“How much does a website cost?” is the most-asked question in our inbox, and the most-dodged answer on the internet. Most agencies bury the number behind a “quick call.” We don't. Here's a real breakdown for 2026 — the ranges, what moves them, and the costs everyone conveniently forgets to mention until the invoice lands.
The honest price ranges
What you pay comes down to two things: who builds it and how custom it is.
- DIY builders (Wix, Squarespace): roughly $0–$50/month. You do the work, inside a template. A fine place to start.
- Freelancer: $1,000–$6,000 for a small-business site. Quality swings wildly with the individual — you're betting on one person.
- Studio / agency: $4,000–$20,000+ for a custom marketing site. Online stores and web apps start higher.
For reference, our own starting prices are right on the page: sites from $4k, stores from $9k. No maze, no “book a call to unlock pricing.”
The number nobody quotes: what it costs over 2 years
Here's the move the cheap end doesn't want you making — add it up over 24 months. A website isn't a one-time purchase; it's a thing you run. The sticker price and the real price are rarely the same number.
| Where the money actually goes | The cheap template route | The custom route |
|---|---|---|
| Hosting & infrastructure | $15/mo shared hosting — slow, crammed in with strangers, quietly spiking your bounce rate | Fast managed hosting tuned for load speed |
| Apps & plugins | $80–$150/mo in subscriptions to bolt on “basic” features the template can't do natively | Features built into the code — no monthly rent for a bundle builder |
| Simple edits | Surprise hourly fees to change a price or a paragraph | You edit it yourself, or a flat, transparent retainer |
| The 12-month rebuild | $0 today, thousands later when you outgrow the template and redo the whole thing | Built to grow, so you're not rebuilding it the moment you get traction |
The cheapest website is rarely the one with the smallest invoice. It's the one that doesn't quietly bill you for two years and then make you rebuild anyway.
What you're actually paying for
A website price isn't for “some pages.” It's for the work you never see:
- Strategy — who's visiting, what they need to do, and what actually makes them act.
- Design — a look that's yours, engineered around how people really decide.
- Build quality — fast, mobile-first, SEO from day one, secure by default.
- Conversion — the difference between a brochure and a thing that brings in customers.
Why the ranges exist (in real engineering hours)
Prices aren't pulled from a hat. Each tier is a different amount of actual work. Here's what the jump buys:
The marketing site — from $4k
The hours go into what makes a page convert and load fast: information architecture, a clear messaging map, custom design, and performance work so the thing paints in under a second on a phone. Not “a template with your logo on it” — a site built to make one point well and get the enquiry.
The custom store — from $9k
Now you're paying for commerce that actually sells: a checkout tuned not to lose people, funnel and upsell logic, and the hand-coded features a theme simply can't do (like the custom bundle systems we've built into real Shopify stores). Every custom feature you own outright is one you're not renting from an app store every month.
The AI-integrated build — from $18k
The top tier is real software: production AI pipelines, a knowledge base wired to your actual business, and the plumbing — retrieval, guardrails, cost controls — that keeps an assistant helpful instead of hallucinating or quietly torching your budget on tokens. It's the difference between a gimmicky chatbot and a tool that does a job.
The costs people forget
The build is one number. Running a site has a few more:
- Domain: ~$10–$20/year.
- Hosting: ~$5–$50/month depending on traffic and platform.
- Maintenance: updates, backups, small changes — your time or a small retainer.
- Apps / plugins: on template platforms these monthly fees stack up fast (see the table above).
Red flags to walk away from
- A price that won't be shared without a hard-sell call.
- “$500 for a full website” — someone's cutting a corner you'll pay for later, with interest.
- No mention of mobile, speed, or SEO anywhere in the quote.
- Per-edit hourly fees buried in the fine print.
Want a real number for your project? We agree the final price with you before any work begins — no card, no catch. Book a free call and we'll scope it honestly, or see exactly where our tiers start on the pricing page.
