How much does a small business website cost?
Most small business websites cost $300 to $8,000 one-time, plus $20–$15/month for hosting. Here's the actual breakdown. And the hidden costs nobody mentions in their sales call.
The honest answer
A 3-page custom small business website costs about $300 if you hire someone like us, $1,800 over five years if you use Wix, $5,000+ at a Wilmington-area agency (per Clutch's 2026 rankings), and $15,000+ at a national agency.
Those numbers all describe the same scope: 3 pages, mobile-responsive, contact form, SSL, basic SEO. The difference is overhead, not quality.
What actually drives the price
Five things move the price up or down. Knowing them helps you avoid being upsold:
- Number of pages. Each page adds design, copy, and dev time. A clean 3-page site beats a bloated 12-page one for most businesses.
- Custom features. Booking, accounts, e-commerce, integrations all add real engineering time. We list each one with its own line on our cost calculator.
- Design complexity. A clean, conversion-focused design costs less than a heavily-animated portfolio site. Trust the simple version. It converts better anyway.
- Copywriting. If you bring polished copy, we keep prices low. If we have to write it for you, that's a few hundred dollars extra.
- Stock photos vs. custom photography. Stock is included. Custom photo shoots are quoted separately, usually $500–$2,000 depending on what you need.
Pricing tiers, plain English
Our pricing in three lines:
- Starter Website ($300). 3 pages, mobile-responsive, contact form, basic SEO. Delivered in 1–2 weeks.
- Custom Website ($800–$2,500). 5+ pages, CMS or blog, integrations, e-commerce. Delivered in 2–4 weeks.
- Web App / MVP ($2,000–$8,000). Full-stack with accounts, dashboards, custom logic. Delivered in 4–8 weeks.
Hosting is a separate $15/month line that covers SSL, uptime monitoring, security updates, and small content edits. Not required. You can take the source code and host elsewhere.
Hidden costs nobody tells you about
These are the line items most agencies bury or skip:
- Domain renewal: $12–$20/year. Owned by you, not the developer (verify this before you sign anything).
- Email hosting: $6/month at Google Workspace if you want a `[email protected]` email. Cheap but easy to forget.
- Stock photo licenses: Many agencies use "included" stock that's actually licensed under their account. If you leave, you may need to relicense.
- SSL renewal: Usually free with hosting providers like Cloudflare and Let's Encrypt. Should not be a separate charge. If your provider charges $50–$200/year for SSL, you're being upsold.
- Content updates after launch: Some agencies charge $150/hour for a sentence change. Our $15/month hosting includes one hour of changes per month; bigger updates are billed at $85/hour with a clear scope.
How to get a real quote
Skip the "schedule a discovery call to learn more" runaround. We quote in three steps:
- Use the cost calculator for an instant ballpark. Pick your pages and features, see a range.
- Send us your URL or business details. We reply with a flat-rate quote within 24 hours.
- Half down to start, half on delivery. No retainers, no hidden fees, no surprise invoices.
Ready for a real quote?
Tell us your scope. We reply with a flat-rate quote within 24 hours. No call required.
FAQ
A 3-page mobile-responsive small business website with custom design, contact form, and basic SEO costs about $300 with us, ~$1,800 over five years on Wix, and $5,000+ at most local agencies.
Either build it yourself on a free platform (slow, looks generic, doesn't convert) or hire someone like us at $300. Below $300, you're either getting a template with someone else's name on it or someone learning on your project.
One-time, if you want to own the site. Monthly subscriptions like Wix and Squarespace add up. $30/month is $1,800 over five years, and you don't own anything you built. Our $15/month hosting is for hosting only; the site is yours from day one.
Custom development costs are stable. Subscription builders have crept up. Wix and Squarespace both raised prices in 2024 and 2025. Custom code prices have stayed flat because the open-source tooling keeps improving.
Our $15/month covers hosting, SSL, security updates, monitoring, and one hour of content edits. That's the all-in number. No surprise invoices.