How much does a website cost? We checked 48 published prices

Most pages that answer this question are written by someone who sells websites, and so is this one: I run LocusPilot, which builds them, and it has a row in the table below. So we stuck to prices you can check: 48 of them, from 22 agency packages, 20 freelancer listings and the pricing pages of 6 website builders. All are in US dollars, and all but one were read on 1 November 2026.

Here is what they add up to for a typical small business site.

The short answer

This prices a service business site with no online store. We didn't collect prices for store builds, so if you sell products online, treat these numbers as a floor.

For an 8-page site with a contact form, where you write the words yourself and make your own updates:

Who builds it	Build	Per month	Year one	Based on
Agency	$1,850 to $3,500	$11 to $26	$2,000 to $3,850	22 packages from 16 agencies
Freelancer	$350 to $1,450	$11 to $26	$500 to $1,800	20 freelancer listings
DIY builder	$0	$10 to $22	$120 to $260	6 builder pricing pages
LocusPilot	$20 once, or $0 on Operator	$0, or $29 on Operator	$40 or $370	LocusPilot pricing

The monthly figure for the agency and freelancer rows is regular-price hosting you buy yourself, because in this example you do your own updates. Check your quote first: some agencies only host on their own plan. Nora Kramer Designs' 5-page package, for one, needs its $89-a-month care plan for at least 12 months. Hand the updates to someone else and the agency figure becomes $78 to $180 a month, though not every plan in that range includes edits. More on that below.

If you only remember one number: an agency will usually quote between $1,850 and $3,500 to build 8 pages.

Run it with your own numbers

The table is one set of inputs. Change the page count, tick a blog or online booking, or say you need the words written, and the four columns move. Every price behind them is listed under the calculator with a link to the page it came from and the date we read it.

There is also a standalone version on the website cost calculator page, if you want to send someone a link to their own estimate.

How we worked out the ranges

Each agency package and freelancer listing gets priced for your inputs first. If you want 8 pages and a package covers 5, we add 3 extra pages at the published extra-page rate. If it leaves out a blog and you want one, we add a published blog setup price. Then we take the 25th to the 75th percentile of those prices, which is the middle half. That way one $30 gig or one $4,999 package can't drag the answer around.

Builders work differently. For each one we take the cheapest plan that lets you use your own domain and covers what you picked, priced per month on yearly billing. Six builders is too few for percentiles, so that row runs from the cheapest builder to the most expensive.

Hosting and domains are counted at their regular price, not the intro deal. Year one is the build, plus 12 months, plus a .com domain at $20 a year (the middle of the regular prices at Porkbun, Namecheap, GoDaddy and Squarespace Domains). Builders that include a free domain skip that $20.

Everything was checked on 1 November 2026 except Webflow, whose pricing page we read on 25 October 2026. We kept a saved copy of every page a price came from. What the numbers leave out: your own time, ads, logo design and any paid apps beyond what a feature needs.

What an agency charges

The 22 agency packages run from $475 (TL Web Design's Starter) to $4,999 (Wicked Modern Websites' Full Service Business Website). The median is about $2,300. Half of them cover 5 pages.

That page count is the line to read first on any agency quote, because extra pages are where the price climbs. Seven agencies publish a rate for extra pages on a new build, from $85 a page at Colorado Web Impressions to $400 at Citypeak Marketing. Kaleidaweb charges $500 to add a page to a finished site. Run the same sample at 20 pages and the middle half moves to $5,100 to $6,800. At 50 pages it's $13,350 to $15,050, and most local businesses need more pages than they think.

Features add less than you'd think. A blog setup costs $300 at Succeeding Small, $350 at Nora Kramer Designs and $500 at Sprout Media Lab, which moves the 8-page range to $2,200 to $3,650. Having the words written moves it to $2,650 to $4,200.

The best outside check I found is GoodFirms, which asked 200+ web design agencies and freelance designers (worldwide, no publication date on the page) and put the average basic site at $3,200. That sits near the top of our 8-page agency range, so the published packages and the survey roughly agree.

My view: for a 5 to 10 page service business site in the US, $2,000 to $3,500 is a normal agency price in late 2026. A $10,000 quote for the same 8 pages is paying for brand strategy, custom design or a lot of meetings. Some businesses need that. A plumber with one van usually doesn't.

What a freelancer charges

The freelancer row is really two markets sharing one column.

Eleven of the 20 listings are Fiverr and Upwork gigs. Their median price is $250, and at least 6 of those 11 listings come from sellers outside the US (Pakistan, India, Nigeria and Kazakhstan). The cheapest is a $30 lead generation site from a US-based Fiverr seller, with hosting and the domain not included.

The other 9 are freelancers selling from their own site or from Dribbble, with a median of $1,500. At the top, The Affordable Web Guy charges from $2,999, and that price covers 12 months of hosting, upkeep and the domain registration.

Blend the two and an 8-page site comes out at $350 to $1,450. If you're hiring, look at which half of the column your quote comes from. A $250 gig can be fine for a simple site you'll replace in a year. For a site you want to rank in your town, I'd pay for the $1,500 freelancer who can show you sites they built for local businesses.

What a website builder costs

These are the cheapest plans on each builder that let you use your own domain and handle an 8-page site with a contact form:

Builder	Plan	Per month, billed yearly
GoDaddy	Starter	$9.99 ($19.99 billed monthly)
Hostinger	Premium	$10.99, its regular price on a 48-month term
Webflow	Basic (no blog)	$15 ($25 billed monthly)
Wix	Light	$17
Squarespace	Basic	$19 ($25 billed monthly)
Durable	Launch	$22 ($25 billed monthly)

Hostinger advertises $2.49 a month, but that needs a 48-month prepay of $119.52, so we used the $10.99 it charges after that. Year one for a builder is 12 months of the plan, plus $20 for a domain on Webflow, the only one here with no free domain. GoDaddy, Hostinger, Wix and Squarespace include one for the first year on yearly billing. Durable includes one worth up to $20 and doesn't say for how long.

