How much does a small business website cost in 2026?

Why the estimates disagree

The lowest estimates describe building the site yourself: about $300 to $500 a year by one count ↗, and $145 to $640 or more once upkeep is included by another ↗. Hiring a freelancer moves the range to somewhere between $500 and $15,000 depending on scope ↗, with $2,000 to $8,000 typical for a custom WordPress site ↗. Agencies sit highest. A review directory lists agency projects from $2,000 to $100,000, averaging $38,105 across its verified reviews even though most of the projects it covers cost under $10,000 ↗, and a builder company puts a small business site from an agency at $10,000 to $35,000 ↗.

Part of the gap is scope. Price follows the size and complexity of the project, the features it needs (a content management system, an online store, chatbots and other AI tools), the number of pages, copywriting, SEO work, whether the site is built on a website builder or coded from scratch, and where the agency is based ↗. Part of it is the hourly rate: roughly $100 to $149 for agency work against $25 to $49 for work on builders such as Wix, Squarespace and Shopify ↗. A guide that prices a do-it-yourself builder and a guide that prices an agency are answering different questions, which is why their numbers differ.

What it costs once the site is live

Launching is not the end of the spending. A domain name runs $10 to $35 a year ↗, with other estimates starting at nothing and topping out near $30 ↗ ↗. Hosting varies more: entry-level plans start around $5 to $18 a month ↗, shared hosting can cost as little as $2 ↗, and dedicated servers run $80 to $500 or more ↗. Builder subscriptions add $15 to $50 a month on one estimate ↗ and $9.99 to $20.99 or more on another ↗, and they continue for as long as the site does ↗.

Maintenance is where the sources disagree most. Annual figures of $20 to $100 ↗ sit next to advice to budget $500 or more ↗ and a monthly range of $50 to $200 for updates, security monitoring and backups ↗, which works out to $600 to $2,400 a year.

Before you accept a quote

Setting aside an extra 10 to 20 percent for the items that rarely appear in a headline price, such as premium plugins, stock photos, professional email and ongoing maintenance, is a common recommendation ↗. Four checks follow from the figures above.

1. Ask which of the cost drivers the quote covers: pages, features, copywriting and SEO ↗.

2. Ask for domain, hosting and maintenance as separate yearly figures, and compare them with the ranges above.

3. Add 10 to 20 percent to the quote for extras ↗.

4. Find out what kind of provider a published range describes before comparing it with a quote.