Why there is no single price
A website is not one thing. It is design, writing, setup, hosting, and the technical work underneath. "How much is a website" is like asking "how much is a vehicle." A scooter and a work truck are both vehicles. What you need depends on what you are trying to do.
Path 1: You build it yourself
Squarespace, Wix, and the like run roughly 15 to 50 dollars a month. If your needs are simple and you have the time, this can be fine to start. The tradeoff is your time, a template thousands of others use, and limits you will eventually hit on speed, SEO, and anything custom.
Path 2: A budget freelancer or a template site
A few hundred to a few thousand dollars. You get something that looks done. Whether it is built well underneath, loads fast, shows up on Google, and is actually yours varies a lot. Ask who owns it and what happens if you leave. More on that in The Illusion of Ownership.
Path 3: A professional who builds it right
This usually starts around four thousand and goes up with scope. You are paying for a site built from scratch, fast, findable, and fully yours, plus someone who understands the technical side and will not disappear. For a business that relies on its website to bring in work, this is the path that pays for itself.
The costs nobody quotes you
- Hosting and domain: ongoing, usually modest, but real.
- Maintenance: updates, security, fixes. "Set it and forget it" is how sites break.
- The redesign tax: cheap sites often get rebuilt in two years. Twice the cost, half the result.
- Lock-in: some "free" or cheap platforms own your site, not you. Leaving means starting over.
How to think about it
A good website is not an expense you pay once. It is a piece of your business that brings in customers for years. Priced against a few new clients it brings in, the honest version is rarely the expensive one. Here is what working together looks like.
Common questions
Why do quotes vary so much?
Because "website" covers everything from a one-page template to a custom-built system. Different work, different price.
Is a cheap website a waste of money?
Not always. It is a waste if it is slow, invisible on Google, or something you do not really own.
What is the ongoing cost?
Plan for hosting, a domain, and some upkeep. Anyone who says zero is leaving something out.
Want a straight number for your situation? Tell me what you are trying to do and I will give you an honest answer, not a sales pitch.
Sources
- Public pricing for major website builders (Squarespace, Wix), 2026.
- Sirrona project pricing, quoted per scope after a discovery call.