What a website should cost a small business in 2026

Ask five people what a website costs and you'll get five answers spread across two orders of magnitude. All five might be right. Here is how to make sense of it.

The three real tiers

Do it yourself: $10 to $50 a month. Squarespace, Wix, Shopify's basic themes. If you're just starting out and money is tight, this is a fine answer, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something. The cost isn't the subscription. It's your weekends, and a site that looks like everyone else's.

A freelancer with a template: $1,000 to $5,000. Someone sets up a theme, drops in your logo and content, and hands it over. Fine for "we just need to exist online." The risk is the handoff: when something breaks a year later, the person who built it has often moved on.

Custom design and build: $5,000 to $30,000+. Someone designs around your business instead of pouring your content into a mold. The wide range comes down to scope: a five-page site sits at the low end, online stores and booking systems in the middle, custom functionality at the top.

What actually moves the price

Three things, mostly. Design depth: template, customized template, or designed from scratch. Functionality: brochure site, store, booking, member accounts, integrations with your other tools. Content: whether you're providing finished words and photos or paying someone to create them. Everything else is small compared to these.

Red flags worth walking away from

A quote with no breakdown of what you're getting. Ongoing "maintenance" fees with nothing specific attached to them. A builder who owns your domain or your hosting account in their name. Anyone who won't tell you what happens if you leave.

When custom pays for itself

A site is an expense until it does a job: bringing in leads, selling products, booking appointments. One of our clients was losing customers to a storefront that took twenty seconds to load. The rebuild paid for itself in recovered sales. If your site has a revenue job and it's underperforming, custom work is an investment with a return, not a cost.

Not sure which tier you actually need? Reach out through our contact page and describe your situation. We'll tell you honestly, even if the answer is "stay on Squarespace for now."