Guides · Websites

How Much Does a Website Cost? What You're Paying For

By Josh Croom · October 27, 2026 · 9 min read

A website's price is mostly the skilled hours behind it, plus a smaller cost every year to keep it running. Ours is $4,997 for a business or $2,997 for a nonprofit, paid once, and hosting is $50 every 4 weeks. For scale, the median web developer in the US earned $44.54 an hour in May 2025, so every hour a quote includes adds real money.

Three quotes on the kitchen table

Tuesday, 7:50 PM. A roofer who runs a four-person crew has three website quotes spread out after dinner. The totals don't come close to matching, and he can't tell why.

One quote lists five pages and says nothing about who writes them. Another includes the writing and photos but charges for every edit after launch. The third adds tracking for calls and forms, but it never says who owns the domain. The three quotes cover three different jobs, and once he lines up what each one includes, the gap starts to make sense.

What you're paying for

Every website quote draws from the same pieces. Some quotes include all of them, and some leave a few for you to handle.

Writing is the easiest piece to miss in a quote. If a quote doesn't say who writes the words, ask before you sign, because writing every page yourself takes real hours away from your business.

Piece	What it covers	How often you pay
Domain name	Your web address, held in your own account at the company you bought it from	Every year
Design and build	The layout, the pages and the code that makes them work on a phone and a computer	Once
Writing	The words on every page, which tell people what you do and where you work	Once, then again when things change
Photos	Pictures of your real work, team and building, or stock photos	Once
Tracking	Counting the calls and forms the site brings in	Once, to set it up
Hosting	Keeping the site online, backed up and safe	All year
Updates	New photos, new hours, a new service page	As needed, or inside hosting
SEO	Ongoing work to help the site show up in Google's unpaid results	Ongoing, if you choose it

Why one website costs more than another

Most of a website's price is time, so the price follows how much of the work someone does for you.

Skilled time costs real money: the Bureau of Labor Statistics put the median pay for a web developer in the US at $44.54 an hour in May 2025. A company that builds sites also pays for its tools and its overhead, so its price per hour has to cover more than wages.

The page count and the writing move the price most, and a custom design or a connection to booking, payments or call tracking adds more hours on top.

If you build it yourself, you pay mostly in your own hours. A site builder costs less up front, but you write every page, pick every photo and fix it when something breaks. That can be the right call for a brand-new business, as long as you count your evenings as part of the cost.

Doing it yourself or paying someone

You build it

You pay with your own evenings and weekends.
You write every word and choose every photo.
You set up tracking yourself, or you go without it.
When something breaks, you're the one who fixes it.

Someone builds it for you

You pay for skilled hours, so the price is higher up front.
A writer, a designer and a developer each handle their part.
Calls and forms can be tracked from the first day.
You should still own the domain and the site, and the contract should say so.

What visitors do on a small business site

On the client websites we track, most visits come from a phone, so a site has to work there before anything else.

68%of visits came from a phoneClient sites outside online stores
48%of the page is how far the average visit scrolled
9%of visits had a dead tap on something that did nothing
46%of website form leads came at night or on a weekendAcross 6 of our clients

Source: Emprise Digital, client websites we track, 2026.

The average visit stops just short of halfway down the page, so put your phone number and your main button near the top. And since almost half of form leads arrive after hours, every form has to reach an inbox someone checks. Our speed to lead guide has a callback routine for those leads.

Speed is part of what you buy

A slow page loses people before they read a word, so ask about speed before you ask about colors.

In a Google study, a phone page that took three seconds to load made a visitor 32% more likely to leave right away than a page that took one second. Google's guide for site owners sets a clear target: the biggest image or block of text on the screen should load in 2.5 seconds or less.

Google also says it highly recommends that site owners reach good Core Web Vitals, its measures of speed and stability, for success in Search. So ask any builder how fast your pages will load on a phone. Then ask to see a site they've already built, and open it on your own phone, away from office Wi-Fi.

The costs that come back every year

You pay for the build once, but a website has running costs for as long as it's online.

