How Much Does a Small Business Website Cost in 2026?
By Kamden Wollard, October 13, 2026. 6 min read.
Ask three web designers what a website costs and you’ll get three wildly different answers. That’s not because anyone is hiding the ball. It’s because “a website” can mean a one-page site you build yourself on a Sunday or a custom project an agency spends two months on.
Here’s what each option really costs, what you get for the money, and the ongoing costs that catch most owners off guard.
The short answer
| Option | Upfront | Ongoing | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Do it yourself (Wix, Squarespace) | $0–$300 | Monthly plan fee, plus your time | Owners who enjoy tinkering and have time |
| Freelancer | About $2,000–$7,600 | Hosting, plus paying for changes | A custom site on a moderate budget |
| Agency | About $5,000–$15,000 | Often a maintenance retainer | Bigger businesses with complex needs |
| Pay-monthly, done for you | $0 to a few hundred dollars | Roughly $99–$150+ a month | Busy owners who want it handled |
Industry guides put the average professionally built small business site somewhere between $2,000 and $8,000, with fuller agency builds commonly landing between $5,000 and $15,000. Those are averages, so your number depends on how many pages you need, who writes the words, and what the site has to do.
Option 1: Build it yourself
Website builders like Wix and Squarespace are the cheapest way to get online. You can start for little or nothing up front and pay a monthly plan fee after that.
The real cost is your time. Picking a template is easy. Writing every page, sizing photos, setting up your booking or ordering links, making it look right on a phone, and keeping it updated is not. It’s common to start a DIY site and stall halfway through, or launch one and never touch it again.
Option 2: Hire a freelancer
A freelance designer can build you something custom for much less than an agency. One widely cited guide estimates freelance WordPress developers at about $50 to $95 an hour, with a typical small business site taking 40 to 80 hours. That works out to roughly $2,000 to $7,600.
The catch comes after launch. Many freelancers hand the site over and move on to the next project, so every update becomes a new invoice, and if they get busy or disappear, you’re stuck with a site no one knows how to change.
Option 3: Hire an agency
Full-service agencies handle strategy, design, writing, and development. Expect roughly $5,000 to $15,000 for a complete small business site, and more for anything complex like online stores or custom features.
For a restaurant, salon, or contractor, that’s often more firepower than you need. You’re paying for meetings, process, and overhead built for bigger clients.
Option 4: Pay monthly, done for you
A newer model skips the big invoice. You pay a flat monthly fee, and the company designs the site, hosts it, and keeps it updated. Published plans in this category generally run from about $99 to $150 a month or more, sometimes with an upfront fee.
Read the contract before you sign. Some large providers lock you in for 6 to 12 months, and some owners report feeling stuck. Look for month-to-month terms and a clear answer to “what happens to my site if I leave?”
The ongoing costs most owners forget
- Domain name: usually about $10–$15 a year to renew.
- Hosting: roughly $40–$150 a year for a basic small business site, more for managed hosting.
- Maintenance and updates: professional care plans for small businesses commonly run about $75–$200 a month.
- Writing: if no one on your team writes the copy, professional writing can cost about $60–$300 per page.
- Your time: every hour you spend fighting a website builder is an hour you’re not serving customers.
How to choose
Ask yourself one question: who is going to keep this website up to date a year from now? A beautiful site with last year’s hours and prices costs you customers. If the honest answer is “probably no one,” pick an option where updates are included.