How much does a small business website cost in 2026?

It depends on who builds it. That's the real answer, and it's annoying, so here are the three honest bands with numbers attached. Build it yourself on a builder app, hire a person or a small studio, or hire an agency. Each one costs a different amount up front, and a very different amount over the next two years.

Band 1: build it yourself

Builder apps like Wix, Squarespace and GoDaddy charge a monthly software fee. You pick a template, drag things around and publish.

Prices change often, so I won't put a number here that's stale by spring. Our own check of the market on October 28, 2026 put the lower business tiers at roughly $10 to $25 a month. Treat that as an estimate, and look at the builder's own pricing page for today's number.

The software fee is the small part. The big part is your own time. Picking a template, writing every page, sizing photos, figuring out why the phone version looks different from the laptop version. Then, every time something changes, you're the one who logs in and changes it.

That's a perfectly good deal if you like doing it. It's an expensive deal if your hours are worth more somewhere else.

Band 2: a person or a small studio

This is the band I'm in, so I'll use my own prices as the worked example.

• Build: from $1,500, usually about five pages (home, services, about, a gallery, contact). You get a fixed quote before anything starts.
• Hosting: $39 a month. Hosting, HTTPS, backups, updates and a check that the site is up.
• Steady plan: $149 a month. Hosting plus 1.5 hours of changes a month.
• Busy plan: $279 a month. Hosting plus 3.5 hours a month, for shops that change menus, prices or photos often.
• Extra work: $100 an hour.
• $0 down: a build can start at $0 down when you take Steady or Busy for 12 months.

So a typical small business site with me costs $1,500 up front and then $39 to $279 a month, depending on how often you want things changed. Over the first year, the build plus Hosting comes to $1,968. The build plus Steady comes to $3,288.

Other people in this band charge differently. Some sell everything as a monthly subscription. Some charge a flat build and then hourly for every change. Ask for both numbers, the build and the monthly, so you can compare.

Band 3: an agency

Agencies bring a team: a strategist, a designer, a developer, a project manager. That costs more, and for some businesses it's worth it.

Clutch, a directory that surveys agencies, publishes pricing on its web designer pages. When I checked on October 29, 2026, its web design pricing page said most projects reviewed there cost less than $10,000, and that the web design companies it shortlists charge around $100 to $149 an hour.

If you need custom software, a big online store or a brand built from scratch, an agency is the right call. If you need five clear pages and someone to email when the hours change, it's usually more than you need.

The cost people forget: changes after launch

Every site needs changes. New photos, new prices, holiday hours, a new service, a staff page that's three people out of date.

Before you hire anyone, ask:

• Who makes the changes?
• How fast?
• What does each one cost?

With a builder app, the answer is you, whenever you get to it, for free (plus your time). With an agency, it's often a ticket and an hourly rate. With me, it's an email. On Steady or Busy, changes come out of your monthly hours. On Hosting alone, they're $100 an hour, with an estimate first. A text or price change usually takes 15 to 30 minutes.

This is the number that decides whether a site stays useful. A site that was great at launch and never touched again goes out of date fast, and visitors can tell.

What makes a site cost more

• Online booking. Usually it's a link to the booking app you already use. A custom booking system is a much bigger job.
• A store. Selling products online means product pages, payments, shipping rules and taxes. That's its own project.
• Lots of pages. Five pages is a small site. Thirty pages, each with its own photos and text, is not.
• Writing from scratch. If you have no text at all, someone has to write it. That takes real time, and it's worth it, but it's on the bill.
• Photos. Your own phone photos of real work are usually better than stock. If you need a photographer, that's separate.

Three questions before you ask for a quote

You'll get better quotes, and comparable ones, if you know these first:

1. What should a visitor do on the site? Call you, book, order, fill in a form, look at your work. Pick one main thing.
2. How often will it change? Weekly (menus, specials), a few times a year (services, photos) or almost never.
3. Do you have words and photos? All of them, some of them, or none.

Bring those three answers to anyone you talk to, me included, and the quotes will be about the same job instead of three different guesses.

My full price list, with what each plan covers, is on pricing. If you want a fixed quote for your site, send me a note with those three answers.