Two features change the picture. Webflow's Basic plan has no blog, so a blog pushes you to Premium at $25 a month, billed yearly. Online booking is the bigger one: GoDaddy moves you up to Professional at $24.99, Wix to Core at $29, Squarespace needs Acuity Scheduling Starter on top at $16 a month, and Webflow drops out because we found no booking price on its pricing page. With booking, builders run $11 to $35 a month.

The cost a builder never shows is your time. The calculator doesn't price it and I won't guess an hourly rate for you, but if you've never built a site, plan for more evenings than you expect.

What it costs after launch

The build is a one-time bill. The monthly costs are where people get surprised, mostly because of intro pricing.

Hosting is the worst for this. SiteGround's StartUp plan is $2.99 a month for the first 12 months, then $17.99. DreamHost's Web Hosting Launch is $2.89 for the first year, then $10.99. Bluehost's Starter is $3.99 on a 36-month term, then $9.99. At regular prices, the 6 hosting plans we read run from $9.99 (Bluehost) to $35 (WP Engine), and the middle half sits at $11 to $26 a month.

Domains play the same game. GoDaddy sells a .com for $0.01, but only with a 3-year purchase, and each year after that is $22.99. Porkbun charges $11.81 every year with no intro deal.

If you want someone else to make changes, you're buying a care plan, so read what's in it: 5 of the 12 agency plans we found include no changes at all. Inspirable's $49.99 Starter (a November sale price against its usual $59.99) covers hosting and software updates. Periscope Promotions' $60 Site Basics covers the domain, hosting, backups and one email address, and any change is quoted separately. The 7 plans with edit time run from $75 a month (Periscope's Care Plan) to $199 (MaintainPress, with 2 hours of content changes a month). Blend all 12, adding hosting to the plans that leave it out, and agency care runs $78 to $180 a month. Freelancer care runs $110 to $170.

Over a year, that adds $800 to $1,850. An 8-page agency site with someone else doing the updates is $2,800 to $5,700 in year one, against $2,000 to $3,850 if you update it yourself.

The words are a line item too

Copy is the cost most quotes bury. Six published copywriting rates came out between $100 a page (three Fiverr writers) and $425 for the first page at Polly Clover Writes, then $340 for each page after it.

If you know your trade, write the first draft yourself. You know what customers ask on the phone, and a writer at $100 a page has to guess. Then pay someone to tidy it, if you want.

Where LocusPilot fits

Here is our row, with its limits.

There are two ways to pay. The Starter Authority Site is $20 once, for one site of up to 20 pages. Operator is $29 a month, and it's built for people running several sites. Hosting is included on both. You buy the domain yourself, so year one is $40 on the starter site ($20 plus a $20 domain) or $370 on Operator (12 months at $29, plus the domain).

The site is generated by AI from your business details. After that, you make changes yourself with the AI Site Agent. On the $20 site each message costs credits, bought separately, so the $40 year one is for a site you leave as built. On Operator, Site Agent messages are included, up to 50 a day. Nobody on our team edits your site for you, and you won't get a designer or a brand workshop. If your business needs those, the agency row is the honest answer.

Which one I'd pick

If the site has to bring in calls this year and you have more money than time, hire a US freelancer who charges around $1,500 and can show you sites they built for local businesses, and write the words yourself.

If you're comfortable with software and have a few spare weekends, a builder at $10 to $22 a month is the cheapest way to build the site yourself.

Tight budget? Use a builder before the cheapest gig. A $30 site that comes without hosting or a domain doesn't stay a $30 site for long. Our $20 site costs less than either in year one, but each change costs credits, so it suits a site you'll mostly leave as built.

Questions people ask

How much does a website cost per month?

Between $10 and $26 for most small sites if you do the updates yourself. That's a builder plan at $10 to $22 billed yearly, or regular hosting at $11 to $26 for a site an agency or freelancer built. With someone else doing the updates, agency care plans come to $78 to $180 a month, hosting included, but check that yours includes edit time: 5 of the 12 we found don't.

How much should a small business pay for a website?

For an 8-page site, $1,850 to $3,500 is the middle of what agencies publish. Under $1,000 is common with freelancers, and Fiverr and Upwork gigs often start under $300. A survey of 529 US small businesses by Visual Objects found 65% spent less than $10,000 to get a site built and launched, though that survey is from February 2019.

Is it cheaper to build your own website?

In cash, yes. A builder costs $120 to $260 in year one against $2,000 to $3,850 for an agency site. You pay the difference in hours, and some DIY sites never get finished.

Why do website quotes vary so much?

Mostly page count and what's included. One quote covers 5 pages and assumes you supply the words. Another covers 10 pages with copy, hosting and a year of updates. Line them up the way the calculator does, page by page and feature by feature, and the gap usually shrinks.

What does it cost to add pages later?

On a new build, the agencies that publish a rate charge $85 (Colorado Web Impressions) to $400 (Citypeak Marketing) for each extra page. Adding a page to a finished site is $500 at Kaleidaweb. Ask for the rate before you sign: taking our agency sample from 8 pages to 20 moves the middle half from $1,850 to $3,500 up to $5,100 to $6,800.