The short answer
A straightforward small business website of five to eight pages typically costs in the low thousands. Add booking, a customer portal, e-commerce or complex integrations and it moves into five figures. The variables that matter are the number of unique page templates, whether content is written for you, and whether the build includes technical SEO groundwork. Ongoing costs — hosting, domain, maintenance — are separate and frequently omitted from a quote.
What drives the number
- Unique templates, not page count. Twenty pages using three layouts costs less than eight pages each designed individually.
- Who writes the content. Frequently the largest single line, and the most commonly assumed away. A build stalls for months waiting on copy that was never scoped.
- Custom design versus an adapted theme. Both are legitimate; the difference is a real one and should be stated in the quote.
- Functionality. Booking, payments, logins, integrations with your existing systems. Each adds build time and permanent maintenance.
- Technical SEO groundwork. Structure, schema, speed, analytics. Cheap to do during the build, expensive to retrofit.
- Photography. Real photos cost money. Stock photos cost credibility.
The costs quotes leave out
The build price is not the cost of having a website. The ongoing side is small but permanent, and it is where surprises come from.
- Domain renewal, annually.
- Hosting — anywhere from trivial for a static site to meaningful for something with a database.
- Software updates and security patching, if the site runs on a platform like WordPress.
- Backups, and periodically testing that they restore.
- Content changes after launch, which always turn out to be more frequent than expected.
- A rebuild every four to six years, which is worth budgeting for rather than being surprised by.
The cheapest website is rarely the cheapest website
A site built for very little by someone who then disappears, on a platform you cannot access, with a domain registered in their name, costs a great deal to unpick. We have quoted rebuilds where recovering the domain took longer than building the replacement.
Four things to check on any quote
- Who owns the domain, the hosting and the code? The answer should be you, in writing, from day one.
- Is content writing included, and for how many pages? If it is not, that work is still coming — it is just coming to you.
- What happens after launch? Is there a warranty period, and what does maintenance cost?
- Is technical SEO in scope? Structure, schema, speed targets, analytics configured. If not, you are buying a brochure rather than something that will be found.
Fixed price or hourly?
We quote fixed after a scoping call, and we would suggest treating that as a requirement rather than a preference. An hourly rate transfers all the estimating risk to you and quietly rewards a slower build. A fixed price forces the scope to be defined properly up front, which is where most website projects go wrong in the first place.
When a cheap site is genuinely fine
If you need a credible presence, contact details and a description of what you do — and your enquiries come from referral rather than search — a simple, fast, well-built site is perfectly adequate. Not every business needs to compete in search. The mistake is paying for something in between: too expensive to be disposable, too poorly built to rank.
Is WordPress cheaper than a custom build?
Usually to build, and not always to own. WordPress carries ongoing patching and plugin maintenance that a static site does not. For a simple brochure site, static is often cheaper across five years and considerably more secure.
Can we build it ourselves on a website builder?
You can, and for a very small business it is a reasonable start. The limitations show up in speed, in control over technical SEO, and in being unable to move the site elsewhere later without rebuilding it.
How much should we budget for ongoing costs?
For a small business site, plan for domain, hosting and a maintenance arrangement as a modest but permanent monthly figure — considerably less than the build, and considerably less than cleaning up a compromised site.