Web design · 7 minute read

How much does a website cost in 2026, with real numbers

Every answer to this question online is either a range so wide it is useless or a pitch. Here are the numbers I actually quote and what changes them.

By Charliemen Runa, full stack developer and senior digital marketing specialist. Published 9 July 2026. Updated 1 September 2026.

A worn desk calculator, a blank ruled pad, a fountain pen and reading glasses on a timber desk in low afternoon light

In short

In 2026 a template based small business website typically costs 500 to 2,000 US dollars, a custom designed site for a small business 2,000 to 8,000, an ecommerce build 3,000 to 15,000, and a complex custom platform 15,000 upwards. Ongoing costs of 200 to 2,000 a year for hosting, domain and maintenance apply on top of all of them.

People ask this and get a range from 500 to 50,000, which is technically accurate and completely useless. The number depends on what the site has to do. Here is how I actually price, and what moves it.

The four price tiers

Template based, roughly 500 to 2,000 US dollars

A purchased theme configured with your content, logo and colors. Three to eight pages, basic contact form, no custom design work.

This is a legitimate option when the budget is fixed and the site's job is to confirm you exist. It is the wrong option if the site is meant to generate enquiries, because template sites rarely have the structure to rank and rarely have the copy to convert.

Custom designed small business site, roughly 2,000 to 8,000

Design produced for your business rather than adapted from a theme. Five to fifteen pages, SEO structure planned before build, copywriting or copy editing, responsive testing across real devices, schema markup, analytics and tracking configured.

This is where most of my project work sits and where the value is clearest. The difference between this and the tier below is not appearance, it is that the pages are built around what people search for.

Ecommerce, roughly 3,000 to 15,000

Shopify or WooCommerce, product page design, checkout configuration, payment and shipping setup, product data import, product schema and feeds. The price moves mainly with catalog size and how unusual the products are.

Twenty products with simple variants is at the bottom of the range. Five hundred products with size, color and material combinations, plus tax rules across three countries, is at the top.

Complex or custom, 15,000 and up

Web applications, membership systems, booking platforms, integrations with a CRM or ERP, anything with real user accounts and business logic. Priced by the functionality, not by page count.

What actually drives the number up

Page count, but less than you would think. Ten pages built on the same three templates is not much more work than five. Ten pages needing ten different layouts is a different project.
Content. The largest hidden variable by some distance. If you supply finished copy, the build is faster and cheaper. If I write it, that is real work and it costs real money. Most delays on most projects are content delays.
Custom functionality. Booking, calculators, member areas, integrations. Each is a small project inside the project.
Migration. Moving an existing site with rankings to protect means a redirect map and careful testing. It adds cost and it is not optional.
Multi location or multi service architecture. Twenty location pages that are genuinely distinct is a content project as much as a build project.
The state of what already exists. A clean domain is not the same job as a hacked WordPress install with three abandoned plugins and no backups.

The costs nobody mentions

Annual, for a typical small business site:

Domain, 15 to 30.
Hosting, 60 to 400. The cheapest shared hosting is a false economy that shows up as load time.
SSL certificate, usually free through your host. If you are being charged separately, ask why.
Premium plugins or Shopify apps, 0 to 600.
Maintenance, either your time or 50 to 200 a month for updates, backups and monitoring.
Content and SEO if you want the site to keep growing, which is a separate budget rather than a footnote.

Budget 200 to 2,000 a year in total. Sites that get abandoned tend to be sites where nobody planned for this.

Why the cheap quote is usually more expensive

I get called in to fix cheap sites regularly, and the pattern is consistent. The site was built to a price by excluding the parts that are invisible in a demo: page structure, load speed, mobile testing, redirects from the old URLs, tracking, and copy that answers a buyer's questions.

The result looks acceptable and does not work. The business then pays a second time to have it rebuilt, having lost a year of rankings and enquiries in between. The total is higher than doing it once properly, and the lost year does not come back.

This is not an argument that expensive is always better. It is an argument for knowing what has been excluded from the quote.

How to judge whether a quote is fair

Ask these, and treat vagueness as an answer:

What exactly is included, itemised, including content, SEO structure, testing and redirects.
Who writes the copy, and is it in the price.
Will I own the files and the domain, and what happens if I leave.
What happens if something breaks two months after launch, and for how long.
Can I edit the site myself, and what training comes with it.
How will old URLs be redirected, if this is a rebuild.

A fair quote answers all six in writing without hesitation. A quote that cannot answer question six on a rebuild is a quote from someone who is about to cost you your rankings.

Is it worth it

Work out what one customer is worth to you and how many the site needs to bring in to pay for itself. For a roofing contractor whose average job is several thousand dollars, a 5,000 site pays for itself with two jobs. For a business selling a 30 dollar product, the calculation is entirely different and the answer might be a cheaper site and more of the budget spent on traffic.

That is the only useful way to answer this question. Not what does a website cost, but what does this website need to earn.

Common questions

How much should a small business website cost?

For most small businesses, 2,000 to 5,000 US dollars for a custom designed site of five to ten pages with proper SEO structure. Below about 1,500 you are usually buying a template with your logo on it, which is a legitimate choice if the budget is fixed, as long as you know that is what you are buying.

Why do website quotes vary so much?

Because the word website covers everything from a one page template to a custom application. The other reason is scope definition. A 1,500 quote and an 8,000 quote for the same brief usually differ in what happens to content, SEO structure, testing, redirects and support, all of which the cheaper quote has excluded.

Is a cheap website worth it?

It depends entirely on the job the site has to do. If it exists so people can confirm you are real, a cheap site is fine. If it is meant to generate enquiries, a cheap site that does not rank and does not convert costs more in missed work than the difference in price, usually within the first year.

What are the ongoing costs of a website?

Domain roughly 15 to 30 a year, hosting 60 to 400 a year depending on quality, SSL usually free, premium plugins or apps 0 to 600 a year, and maintenance either your time or 50 to 200 a month. Budget 200 to 2,000 a year in total depending on the platform.

Should I pay monthly for a website?

Read the contract carefully. Some monthly arrangements are genuine hosting and maintenance. Others are rental, where you never own the site and lose it entirely if you leave. Ask one question: if I stop paying, do I keep the files and the domain. If the answer is no, it is rental.