for a living admit. Use Squarespace or Wix and skip the professional if:
- You are testing a new business and do not yet know whether it will exist in a year.
- All of your customers come from referrals or a marketplace, and nobody will ever type your service into Google.
- You can write well, have good photos, and will spend a full weekend on it.
- You need one page with hours, a menu or a booking link, and nothing more.
For online stores, Shopify is usually right at any budget, and a professional's job is setup and marketing, not building a store from scratch.
The hidden costs
Three things turn a cheap site into an expensive one over time.
Platform lock-in. If the site lives on a builder's platform or the developer's own account, leaving means starting over. Ask: is the domain registered in my name? Do I have the hosting login? If I fire you tomorrow, what do I have?
Monthly fees for nothing. Some "$99 a month" arrangements are a builder subscription with a markup and no service. Hosting for a small business site should cost a few dollars a month or nothing. A care plan is worth paying for only if it includes edits, monitoring and a human who answers.
The rebuild in two years. A slow template that never ranked gets rebuilt when the owner gives up on it. The $800 site that produced no leads and got replaced cost more than the $4,000 one that did not need replacing.
Questions to ask before you sign
- Who writes the copy, and will there be a page for each service and each town I serve?
- Will the domain and hosting be in my name, and will I receive the full source?
- What will the site score on Google's PageSpeed test on a phone? (Ask to see one of their live sites tested.)
- Is Google Business Profile setup or review included?
- What analytics will be set up, and will they track calls and form submissions, not just visits?
- How do I change my hours after launch, and what does that cost?
- Is the price fixed, and what would change it?
If you want a fixed quote for your business, send me a few lines. I will tell you which band you are in and whether you need me at all.