How much does a website cost?

Search this question and you'll get everything from “free” to six figures — and every answer is technically true, because “a website” covers a huge range of things. Here's how to figure out which range you're actually in, what moves the price inside it, and how to get a number you can plan around.

The three ways to get a website

• Do it yourself on a builder. Squarespace, Wix, and similar tools charge a monthly subscription and give you a template. It's the cheapest path in dollars and the most expensive in your own time, and the site looks and performs like every other site on that template. Right for a brand-new business that just needs to exist online.
• Hire a freelance developer or small studio. A custom-designed, custom-built site with one person accountable for the whole thing. This is where I work. You pay for design and engineering time, not overhead, and you end up owning the code instead of renting a template.
• Hire an agency. A team with strategists, designers, developers, and a project manager — and a price that reflects all of them. Worth it when you need many disciplines at once (brand, content, paid media, and a site) or when you're a large organization with procurement to satisfy.

What actually drives the price

Within any of those tiers, the same handful of things move the number. When you're comparing quotes, these are what to compare.

• How many distinct page designs. Not how many pages — how many kinds of page. A homepage, a services page, and a contact page are three designs. Twelve service pages that share one layout are one design filled twelve times.
• Custom design vs. a starting point. Designing from a blank canvas costs more than adapting a proven layout to your brand. Both can look great; one takes considerably longer.
• Who writes the words. Copy is the most underestimated line item. If you're supplying it, the project moves fast. If you need help writing it, that's real work — and it's the work that most affects whether the site converts.
• Content you can edit yourself. A site you can update without a developer needs a content system behind it. That's a little more build up front and a lot less friction later.
• Integrations. Booking calendars, payments, newsletter signups, CRMs, and inventory feeds each add a boundary to build and test.
• SEO and performance work. Metadata, structured data, fast loading, and analytics are either built in from the start or bolted on later at greater cost. I build them in — but it's fair to ask any developer whether they do.

The ongoing costs nobody mentions

The build is a one-time cost. A website also has running costs, and it's worth knowing them before you sign anything: the domain name (an annual renewal), hosting (modern hosting for a marketing site is inexpensive and sometimes free at small scale), any paid services the site depends on (email tools, booking software, form handling), and maintenance — content changes, security updates, the occasional redesign of a page that isn't pulling its weight.

One thing I insist on: the domain and hosting accounts are in your name, not mine. A site you don't control isn't really yours, however little it cost.

How I price a website

Every project starts with a free discovery conversation. We talk about who the site is for, what you need visitors to do, what content exists, and what you need to be able to change yourself. Then you get a fixed scope and a fixed price — not an hourly estimate that grows. The budget ranges on my contact form are there so you can tell me roughly where you're starting from, and I'll tell you honestly what's achievable in that range.

How to bring the cost down

• Launch with fewer pages. A tight five-page site that says the right things beats a sprawling one that's half finished. You can add pages once the core is earning its keep.
• Bring your content. Rough copy, real photos, your actual services and prices. Even messy material is a huge head start over a blank page.
• Decide before you design. Revisions are where budgets leak. Knowing your audience and your one main call to action up front saves rounds of changes later.
• Skip features you can't feed. A blog nobody will write for or a portfolio you won't update costs money to build and then quietly makes the site look abandoned.

Get a real number

Tell me what the site is for and what you have to work with, and I'll come back with honest questions and — after discovery — a fixed scope and price. If a builder is genuinely the right call for where your business is today, I'll tell you that too.