01 · The ranges
What each kind of builder charges
"A website" isn't one product, which is why quotes for the same project can differ by a factor of ten. Here's roughly what each route runs in 2026, and who each one actually fits.
Who builds itTypical one-time cost
DIY site builder
Squarespace, Wix, Shopify. You do the work; you're renting the platform.
$0 + ~$20–$50/mo
Freelancer
Quality swings enormously. Great ones are excellent value; the cheap end is often a template with your logo dropped in.
$500 – $5,000
Small studio
Custom design and code, a senior person actually doing the work, no layers between you and the builder.
$1,500 – $10,000
Full agency
Strategy decks, account managers, a team. Real value on complex projects — expensive overhead on simple ones.
$10,000 – $100,000+
Custom software / platform
Member portals, booking systems, integrations with other software. Priced like software, because it is.
$25,000+
These are typical U.S. market ranges for small-to-midsize business projects, not quotes. Location, industry, and timeline all move them.
02 · The drivers
What actually moves the price
Five things account for most of the difference between a $2,000 site and a $20,000 one. Everything else is noise.
Page count — but less than you'd think
Pages matter, but not linearly. The first five pages carry the design system, the navigation, the responsive behavior, and the technical foundation. Pages six through twenty mostly reuse all of that, so they're much cheaper per page. Don't let anyone bill you a flat per-page rate as if page 14 costs what page 1 did.
Custom design vs. a template
This is the single biggest swing. A template is a solved problem — pick, populate, publish. A custom design means someone draws your business from scratch, which takes real hours from someone skilled. It's the difference between a suit off the rack and one that's tailored, and the pricing reflects exactly that.
Who writes the words and finds the pictures
The quiet budget killer. Plenty of quotes assume you'll supply finished copy and photography. If you won't (and most businesses don't), that's professional copywriting and photo sourcing being added later — often at a premium, and always after the timeline has already slipped.
Ask any quote you receive one question: "Does this include the writing and the images?" The answer explains most quote-to-quote differences you'll see.
Functionality beyond brochure pages
Online booking, e-commerce, member logins, payment processing, CRM syncing — each is a real feature with real build and testing time. A five-page site with online scheduling is genuinely more work than a twelve-page site without it.
Who's actually doing the work
An agency billing four people's time on a project that two people build has to charge for all four. That overhead is worth paying for on a complex, multi-stakeholder project. On a small-business website it's usually just cost.
03 · The part nobody quotes
The ongoing costs
The build is the one-time number everyone focuses on. These are the recurring ones that decide what the site actually costs you over three years.
- Domain — roughly $15–$25 a year. Unavoidable, trivial, and it should be registered in your name, not your developer's.
- Hosting — anywhere from a few dollars a month to hundreds. Cheap shared hosting is where slow sites come from; it's a false economy on a site meant to earn.
- Maintenance & security — updates, backups, monitoring, malware cleanup. Skipping this is how sites get hacked, and cleanup costs far more than prevention.
- Content edits — new hours, new photos, new services. Either you have a plan that includes them or you're paying hourly for every small change.
- Marketing — SEO, ads, social. Genuinely optional, genuinely separate, and it should always be quoted separately from the build so you can see what you're buying.
A $3,000 site on a $200/month plan costs $10,200 over three years. A $6,000 site on a $75/month plan costs $8,700. The build price is not the price.
05 · Our numbers
What we charge, since we're asking you to trust the rest
It would be a bit rich to write all of the above and then hide our own pricing behind a "contact us." So: our website builds start at $1,295 for a five-page bespoke site, $2,595 for a larger site with booking or e-commerce, and $4,295 for a fully custom flagship build. Care plans — hosting, security, backups, and monthly edits included — start at $75/month.
Every one of those includes the design, the copywriting, and the photography, because we think a quote that excludes them isn't really a quote. Full detail lives on the websites service page, and the cost calculator will give you an itemized number for your specific project in about a minute.
We're a one-principal studio in Denver, which is the entire reason those numbers work — you're paying for the person building your site, not for the four people who'd sit in the meeting about it.
Common questions
The things people ask us
How much does a website cost for a small business?
Most small businesses land between roughly $1,000 and $10,000 for the build, depending on page count, custom vs. template design, and whether you need booking or e-commerce. Below that range you're generally doing it yourself; above it you're usually paying for agency overhead or genuinely custom software.
Why do quotes vary so much for the same project?
Because "a website" isn't one product. A five-page template site and a five-page custom site with original copy, photography, and a booking integration are completely different amounts of work. The other driver is overhead — an agency staffing four roles on a two-person job has to bill for four.
What are the ongoing costs?
A domain (roughly $15–$25/year), hosting, and some form of maintenance. Managed care plans covering hosting, security, backups, and small edits typically run about $50–$200/month for a small-business site. Marketing is separate and should be quoted separately.
Is a cheap website worth it?
Depends what it has to do. If you just need people to find your hours and phone number, an inexpensive template site is perfectly reasonable. If the site is supposed to generate leads, the cheapest option usually costs more over time — slow loads, weak conversion design, and no local SEO foundation mean you pay for traffic that never converts.
How long does it take?
A straightforward small-business site: one to four weeks once content is ready. The delay is almost never the build — it's waiting on text, photos, and approvals. E-commerce or custom integrations run four to twelve weeks.