How much a website costs varies from free to hundreds of thousands of dollars. It all depends on what you want out of the website, how much you DIY and your extra costs for items such as payment processor fees, plugins and graphics.
Website costs can be broken down into three phases: the initial build cost, hosting and ongoing maintenance. For most small businesses, an informational non-e-commerce website will probably average:
- Initial DIY build: $0 to $450
- Professional website design (optional): $1,500 and up
- Hosting and apps: $15 to $150 monthly
- Maintenance: $20 to $100 annually
Just as every business has a different startup cost based on type and scale, so will website costs vary widely. Let’s break down what goes into those numbers so you can set a realistic budget for your company.
Website Design
Website design is the cost of creating the actual website. It includes the look of the website and the functionality, such as e-commerce and contact forms.
Website design includes colors, elements, photos, text and functionality of the website.
Professional Builds or DIY
Building a website yourself lets you pay in time spent instead of cash. Website builders and user-friendly content management systems (CMS) such as WordPress make DIY more accessible for people without coding skills, but many DIYers find that they need some professional help at some point in the build to adjust templates or add custom coding for certain functions.
The simplest website type is an informational website, essentially a business card online that doesn’t change often, tells people about your company and gives them a way to contact you. Those sites are the easiest to DIY, especially with one of the best website builders that lets you drag and drop information into a ready-made template. If you’re more familiar with basic coding and WordPress, you can opt for a more advanced builder such as Elementor (free version available) to give yourself more hosting options.
Elementor is one of the website design tools used by professionals and DIYers.
If you choose to hire a professional website design company, most of those designers will still work from a template and many create WordPress-powered websites. However, some work within website builders such as Wix as well. Be sure to ask exactly what your chosen designer will do, such as if custom graphics are provided, if hosting is included and what updates will cost later.
I’ve personally seen agencies charge clients well over $1,500 to add text and change out stock images on a template, and even one agency that used the same template for every client. I’ve also seen agencies do deep dives into customization and mobile optimization for far less. If you only need a specific custom coding task done, costs can be around $200 per hour.
If you hire a pro, be prepared to take time to get several quotes and review examples of their work before deciding.
Templates
A template is a premade website that you customize to create your website without starting from raw coding, which almost no one does now except for very large and expensive projects. Whether you use a website builder, WordPress or another CMS such as Joomla, chances are you or your designer will start with a template.
Template costs range from free to well over $1,000. Website builders usually include a template or theme, and there are third-party marketplaces where you can purchase themes from agencies. When shopping for a theme, look for ones that are mobile-responsive.
Some templates can easily climb over $1,000.
E-Commerce Functionality
E-commerce functionality almost always comes with an additional cost, usually starting around $15 to $30 monthly. In addition, the e-commerce software may connect (integrate) with other providers such as shipping and payment processors that often come with additional costs such as processing fees.
All-in-one e-commerce platforms usually include hosting and a website builder or some capacity, but website builders and CMS often offer e-commerce options, such as WooCommerce, as well. There are also e-commerce systems designed to be embedded in another website through coding or as a plugin.
Some of the most important e-commerce features include a checkout system, access to payment processors, product management, shipping integrations and sales tax calculations.
E-commerce functions can be embedded, added as an app or handled on an all-in-one e-commerce platform.
Apps
If you are using a CMS such as WordPress or a website builder, much of your website’s design and functionality will be handled by plugins or apps. These are software applications that are built to work with your specific design platform and are usually installed with a few clicks of the mouse instead of with raw coding. Some are free and some are paid. Paid apps may cost one-time fees or come with subscription costs.
Plugins and apps often handle features such as live chat, advanced SEO and e-commerce.
Apps and plugins have a variety of price points, with some being free.
Graphics
While free photos from websites such as Pixabay are tempting and cheap, they often come with problems such as copyright violations, no model releases and overuse. A few web builders, such as GoDaddy and Canva, include paid royalty-free stock images as part of your subscription/hosting costs.
Canva and a few other website builders include stock photo access as part of the paid plans.
