If you have called around, you already know the answer you get: “it depends.” So here is a straight one. Nationally, a professional small-business website runs about $1,500 to $8,000 as a one-time build from a freelancer, and $3,000 to $10,000 from an agency (Mark Brinker’s cost breakdown has the national ranges).
That spread is close to useless, though, because it lumps five very different things under one word. So let me break down what you are actually choosing between, with real numbers, and then tell you what I charge and why it is one flat figure on a page instead of a quote after a phone call.
Why nobody around here puts a price on it
You have seen the mailers. The national vendors quote you on a call, usually after they have a sense of what your competitor down the road is already spending. Local shops are not much different. Almost nobody in northeast Connecticut publishes a number.
I do. This whole post is that number, with the reasoning, so you can decide before you talk to a single person.
The three ways to get a website
1. Build it yourself
Squarespace, Wix, or GoDaddy run about $16 to $99 a month depending on the plan (Squarespace pricing here), plus your nights and weekends. And I mean that last part honestly. The software is the cheap part. The cost is the hours, the template look that every other shop is also using, and the fact that a site you build between jobs tends to never actually get finished.
If you are comfortable fiddling and you have more time than money right now, this is a real option, and I will say so to your face.
2. Hire a freelancer
Somewhere between $1,500 and $8,000, one time. The range is that wide because you are paying for whoever you happened to find. It can be excellent. It can also vanish the week after launch, leaving you with a site you cannot edit and a domain you are not sure you own. Two questions to ask anyone before you pay them: who owns the domain, and who answers when it breaks at 6pm on a Friday.
3. An agency or national vendor
The Hibu, Townsquare, and Scorpion crowd. High monthly fees, contracts with a term, and in a lot of cases you do not own the site or the domain when you are done. I am not going to pile on here because I wrote a separate post on exactly what they charge. The short version: read who owns what before you sign anything.
What I charge
One flat number, on the pricing page, no call required to see it.
- Build: $3,500, one time. A real site on your own domain, built from your own jobs, that loads fast and works on a phone. Homepage plus the pages you actually need. Before-and-after photos, a contact form, and a text-us-a-photo button so a homeowner can reach you at 9pm instead of moving on to the next name.
- Care plan: $149 a month. Hosting, security, backups, small edits when you call, and your Google Business Profile kept current so you show up on the map. Cancel any time with 30 days notice.
And the part that matters most: you own everything. Domain, site, Google profile, all registered in your name. I am set up as a helper on your accounts, not the owner. If you ever want to walk, you keep the keys and I hand them over.
One more honest note: right now the first few builds are half price, $1,750 instead of $3,500, in exchange for a review and permission to use the finished site as an example. That is a real discount, not a bait number, and it is right there on the pricing page too.
When you should just do it yourself
Here is the part most people selling websites will not tell you. If you are a one-person shop that is already booked solid on word of mouth, and you only need a page so people can find your phone number, then a $16-a-month page you build yourself is genuinely fine. I would rather tell you that than sell you something you do not need.
The moment it is worth paying someone is when the website is supposed to bring you work you are not already getting, or when the hours you spend wrestling with it are hours you should be spending on the tools.
The bottom line
The honest range is wide because “a website” means five different things. For a Quiet Corner trade that wants a site that actually brings in calls and that you own outright, mine is $3,500 to build and $149 a month to run. Published. No call required to hear it.
If you want to see what that looks like before you spend a dollar, the pricing page has all of it, or book a 15 minute call and I will look at what you have now and tell you straight whether you even need me.