Most professionally designed small business websites cost between $3,000 and $15,000 in 2026, with freelancers typically landing in the $2,000 to $8,000 range and full-service agencies running $10,000 to $35,000 depending on scope. DIY builders can get a site live for a few hundred dollars, but the tradeoff is your time and, often, a site that doesn’t convert as well as one built around your actual sales process.
Those ranges are wide because website cost depends on a handful of specific factors, not a flat rate. Here’s what actually moves the number.
What drives the price up or down
Number and complexity of pages. A five-page site with straightforward service pages costs far less than a fifteen-page site with custom functionality on each one.
Custom design versus a template. A one-size-fits-all theme with your logo dropped in is the cheapest path. A site designed around your specific business, your sales process, and how your customers actually make decisions costs more because it’s actually being built, not assembled.
Copywriting. Some builds include professional copywriting, others expect you to supply your own text. Writing that’s built around your conversion goals is a meaningfully different product than filler text with your name swapped in.
Custom functionality. Booking systems, client portals, ecommerce, membership areas, or custom dashboards all add development time beyond a standard brochure site.
Ongoing costs most people forget to budget for. Hosting, security, backups, and a domain typically run somewhere between $1,100 and $5,000 a year depending on what you need. These aren’t part of the build cost, but they’re part of the real cost of owning a website.
What you’re actually paying for
The number on a quote isn’t just design time. It includes strategy (figuring out what pages you need and why), the build itself, copywriting if included, and the technical work to launch it correctly, redirects, speed optimization, mobile testing, and search engine setup. A build that skips the strategy step and goes straight to design usually ends up needing a redo sooner than one that doesn’t.
Cheap sites cost more later
A website priced well below the ranges above is usually missing one of two things: strategy, or the flexibility to grow with the business. Both show up later as a redesign that costs more than doing it right the first time would have. That’s a reason to ask what’s actually included before comparing two quotes on price alone, not a reason to overspend on features you don’t need.
What to ask before you compare quotes
- Does this include copywriting, or am I supplying the text myself?
- Who owns the site and the code once it’s built, can I take it elsewhere later?
- What happens after launch, is there support, or am I on my own?
- How many rounds of revisions are included?
- Is hosting included, or is that a separate ongoing cost?
Asking these questions turns two very different-looking quotes into an actual apples-to-apples comparison.
What a Farm 6 Media build includes
Custom WordPress builds designed around what actually gets visitors to book a call, not a templated theme with your logo on it. Every build starts with a discovery call and a strategy and sitemap phase before any design work begins, and most builds are live in weeks, not months.
Book a free consult for a quote based on your actual business, or explore recent website builds to see the kind of work involved.