However, most marketing experts agree that using as many authentic photos of your business products, customers (with permission, of course) and staff as possible instead of stock photography results in more favorable attitudes from your website visitors. Some take photos themselves, but others will find they need to hire a professional photographer to get high-quality images.
If you hire a professional photographer or a graphic designer for graphics, costs could run from $50 for one image to $10,000 for a full day of product photography.
Website Hosting
While web design costs are generally one-time, website hosting is a continuing monthly cost to keep your website online. Free hosting is possible with services such as Google Sites, but it is rare if you want a custom domain name.
Some website builders offer free hosting.
Overall, website builder hosting is more expensive than traditional hosting, where you bring your own website using WordPress or another CMS. When looking at the best cheap web hosting, prices generally start at around $2.50 to $13 per month for entry-level plans.
Website builder host packages usually include free options with ads or ad-free versions starting at around $15 to $20 per month for entry-level packages.
Read more: Learn how to host your own website.
Domain Name
Your domain name is your address on the internet, but it costs extra on top of hosting. While registering domain names only costs between $10 and $35 per year on average, it is a continuing cost to consider.
Some website hosting packages offer introductory offers such as free domain registration for the first year. However, you’ll still need to pay renewal costs after that year to keep the domain active. It’s also important to note that a few web hosts and e-commerce platforms, such as Ecwid, may have unexpected domain restrictions, such as an inability to use it as your professional email address.
Domain name costs vary by registrar, extension and how popular the name is.
SSL
An SSL certificate is a security feature. The long name is secure sockets layer, the purpose of it is to encrypt data for transmission. If you see a website with “https” at the beginning of the URL, it’s using an SSL certificate. Especially important for e-commerce or any website asking for form submissions, using an SSL protects you and your customers.
Most hosts, and some domain registrars, include an SSL as part of your paid plan. However, there are multiple levels of SSL and included SSLs are generally the entry-level option. If you need a stronger SSL, you’ll need to purchase one from your host or an SSL provider at a cost ranging from around $9 to $250 per year.
SSL pricing varies by provider and the type of SSL certificate.
Business Email
While not absolutely required, having a business email address raises your business’s credibility and improves security. Some web hosts, such as DreamHost, include email or a free email trial with some hosting packages, or you can purchase it separately.
Business email plans are free through providers such as Zoho Mail and Proton Mail, but most entry-level plans cost around $1 to $7 per month.
Business email costs vary by storage, number of users and security features.
Maintenance
Website maintenance costs, outside of ongoing fees discussed earlier, are based mostly on tasks needed to keep your website online and information up to date. Even if you are comfortable DIYing page additions and updates, more technical tasks may be simpler to farm out to professionals.
The simplest way to control maintenance costs is to opt for managed hosting. Managed website hosting usually means that the web host helps with the behind-the-scenes tasks such as software updates, fixing broken app updates, proactive security scans, deploying extra server resources during traffic spikes, backing up your website daily and handling site restorations from backups after disasters.
Managed hosting means website owners are free from handling many technical tasks.
Managed hosting plans can cost a little more than standard hosting but some managed WordPress plans still start at around $5 per month. Personally, I find managed plans to be a great bargain considering hiring a dedicated website management service can cost several hundred dollars every month.
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Website Cost Bottom Line
Website costs range from sweat equity to millions, with a large part of costs being the ongoing hosting and maintenance. Information websites usually cost the least, while interactive and e-commerce websites cost more due to the complexity and additional functions needed.
However, it is absolutely possible to create a high-quality website on a shoestring budget. The cheapest website I personally own costs me $0 plus a few hours of time each month. Another costs $11 annually for a domain name plus a few hours of work monthly. One used a low-cost ($24) paid template and the other was built from a free template and a bit of DIY custom graphics.
In the past, I’ve built websites for clients that cost a couple of thousand dollars to build out due to specialized plugins, e-commerce functions, templates and paid custom photography work. Hosting for those usually ran $79 to $500 per month, depending on the depth of the product catalog, on-demand video delivery and traffic levels, but included maintenance.
However, even websites that cost more are generally well worth the investment, and you can reduce costs by taking advantage of hosting sales, multi-year domain registration discounts, savings from managed hosting and discounts for multi-year hosting payments.
