How Much Does a Small Business Website Cost (2026)
A small business website costs $0 to $800 if you build it yourself, $1,500 to $7,000 if a freelancer builds it, and $5,000 to $20,000 if a small agency does — those are ZipWP's 2026 bands. The running costs most quotes leave out come on top: domain, hosting, licences and maintenance. Our own tiers are $990, $2,900 and $6,900.
Prices vary because the work varies. A one-page site built from photographs a business already has is a different job from a ten-page site with booking, a content migration and a second language. Anyone quoting one average number is describing their own favourite kind of project.
How much does a small business website cost?
Most small business websites cost between $1,500 and $20,000 to build in 2026, and the figure is decided by who does the work and how much of it there is. MarkBrinker puts a competent, experienced designer at $5,000 to $10,000 for a small business website, rising to $20,000 with more pages or customisation. JIM.com puts most professional builds at $3,000 to $15,000, with a boutique agency at $6,000 to $12,000 and a full-service agency at $12,000 to $35,000 or more.
ZipWP's split by method is the more useful way to read those numbers, because it separates who is doing the work from how good they are:
| Method | Typical range | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Build it yourself | $0 – $800 | ZipWP |
| Freelancer | $1,500 – $7,000 | ZipWP |
| Small agency | $5,000 – $20,000 | ZipWP |
| Enterprise | $25,000 – $100,000+ | ZipWP |
| One page, freelancer | $500 – $1,500 | WPZOOM |
| One page, agency | $2,000 – $5,000 | WPZOOM |
| Five to ten pages, freelancer | $1,500 – $5,000 | WPZOOM |
| Five to ten pages, agency | $5,000 – $15,000 | WPZOOM |
| Most professional builds | $3,000 – $15,000 | JIM.com |
| Boutique agency | $6,000 – $12,000 | JIM.com |
| Full-service agency | $12,000 – $35,000+ | JIM.com |
Two things stand out. The four methods barely overlap, so asking for a quote is not a comparison. And page count moves the number inside a band as much as the band does: WPZOOM has a one-page site at $2,000 to $5,000 through an agency, rising to $5,000 to $15,000 for five to ten pages at that same agency.
What pushes a quote up or down?
Page count, custom design, and anything that has to be built rather than written: booking, payments, accounts and migrations.
- Pages. One page and ten are different jobs, and the band moves with them.
- Custom design rather than a layout adapted from something that already exists.
- Booking, ordering or payments.
- Accounts, logins, and anything that stores customer data.
- Migrating an existing site without losing its history.
- Multilingual pages.
- Photography and video the business does not already have.
- Who writes the copy. If you are writing it, the build is cheaper.
Is a website builder cheaper than hiring someone?
Yes in the first year: a hosted builder runs $16 to $159 a month according to GoDaddy, against a one-off freelancer fee that starts at $1,500.
The catch is where it stops being cheap. Builders reach their limit the moment you want a booking flow, a second language, or a layout that does not look like every other site on the same template. At that point you pay a freelancer to work around it, or you start again. GoDaddy sells maintenance on top at up to $500 a year.
For a single page with contact buttons, a builder is a defensible choice. It is also the only route where the site is not yours to keep: leaving can mean starting again from nothing.
What does hosting cost after launch?
Hosting on its own is cheap — WPZOOM puts shared hosting at $10 to $30 a month. What raises the annual figure is everything hosting does not include.
- The domain. GoDaddy: $10 to $20 a year.
- Hosting. $10 to $30 a month, according to WPZOOM.
- Paid themes and plugins, which renew every year.
- Maintenance: updates, patches and the small changes a live site needs. GoDaddy sells plans at up to $500 a year.
- Your own time, if you edit it yourself.
How much does a website cost in year one, all in?
Year one is the build price plus twelve months of the running costs above. It is always higher than the quote, and it is the figure worth comparing two suppliers on.
| Route | Build | Still payable after launch |
|---|---|---|
| Build it yourself | $0 – $800 | Domain $10 – $20 a year, hosting, and your own time (GoDaddy) |
| Freelancer | $1,500 – $7,000 | Domain, hosting at $10 – $30 a month, plus any paid licences (WPZOOM, GoDaddy) |
| Small agency | $5,000 – $20,000 | The same running costs, plus whoever keeps it patched. GoDaddy maintenance runs up to $500 a year |
| Enterprise | $25,000 – $100,000+ | Running costs scale with the site; none of the sources above publish a figure for this band |
The gap between a quote and a year-one total is where most small businesses are surprised. Nobody has done anything wrong. The quote was only ever about the build.
What do small business websites cost at TalonForge?
Three published tiers — $990, $2,900 and $6,900 — fixed against a stated scope, with a 30% deposit, no discovery invoice and no hourly billing.
| Tier | Price | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Starter | $990 | One page, published on a talonforge.xyz subdomain |
| Business | $2,900 | Multi-page, with a contact or booking path |
| Full | $6,900 | Multilingual pages and e-commerce |
Where that sits against the market above: $990 is at the bottom of the freelancer band and below every agency band in the table. $6,900 is the entry point for a boutique agency — JIM.com puts that at $6,000 to $12,000, and we come in under the middle of it rather than above.
