What a small business website actually costs.

Real ranges across the whole market, not just ours, plus what pushes the number up and the costs almost nobody mentions until the invoice arrives. We publish our prices, which is rarer than it should be.

Written by Ronnie Foster, who runs Fernvie. Last updated August 10, 2026. We have built and looked after work for Smith+Nephew, Hallmark Channel, Habitat for Humanity and the Downtown Memphis Commission, and for a lot of small shops and one truck outfits whose names you would not know.

The short answer

For a small business in 2026, a website built by somebody else generally lands between $500 and $10,000, and most fall between $1,500 and $5,000. The spread is that wide because "a website" describes both a five page brochure and a booking system.

If somebody quotes you a number without asking how many pages you need and who is writing the words, the number is not real yet.

Comparing quotes right now? Run our free check on your current site first, about eight seconds. Knowing what is actually wrong with it changes which quote is the right one.

What you will be quoted, by who you ask

• Do it yourself$0 to about $500 a year for a builder subscription. The real cost is your time, and it is usually thirty to sixty hours you did not plan for.
• Marketplace freelancer$300 to $1,500. Enormous quality range. Cheap ones usually mean a template with your logo dropped in and no one writing your words.
• Independent designer or small studio$1,500 to $6,000. Usually the best value for a small business, because you deal with the person doing the work.
• Full agency$8,000 to $25,000, two to three months, and a project manager between you and whoever is building it.
• Enterprise$50,000 and up. Genuinely necessary for some businesses and genuinely absurd for most.

We sit deliberately at the bottom of the studio band. $995 for one page and $2,495 for six, live in five to ten working days, with the words written for you and all of it yours at the end.

What actually moves the price

The costs nobody mentions in the quote

The build is the visible number. These are the ones that arrive afterwards, and a site quoted at $2,000 that needs $200 a month to stay alive is not a $2,000 site.

• Domain name$12 to $25 a year. Make sure it is registered in your name, not your designer's.
• Hosting$0 to $30 a month for most small sites. Cheap shared hosting is usually where "my site is slow" comes from.
• Maintenance$0 if you do it, $49 to $300 a month if somebody else does. Updates, backups, security, small edits.
• Email$6 to $12 per person per month for a proper address at your own domain.
• Plugins and apps$0 to $100 a month, mostly on WordPress and Shopify, and it creeps up quietly.
• Changes laterHourly, usually $75 to $175, unless it is included in a plan you are already paying for.

Budget roughly $600 to $2,000 a year to keep a small business site running properly after it is built. Ours starts at $49 a month, and you can also do it yourself at no cost, because you own everything.

What cheap actually costs you

There is nothing wrong with spending little. There is something wrong with not knowing what you traded for it. At the bottom of the market you usually give up:

• Your own wordsFiller text about "delivering excellence" that says nothing about what you actually do, which is the part that sells.
• Anyone to call afterwardsThe most common story we hear. The site works, the person who built it stopped answering, and nobody can change a phone number.
• OwnershipSome cheap builds live on an account you do not control. Ask directly: if I leave, what do I take with me?
• Being foundTitles, descriptions and structure are the fiddly invisible part, so they are the first thing skipped.

Expensive is not automatically safer. A $15,000 agency site can arrive with the same filler words and a slower page. Price and care are not the same thing.

The most expensive website is the one that does not bring in work. A $500 site that never rings has cost you more than a $2,495 one that does, and it keeps costing every month you leave it up.

How to compare two quotes properly

Ask both of these, and the gap between the numbers usually explains itself:

• Who writes the words, and is it in the price?If the answer is you, add several weeks and a lot of unpaid effort to that quote.
• What do I own at the end, and where does it live?Domain, files, hosting account, content. Get the answer before you pay, not after.
• What happens when I need a change in March?Included, hourly, or nobody answers. All three are legitimate answers and only one of them is a surprise.
• How long, from today?Two weeks and three months are both fine. Not knowing which is not.

What we charge, plainly

• One page, $995Everything on a single scrolling page. Right for most trades and single service businesses.
• Six pages, $2,495A home page and five more, for businesses with separate services worth their own page. This is what most people buy, and it is the one we recommend unless you genuinely only have one thing to say.
• Fix list sprint, $495Not a new site. The five worst problems on your current one, fixed in 48 hours. How that works.
• Full audit, $199Every page graded by a person, free with any build. What it covers.
• Upkeep, from $49 a monthOptional, cancellable, and you own the site either way. The plans.

Words written for you, two rounds of changes, and you own all of it. No monthly fee is required to keep a site we built online. The full breakdown of what is included.

Common questions