How Much Does a Small Business Website Cost in 2026?
A small business website costs anywhere from a few hundred dollars to $15,000+ upfront, plus monthly running costs. Here's what drives the price, and the costs most quotes leave out.
Short answer: a small business website usually costs a few hundred dollars for a template-based site, $1,500–$5,000 from a freelancer or small studio, and $5,000–$15,000 from a full agency. Then there are the monthly running costs, which many quotes don’t mention.
It’s one of the most common questions small business owners ask online, and the answers they get swing from “$50 on Fiverr” to “$30,000 minimum.” Both can be true. Here’s how to tell what your site should cost.
What are the typical price ranges?
Industry pricing guides for 2026 put small business websites into roughly three bands:
| Option | Typical upfront cost | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| DIY builder (Wix, Squarespace) | $0 upfront, ~$17–$49/month | A template you set up yourself, hosted on their platform |
| Freelancer or small studio | $1,500–$5,000 | A professionally built site, quality varies by person |
| Full-service agency | $5,000–$15,000+ | A team, a process, and usually a custom design |
These are ballpark figures, and prices vary a lot by country. A freelancer in India or Eastern Europe often charges far less per hour than a US agency for similar work.
What actually drives the price?
Three things matter more than anything else.
1. How custom the design is
Starting from a proven template is the cheapest route. A design built from a blank page around your brand takes longer and costs more. Neither is wrong: plenty of businesses launch on a template and redesign once they’ve grown.
2. How many pages and features you need
A five-page business site (home, services, about, contact, and a blog) is a very different job from a store with 200 products, a booking system, and customer accounts. Every integration (payments, CRM, booking tools) adds time.
3. Whether the site is static or dynamic
This is the one most owners never hear about, and it decides your monthly bill.
- A static site is pre-built pages: your services, about page, blog, contact form. It’s fast, and it can often be hosted on a free tier.
- A dynamic site does work on a server every time someone visits: user logins, dashboards, live bookings, a database. Every host charges monthly for that, whether it’s Vercel, Cloudflare, or anyone else.
Most small business sites only need to be static. If a provider is selling you a dynamic setup, ask why.
What costs do most quotes leave out?
The upfront price is only half the picture. Over a site’s life you may also pay for:
- Domain name: around $10–$20 a year
- Hosting: from free (static) to $20–$100+/month (dynamic or managed WordPress)
- Platform subscription: if you’re on Wix, Squarespace, or Webflow, this never stops
- Paid plugins and themes: common on WordPress, often billed yearly
- Maintenance: updates, fixes, and security patches, sometimes sold as a $50–$500/month retainer
A $500 site on a $40/month platform costs $2,900 over five years. A $2,000 static site on free hosting costs about $2,100. Do the five-year maths before you decide.
What should you ask before you pay?
Ask every provider these five questions:
- Is the price fixed? Hourly billing makes the final number a guess.
- Who owns the code and content after launch? If the answer is “the platform,” you can’t take it with you.
- What will I pay every month, and to whom? Get hosting, subscriptions, and maintenance in writing.
- Is this site static or dynamic, and why?
- How long until it’s live?
What does Delivr Studio charge?
We keep it simple:
- Speed Start: $350 flat. We brand one of our templates with your logo, colours, words, and photos, and put it live on your domain in about a week.
- Custom Start: from $1,500. A site designed from scratch around your business, with one fixed quote agreed before work starts.
You own the code outright, there’s no platform subscription, and if your site needs dynamic features we’ll tell you the monthly hosting cost before you commit. See our services or get in touch for a fixed quote.
