What a small business website really costs
The scope of your site sets the price: a build runs between $500 and $3,000, with a monthly between $20 and $100 to run it, depending on the scale of your business and what it needs.
One-time versus monthly
Two different bills, and mixing them up is where sticker shock comes from. You pay once to design and build. You pay a little every month to keep it online and looked after, small edits like new hours or a swapped photo included. Where you land in those ranges comes down to how big and how busy your site has to be.
Why a free builder costs more later
The template itself is free. The bill shows up in your hours fighting it, in the weaker search footing a generic site starts from, and in the rebuild you pay for once you outgrow it. That last one is the expensive part: you end up paying twice, once to limp along and once to do it right.
How pricing should work
Any web designer should work with you on price, and say the number early. If someone hides it until you have sat through a pitch, that is the answer. Tell me the size of your business and what you expect, and you will have the range that same day, before you have given me an hour of your time.
These are the searches this page is here to answer.
Still deciding?
Tell me what you are working on and I will give you a straight read on what your site should do, before you spend a dollar.