How much should a small business website cost?

Why quotes vary so wildly

Two things drive almost all of the price difference: how much is custom, and how much is managed for you. A template filled with your content sits at one end. A bespoke design with custom functionality, ongoing management and integrations sits at the other. Most small businesses need something close to the first end and get sold the second.

What actually costs money

• Design: reusing proven layouts is cheap; a unique visual identity built from scratch is not.
• Number of pages and sections: more surfaces means more work to build and maintain.
• Custom functionality: booking systems, calculators, payments and integrations add real hours.
• Content: if someone has to write your copy and source images, that's part of the cost.
• Ongoing management: monthly fees for hosting, edits and support add up over time.

What's fair for a typical small business

For a café, studio or local service that needs a clean, credible site with the standard pages, a fixed price in the low hundreds is reasonable — provided the studio reuses proven blocks rather than designing everything from zero. You should know the total before work starts. Open-ended hourly billing is where small projects quietly become expensive ones.

If you can't get a fixed price up front, the scope isn't clear yet — and unclear scope is what makes websites expensive.

How to keep the price honest

1. Ask for a fixed price, not an hourly estimate.
2. List the pages and sections you actually need before asking for a quote.
3. Separate one-time build cost from any ongoing monthly fees.
4. Start with the standard build; add custom parts later only if you truly need them.

The goal isn't the cheapest possible website — it's paying a fair, known price for exactly the site your business needs, without funding complexity that doesn't move your business forward.