How Much Does a Small Business Website Cost in 2026? Complete Breakdown

The Full Cost Spectrum: From Free to $50,000+

Before diving into each option, it helps to see the full picture. Small business website costs in 2026 fall into five broad tiers. DIY website builders like Wix and Squarespace run from zero to around three hundred dollars per year. Freelance web designers typically charge between five hundred and five thousand dollars for a complete site. Small web agencies charge between five thousand and twenty thousand dollars. Large agencies and custom development shops range from twenty thousand to fifty thousand dollars and beyond. And the newest category, subscription-based web design services, runs between fifty and two hundred dollars per month with little to no upfront cost.

According to a Clutch.co survey of over 500 small businesses, the average small business spends between two thousand and ten thousand dollars on their initial website build, with ongoing maintenance costs averaging one thousand to three thousand dollars per year. But averages can be misleading. A solo hair stylist and a multi-location dental practice have vastly different needs and budgets.

The most important thing to understand is that the sticker price of a website is only part of the total cost of ownership. Domain registration, hosting, SSL certificates, ongoing maintenance, content updates, security patches, and plugin renewals add up quickly. Many business owners are surprised to discover that the annual cost of maintaining a website often exceeds the original cost of building it. Let us break down each option so you know exactly what you are getting into.

Option 1: DIY Website Builders ($0–$300/Year)

Platforms like Wix, Squarespace, and Weebly have made it possible for anyone to build a basic website without writing a single line of code. Wix offers a free plan with a Wix-branded domain, while paid plans start at around seventeen dollars per month. Squarespace starts at sixteen dollars per month. GoDaddy's website builder begins at around twelve dollars per month. These prices give you a template-based website with hosting included.

The advantages are clear: low cost, fast setup, and no technical skills required. You can have a basic website live in a single afternoon. For a new business with zero budget, this can be a reasonable starting point just to establish some web presence.

The disadvantages are equally clear, and they matter more than most people realize. Template-based builders produce generic-looking sites that are hard to distinguish from thousands of other businesses using the same template. Performance is often poor, with bloated code that leads to slow load times, which directly hurts your Google ranking. SEO capabilities are limited compared to custom-built sites. And critically for local businesses, booking integration is either unavailable or requires expensive add-on apps that add another ten to forty dollars per month.

There is also a hidden time cost. While these platforms are marketed as easy, building a professional-looking site still takes twenty to forty hours of your time if you have no design experience. That is time you are not spending serving clients or growing your business. For a service-based business owner billing at one hundred dollars per hour, the “free” website just cost you two to four thousand dollars in lost billable time.

Option 2: Freelance Web Designers ($500–$5,000)

Hiring a freelance web designer is the next step up. The price range is wide because the freelance market is wide. A junior designer on a platform like Fiverr might charge five hundred dollars for a basic five-page site. An experienced freelancer with a strong portfolio typically charges between two thousand and five thousand dollars for a custom small business website.

For that investment, you typically get a custom design tailored to your brand, basic SEO setup, mobile responsiveness, and a content management system like WordPress so you can make your own text updates. Many freelancers include a contact form and basic social media integration. Some offer booking integration, though this usually adds five hundred to fifteen hundred dollars to the project.

The primary risk with freelancers is reliability. According to Forbes, approximately 30% of small businesses that hire freelance web designers report significant delays or incomplete delivery. Freelancers get busy, take on too many projects, or disappear entirely. You also face the long-term maintenance problem: if your freelancer moves on to a full-time job or stops freelancing, you are left with a website you cannot easily update or fix.

The other consideration is ongoing costs. A freelancer builds your site and hands it over, but who handles hosting, security updates, plugin compatibility, and WordPress core updates? If you do it yourself, plan on spending three to five hours per month on maintenance. If you pay someone, expect fifty to one hundred fifty dollars per month for a basic maintenance retainer. Factor that into your total cost of ownership.

Option 3: Web Design Agencies ($5,000–$50,000+)

Agencies are the traditional go-to for businesses that want a polished, professional website. A small agency typically charges five thousand to fifteen thousand dollars for a small business site. Mid-tier agencies range from fifteen thousand to thirty thousand dollars. And enterprise-level agencies, the kind that work with major brands, start at fifty thousand dollars and go up from there.

What do you get for that price? A dedicated project manager, a custom design process with revisions, professional copywriting (at higher tiers), advanced SEO optimization, custom functionality built to your specifications, and usually several months of post-launch support. Agencies also offer the reliability that freelancers often lack. If one team member leaves, others can pick up the work.

The downside is that agencies are expensive and slow. A Clutch.co survey found that the average agency website project takes twelve to sixteen weeks from kickoff to launch. That is three to four months where you are paying for a website you do not have yet. And the ongoing costs are substantial: most agencies charge one hundred to five hundred dollars per month for hosting and maintenance, plus hourly rates of one hundred to two hundred dollars for any changes or updates beyond the original scope.

For most local businesses, an agency website is overkill. A neighborhood bakery, a local hair salon, or an independent dental practice does not need a thirty-thousand-dollar website. They need something professional, fast, mobile-friendly, and optimized for local search, with the ability to take bookings. Paying agency prices for those requirements is like hiring an architect to build a garden shed.

The Hidden Costs Most People Forget

Regardless of which option you choose, there are recurring costs that many business owners do not account for when budgeting. A custom domain name costs ten to twenty dollars per year. Web hosting, if not included in your plan, runs thirty to three hundred dollars per year depending on quality. An SSL certificate, which is essential for security and Google ranking, is free through Let's Encrypt but some hosts still charge fifty to two hundred dollars per year. Email hosting through your domain costs five to ten dollars per user per month through Google Workspace or Microsoft 365.