That same guidance points to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines as a helpful standard, so ask whether your builder follows them.

Your domain name renews every year. Keep it in your own account at the company you bought it from, with auto-renew on and a card that won't expire soon.
Hosting keeps the site online, backed up and safe. Ours is $50 every 4 weeks, unless you're on one of our plans, and it covers small updates like new photos or a text change.
Updates come up every time your hours, prices or services change. Ask whether small edits are part of hosting or billed one at a time.
SEO is optional ongoing work to help the site show up in Google's unpaid results. Ours is $750 every 4 weeks, and only on a site we built.
Accessibility matters even when a quote doesn't list it. The Justice Department's guidance says businesses open to the public need websites that people with disabilities can use, as the Americans with Disabilities Act requires.

Who owns the website when it's done

Ask this before you sign, because the answer decides what happens if you ever change builders.

On a site we build, the site is yours: the pages, the words, the photos and the domain. Your domain stays with the company you bought it from, under your own account, and it never moves to us. If you ever leave, we hand over the full site files so any developer or host can run it.

Domains end up scattered, so keep a note of where yours lives. When 11 of our clients each needed one DNS record changed, their DNS sat at 7 different companies. Write down which company holds your domain and its DNS settings, and who has the login.

Logins matter as much as files. Of the admin logins our clients hold on their Google Ads accounts, 39% use a consumer email address rather than one on the business's own domain. A login like that leaves when its owner does, so make a shared work address the top admin on every account.

Questions to ask before you sign a website quote

Tick each one off as a builder answers it, so you can line up every quote the same way.

0 of 7 done

Who owns the domain, the site files and the words when the job is done?
Who writes the words on each page, and how many pages are included?
What does hosting cost each year, and which edits does it cover?
Will calls and forms be tracked from the first day the site goes live?
How fast will the pages load on a phone, and can I see a site you've already built?
What happens to the site if I stop paying or move to another builder?
How do I ask for a change, and how long does a small change usually take?

What our websites cost

A site is $4,997 for a business or $2,997 for a nonprofit, and you pay once.

We code each site ourselves, so it loads fast on desktop and mobile, and we don't cap the page count. We also track every call and form from day one, so you can see what the site brings in.

Hosting is $50 every 4 weeks, unless you're on one of our plans. It keeps the site running, backed up and safe, and it covers small updates you ask for, like new photos, a text change or posting a blog you wrote. There's no do-it-yourself editor, so your team sends changes from your portal's Requests page, and a person on our team replies in the same thread.

SEO is $750 every 4 weeks, and only on a site we built. At signing, you get a written list of the fixes and pages we'll do. We promise the work, but we never promise a ranking.

A nonprofit that runs a Google Ad Grant needs a site that passes Google's website rules, starting with owning the domain the ads point to. Our Google Ad Grants page explains how the Grant works, and every price we charge is on our pricing page.

Talk it through with us

If you'd like a second opinion on a quote you already have, or a price for your own site, book a call with Miguel. He'll ask what the site needs to do for your business and walk you through what would go into it.

Questions people ask

How much does a website cost for a small business?

It depends on how many hours of skilled work go into it: pages, writing, design, code and tracking. Ours is $4,997 for a business, paid once, plus $50 every 4 weeks for hosting.

How much does it cost to keep a website running each year?

Plan for your domain renewal every year, plus hosting and any edits your hosting doesn't cover. Our hosting is $50 every 4 weeks, which comes to 13 bills a year, and it covers small updates.

Do I own my website if someone else builds it?

You should, and the contract should say so. On a site we build, the pages, words, photos and domain are yours, and if you leave, we hand over the full site files.

Why do website quotes vary so much?

Quotes cover different amounts of work. One may leave the writing, photos or tracking to you while another includes them, so compare what each quote lists before you compare totals.

How much does a nonprofit website cost?

Ours is $2,997 for a nonprofit, paid once, with hosting at $50 every 4 weeks. A nonprofit that runs a Google Ad Grant also needs a site on a domain it owns, because Google's Grant rules require it.

See what our websites include