A subdomain is a weaker search position than a domain of your own, because search engines read it as part of ours. Moving across to your own domain is free whenever you want it.
What does maintenance cost, and should you take it?
Our managed care plan is 15% of the build price per month, and it is optional. That is the same figure our published terms carry.
On a $990 site that is $148.50 a month, or $1,782 across a year — about 1.8 times the build price. That is worth taking only if you want hosting, TLS renewals and security patches handled for you. If you would rather not, hand the site over instead: it is static and portable, any host will serve it, and nothing stops working if you stop paying us.
Cancel the plan and you keep the site, the domain and the access. There is no lock-in in either direction.
When are we the wrong choice?
Three times, and they are not edge cases: a large site needing custom backend work, a site that needs a named account manager, and an enterprise build.
- Custom backend work. Applications, accounts, payments and anything storing customer data need a team with a maintenance function behind it.
- A named account manager. We are a small studio. There is one person to talk to, and a large retainer deserves more than that.
- An enterprise build. Compliance, procurement, a security review and a contract that assumes a company behind it. We are not that company.
If any of those three describes you, buy from a bigger supplier. The cost of the wrong fit is higher than the saving.
How do I compare two quotes properly?
Compare written scope, not the headline number. Two quotes for the same five pages can differ threefold without either supplier being wrong.
- Fix the page count before asking anyone to quote.
- Ask who writes the copy, and who supplies the photography.
- Ask what is included for booking, payments or a second language.
- Ask where the domain and hosting sit, and in whose name.
- Ask what the site costs to run in year one, and who maintains it.
- Ask for the price as a fixed figure. Hourly billing makes the total unknowable until it is too late to change anything.
Every market figure on this page is attributed, including ours. A number that cannot be traced to a source should not be on the page, and it has no business in a quote either.
Sources
- MarkBrinker — Competent, experienced designers typically charge $5,000 to $10,000 for a small business website in 2026, rising to $20,000 with more pages or customisation.
- ZipWP — Build cost by method: DIY $0 to $800, freelancer $1,500 to $7,000, small agency $5,000 to $20,000, enterprise $25,000 to $100,000+.
- WPZOOM — Page-count bands: a one-page site at $500 to $1,500 with a freelancer and $2,000 to $5,000 through an agency; five to ten pages at $1,500 to $5,000 and $5,000 to $15,000. Shared hosting at $10 to $30 a month.
- JIM.com — Most professional builds land at $3,000 to $15,000, a boutique agency at $6,000 to $12,000, and a full-service agency at $12,000 to $35,000+.
- GoDaddy — domains — A domain costs $10 to $20 a year.
- GoDaddy — website builder — The hosted DIY builder runs $16 to $159 a month, with maintenance plans at up to $500 a year.
Questions people ask
- How much does a small business website cost in 2026?
- Most small business websites cost $1,500 to $20,000 to build. The spread is method rather than quality: ZipWP puts DIY at $0 to $800, a freelancer at $1,500 to $7,000 and a small agency at $5,000 to $20,000. On top of that, running costs of $1,100 to $5,000 a year cover the domain, hosting, licences and maintenance.
- How much should I pay for a five-page small business website?
- WPZOOM puts five to ten pages at $1,500 to $5,000 with a freelancer, and $5,000 to $15,000 through an agency. Below the lower end you are usually buying a template and filling in the blanks yourself. Above the upper end, check what has been added — usually more pages, custom design or a booking system.
- Is it cheaper to build a website yourself or pay someone?
- Building it yourself costs between $0 and $800 (ZipWP) plus your own time. Hiring a freelancer starts around $1,500, which buys back the hours you were never going to spend. For one page with contact buttons, do it yourself. For booking, payments or a second language, pay someone.
- How much does it cost to run a small business website each year?
- Hosting runs $10 to $30 a month and a domain $10 to $20 a year, according to WPZOOM and GoDaddy. Paid themes, plugins and maintenance sit on top, and GoDaddy sells maintenance plans at up to $500 a year. Our own estimate for the whole running stack — domain, hosting, licences and maintenance — is $1,100 to $5,000 a year.
- How much does a one-page website cost?
- WPZOOM puts a one-page site at $500 to $1,500 with a freelancer and $2,000 to $5,000 through an agency. A hosted builder will do it for $16 to $159 a month (GoDaddy), which costs more across a full year. One page is also the size at which the builder route works best, because there is little for it to get stuck on.
- What should I ask for in a website quote?
- Ask for the page count, who writes the copy, who supplies the photography, and what happens to the domain and hosting at handover. Then ask what the site costs to run in year one and who maintains it. A quote that answers those can be compared with a competitor's; a headline price cannot.
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