Then there are the costs that creep in over time. WordPress plugins, which most freelance and DIY sites rely on, often start free but require paid upgrades for essential features. A typical WordPress site uses ten to twenty plugins, and the premium ones cost twenty to one hundred dollars per year each. Security monitoring and malware removal services run one hundred to three hundred dollars per year. Regular backups, if not included in your hosting, add another fifty to one hundred dollars per year.

Content updates are another hidden cost. Your business changes: new services, new hours, new staff, new photos, seasonal promotions. If you cannot easily update your own site, each change request to a freelancer or agency costs fifty to two hundred dollars. Over a year, these small updates can add up to one thousand dollars or more.

When you add it all up, a “cheap” fifteen-hundred-dollar freelance website actually costs three to four thousand dollars in the first year when you include hosting, domain, SSL, plugins, and a few content updates. By year three, you may have spent more than a business that chose a higher-quality option from the start.

What Local Businesses Actually Need (and Do Not Need)

Here is what matters, stripped down to the essentials. If you are a local service business, such as a salon, dental practice, spa, restaurant, personal trainer, or any other business that serves clients in person, your website needs to do exactly five things well: look professional and build trust, load fast on mobile devices, show up in local Google searches, make it easy for people to book or contact you, and provide essential information like services, hours, location, and pricing.

What you do not need: a blog with hundreds of articles, an e-commerce store with shopping cart functionality, a customer login portal, a complex content management system, or dozens of pages. Most local businesses perform best with a focused five-to-seven page site that drives visitors toward one clear action: booking an appointment or getting in touch.

The mistake many business owners make is comparing themselves to large companies with large website budgets. A ten-person accounting firm does not need the same website as Deloitte. A local pizza restaurant does not need the same website as Domino's. Matching your website investment to your actual business needs, rather than what agencies try to upsell you on, is the key to getting real value. Understanding why a website outperforms social media alone is the first step in that process.

The Cost of NOT Having a Website

Before you decide that a website is too expensive, consider the cost of not having one. According to BrightLocal research, 98% of consumers search online for local businesses, and 76% of people who search for something nearby on their phone visit a business within 24 hours. If your business does not appear in those searches because you lack a website, you are invisible to three out of four potential customers.

Let us run the numbers for a typical local business. Suppose your average service is worth eighty dollars and you serve clients in a city of moderate size. Without a website, you miss out on approximately twenty to forty potential online bookings per month. That is sixteen hundred to thirty-two hundred dollars in lost revenue every month, or nineteen thousand to thirty-eight thousand dollars per year. Even at the conservative end, the lost revenue from one month without a website exceeds the cost of a professional site for an entire year.

There is also the compounding trust deficit. When someone finds your business on Google but clicks through to no website, or to a poorly designed one, they question your legitimacy. A Forbes study found that 75% of consumers judge a company's credibility based on its website design. No website at all is even worse: it signals to potential clients that your business is either too new, too small, or not invested enough to bother. Right or wrong, that is the perception, and perception drives purchasing decisions.

The Modern Approach: Subscription-Based Web Design

A newer model has emerged that solves many of the pain points of traditional website options. Subscription-based web design services provide a professionally designed, fully maintained website for a predictable monthly fee, with minimal or no upfront cost. Think of it like leasing a car versus buying one: you get the full benefit without the massive upfront investment, and maintenance is included.

This model works particularly well for local businesses. Instead of paying three to five thousand dollars upfront for a freelance site and then worrying about hosting, maintenance, and updates, you pay a flat monthly fee that covers everything: design, hosting, security, updates, and support. The total cost over two years is often comparable to or less than the traditional approach, but with far less risk and hassle.

At Belvair, we built our entire model around this approach. For a one-time setup fee of $150 and $69 per month, local businesses get a premium, custom-designed website with integrated online booking, fast hosting, SSL, ongoing maintenance, and the ability to request updates at any time. There is no long-term contract, no hidden fees, and you see a free preview of your site within 24 hours before committing to anything.

Compare that to the traditional path: two to five thousand dollars upfront for a freelancer, plus one hundred to two hundred dollars per month in hosting, maintenance, and plugin costs, plus the headache of managing it all yourself. The subscription model eliminates the financial risk, the technical burden, and the uncertainty. You get a professional result from day one, and you know exactly what you are paying every month.

How to Evaluate Value, Not Just Price

The cheapest website is rarely the best value, and the most expensive website is almost never necessary for a local business. Value comes from the return on your investment. A five-hundred-dollar website that loads slowly, looks generic, and does not rank on Google will cost you far more in lost business than a higher-quality alternative that actually drives clients through your door.

When comparing options, ask these questions. What is the total cost over two years, including all hidden and ongoing expenses? How fast will the site load on mobile, and what is the expected Google PageSpeed score? Is the site optimized for local SEO so it ranks for “[your service] near me” searches? Does it include online booking integration? Who handles hosting, security, and updates after launch? How quickly can changes be made, and what do they cost? And finally, what happens if something breaks at 10 PM on a Friday?

The best way to evaluate is to calculate your cost per client acquired. If your website costs one thousand dollars per year in total and brings in ten new clients per month, your cost per acquisition is about eight dollars. If a cheaper website costs five hundred dollars per year but only brings in two new clients per month because it does not rank well or convert visitors, your cost per acquisition is twenty-one dollars. The “expensive” option is actually 60% cheaper per client.

Think about it this way: your website is not an expense. It is your most important employee. It works every hour of every day, it never calls in sick, and it is often the very first impression a potential client has of your business. Invest accordingly. Not extravagantly, but strategically, in the option that will deliver the most new clients for your specific business and budget. Pairing your website with strong Google Maps SEO multiplies its impact even further.