"How much does a website cost?" is usually the first thing an owner asks us, and the honest answer, "it depends", doesn't help much on its own. So here's what the price is actually made of, what pushes it up or down, and what we charge, so you can read any quote with clear eyes.
The short answer
A website has two kinds of cost: what you pay once to have it designed and built, and what you keep paying every month or year to keep it online and up to date. A cheap build with high monthly fees can cost more over time than a fair build with low ones. A good quote shows you both.
What you pay once: design and build
This is the work of turning your business into a site people can use: planning the pages, designing them, arranging your text and photos, making everything work well on a phone, setting up the ways customers reach you, and launching it on your domain. Most of what you're paying for here is time and experience, and you pay it once.
What you keep paying for
Your domain name
Your domain (yourbusiness.com) is rented by the year. For a .com it's typically somewhere around $10 to $25 a year, and the renewal price can be higher than the first year, so check both. Whoever builds your site, the domain should be registered in your name.
Hosting
Hosting is the computer that keeps your site online around the clock. It's billed monthly or yearly and usually covers the security certificate (the padlock in the browser) and backups. Ask who pays for it and who looks after it.
Website builders
If you build the site yourself on a website builder, you pay a monthly subscription instead of a build fee. Hosting is usually included, but the site lives on their platform: if you stop paying, it goes offline, and moving it somewhere else usually means rebuilding it.
Online stores and payments
If you sell on Shopify, Shopify bills its own monthly plan, and some apps you add charge their own monthly fee too. And any time you take card payments online, whether it's a store order or a booking deposit, the payment processor keeps a fee on each transaction. That's the cost of selling online, not an extra from your designer, and it's worth knowing before you pick a setup.
Updates and maintenance
Hours change, prices change, you add a service. Someone has to make those edits and keep the site secure and working, and that someone is either you or a person you pay.
Your time
If you do it yourself, the biggest cost isn't on any invoice: learning the builder, writing the text, taking and editing photos, fixing how it looks on a phone. If you enjoy that, great. If it means a site that sits half-finished for months, it isn't really free.
What changes the price
Two projects can both be called "a website" and be very different jobs. These are the things that move the price most:
- Number of pages. A one-page site with your services, hours and contact details is the simplest. A separate page for each service, an about page or a gallery all add work.
- Booking. Letting customers pick a service and a time, leave a deposit or get reminders means connecting a booking system and setting it up around how you work.
- An online store. Products, sizes and colors, shipping, taxes and checkout take real setup, even before the design.
- Languages. A bilingual site is two versions of every page, with text written for each audience and kept in step whenever something changes.
- Content and photos. If your text and photos are ready, the build moves faster. If they need to be written, chosen or organized, that's part of the job.
- Integrations. WhatsApp ordering, forms that land in your email, Google Maps, delivery or reservation links, a booking app you already use: each connection needs setup and testing.
If you're still deciding whether you need a site at all, start with Do I need a website if I already have Instagram?
What we charge
For a real reference point, here are our starting prices, also listed on our services page:
- One-page website: from $280
- Full business website, with several pages: from $360
- Booking website: from $360
- WhatsApp catalog site: from $320
- Restaurant website: from $360
- New Shopify store: from $450, plus Shopify's own subscription, which Shopify bills you directly
- Hosting with care: from $18 a month. Every plan includes hosting and some care; the plan you pick sets how much maintenance we do.
"From" is the price of a simple version. Where yours lands depends on the list above, and you'll know the number before anything starts.
How it works with us
- Every project can start with a free mockup of your homepage, so you see the direction before you spend anything.
- If you like it, we agree the pages, features and full price in writing before any work starts.
- You pay half to start and half at launch.
- Once it's paid in full, the design and the code are yours, and your domain is registered in your name.
Red flags when comparing quotes
The lowest number isn't always the cheapest. Before you say yes to anyone, watch for:
- The domain isn't yours. If it's registered in someone else's name, leaving gets hard, and your address on the web doesn't really belong to you.
- Unclear monthly fees. A monthly charge with no list of what it covers, or one that only comes up after you've agreed.
- No written scope. If the pages, features and price aren't written down, you can't hold anyone to them, and "that wasn't included" becomes easy to say.
- You can't take the site with you. Some setups only let you keep your site for as long as you keep paying the same provider.
- Quotes that don't match. A quote with booking and two languages and one without them aren't the same job. Compare the same scope.
See it before you spend anything
The easiest way to know what your site would cost, and whether it's worth it, is to see it. Ask for a free mockup of your homepage and we'll show you a direction, with no commitment. If you already have a site or a Google profile, our free checkup scores what you have in about a minute and shows you what to fix first.