What a small-business website should cost in 2026

"How much does a website cost?" gets answered with "it depends" so often that most owners stop asking and start collecting quotes that can't be compared. We can't tell you what every studio charges. We can tell you exactly what we charge, what moves the number, and what to ask so any quote you get can be read side by side with ours.

Our published ranges

These are the bands on our pricing page. Every project gets a fixed price after a short kickoff call, and the number on the quote is the number on the invoice unless the scope changes in writing.

Marketing sites (brochure, portfolio, lead-gen)

• $4k–$7k: 1–5 pages, your copy is ready, no CMS.
• $7k–$12k: 6–15 pages, a light CMS for a blog or services, copy polish.
• $12k–$20k: a larger content site, a full CMS, custom integrations, and help writing the content.

Online stores

• $8k–$15k: a small catalog, simple checkout, Stripe and email wired in.
• $15k–$30k: a larger catalog, subscriptions or memberships, custom checkout flows.
• $30k+: multi-region, B2B portals, custom fulfillment integrations.

Redesigning a site you already have

• $5k–$10k: same scope, a modern stack, better performance.
• $10k–$18k: reworked structure, a new design system, content migration.

Custom web apps are a different kind of project and start at $15,000. Most small businesses reading this need the first list, not that one.

What actually moves the number

• Page count. Not because pages are hard to build, but because each one needs a purpose, a layout, and words. Five pages that each earn their place beat fifteen that repeat each other.
• Who writes the copy.The cheapest band assumes your words are ready. If they aren't, writing is real work and the price says so. This is the line item most quotes hide.
• Whether you need a CMS.If you'll publish weekly, you want one. If the site changes a few times a year, you may not, and skipping it is cheaper to build and to run.
• Integrations. A contact form to your inbox is simple. A quote form that drops into your scheduling software, or a booking flow tied to your calendar, is its own piece of work.
• Selling online. Catalog size, subscriptions, and how custom the checkout is are the three things that move e-commerce prices most.

The costs after launch

The build price is only part of it. Before you sign anything, find out what you'll pay every month and to whom.

• Hosting and upkeep.Ours starts at $50/mo for a brochure site and runs $149–$399/mo for our Site+ plans with staging and a CMS. It's never bundled into the build price, and you can cancel it without losing anything we built.
• Third-party bills you pay directly.Your domain renewal, email service, and payment processor fees. On our projects these accounts are in your name and we don't mark them up.
• Changes after launch.We fix anything we built that's broken for 30 days after launch. New pages and features after that are quoted separately. Ask every studio what their version of this is, because "support" means very different things.

Questions to ask any quote, including ours

• Is this a fixed price or an estimate? An estimate is a guess at the hours. A fixed price puts the risk on the studio.
• Who owns the domain, the hosting account, and the code?If the answer is "we do, but we'll transfer it," ask when and how. On our projects they're in your name from day one.
• What do I pay every month, and is any of it required? A required monthly retainer for a brochure site is worth questioning.
• What happens if I change my mind halfway? You want a written change quote, not a surprise on the final invoice.
• How long will it take?Our marketing sites run two to four weeks from kickoff to launch. Stores run four to eight. If a quote has no timeline, it doesn't have a plan either.
• How is payment split? Ours is typically half at kickoff and half at delivery.

When a custom site isn't the right spend

If your budget is a couple of thousand dollars, a custom build isn't what you're shopping for. A good template on Squarespace or Wix, set up carefully, will get you further faster. And if you already have a site that looks fine but nobody finds it, a new website may not fix that at all. The problem is often speed, indexing, or the way your pages are written, all of which can be fixed where the site already lives.

If you want a real number for your project, the project wizard gives you a price range in a few minutes. You can read more about how we build on the web design & developmentpage. And if you're not sure yet whether you need a new site at all, start with the free audit below.