Ask four people what a website costs and you will get four numbers that are nowhere near each other. That is not because anybody is lying. It is because “a website” describes four genuinely different things, bought in four different ways, and the quotes are not comparable until you separate them.
Here is how the four break down, and what to ask so you know which one you are being offered.
There are two numbers, not one
Every option has an upfront cost and an ongoing cost, and the sales pitch almost always leads with whichever one is smaller.
A builder tool leads with upfront: nothing to start. An agency leads with the finished site and mentions the monthly plan later. Neither is dishonest, but you cannot compare them until you have both numbers for both.
So the first question for anyone quoting you is: what do I pay today, and what do I pay every month after that, forever?
Build it yourself on a website builder
Upfront: nothing to start. Ongoing: roughly $17–39 a month on Wix’s published plans, every month, indefinitely.
The tool is genuinely capable and the monthly number looks small. Two things are worth knowing before you choose it.
First, you are the one building it. Not just this weekend — every time your hours change, every time you add a service, every time something breaks. For most owners the real cost is the evenings, not the subscription.
Second, you are renting. Stop paying and the site goes away. We wrote about what that means in more detail in the guide on renting versus owning.
Who it suits: someone who enjoys this kind of work and has the time.
Hire a freelancer
Upfront: commonly $800–4,000. Ongoing: varies enormously.
A good freelancer is often the best value on this list. The variance is the problem: you are buying one person’s time and judgement, and quality ranges more widely than in any other option here. Ownership also varies — some hand over everything, some keep the hosting in their own account.
Who it suits: someone who can tell a good portfolio from a bad one, or who has a personal recommendation.
Ask: who owns the domain and hosting when we are done, and what happens if you are unavailable in six months?
Hire an agency
Upfront: commonly $2,000–10,000. ProjectCostEstimator’s July 2026 figures, drawn from more than 600 quotes, put a seven-page site at about $5,400 from an agency. Ongoing: usually a monthly plan.
You get a team, a process and someone to call. You also get the overhead of a team and a process, which is most of why the number is what it is.
Who it suits: a business with real complexity — many locations, online ordering, a booking system, an actual marketing department.
Ask: what is in the monthly plan, and what happens to the site if I cancel it?
Buy a ready-made site
Upfront: ours is $1,500 one time. Ongoing: about $21–27 a month — $9–15 for hosting on Netlify’s Personal plan ($9 is their published price; we have seen a new account charged $15 at checkout, so you will see your own price before you pay), about $10 for the JustReview widget that keeps your Google reviews live on the page (their published price), plus your domain at roughly $15–20 a year. All three accounts are in your name, you pay those companies directly, and nothing comes to us.
This is the category we are in, so read the rest with that in mind.
The idea is that most local businesses need the same structure — services, reviews, hours, a way to call you — and that structure can be built once properly and reused, instead of being redesigned from scratch at agency rates for every shop in town. You get the structure, filled in with your business.
Who it suits: a local business that needs a solid, fast, findable site and does not need anything unusual.
Who it does not: anyone who needs a shop, a booking system or a custom design. We would be the wrong choice and we would tell you so.
The question most people forget
Who owns it?
Not who built it. Who owns the domain name, the hosting account and the files, and what happens on the day you stop paying.
With a builder subscription, you are renting, and that is clear enough up front. With a freelancer or an agency it depends entirely on the contract, and plenty of contracts leave the domain registered to the person who built it. That is the detail that turns a routine switch into a month of unanswered emails.
Ask it before you sign anything, and get the answer in writing. On our own sites, the domain, the hosting and the site are in your name from the first day — that is the whole point of how we set it up.
A fair way to compare quotes
Put every quote through the same four questions:
- What do I pay today?
- What do I pay every year after that?
- Who owns the domain, the hosting and the files?
- How long until it is live?
Four answers each, side by side. The cheapest column is not automatically the right one — but you will be able to see what you are actually buying, which is more than most website quotes let you do.
Our own four answers are on the pricing page, in the same four rows, next to everyone else’s.
