What a Website Should Really Cost You

Why prices vary so much

Websites range from $200 to $20,000+ for what looks like roughly the same thing. The range reflects real differences in what you get - and real differences in what you're responsible for afterward.

Domain name: $15-20/year

This is the address - "yourbusiness.com." You renew it annually. There's no business reason to pay more than $20/year for a standard .com domain. Specialty extensions (.io, .design) cost more but don't give you anything useful.

Website hosting: $10-50/month for most small businesses

This covers the server space your site lives on. The wide range reflects real quality differences. At the low end you're on shared hosting - see the Klassroom Note on that topic for what it means. At the higher end you're getting better performance and more support.

Initial design and build: $2,000-10,000 for most small businesses

This is the widest range and the most misunderstood part.

$500-1,500 typically means a template drop-in. Someone picks a pre-built theme, swaps in your logo and text, and hands it to you. It can look fine. It's also generic, may be slow, and usually leaves you responsible for your own maintenance.

$3,000-6,000 typically involves a real design process - understanding your business, your customers, and your goals - followed by actual build work. This is appropriate for most small businesses with an active online presence.

$10,000+ is typically for larger sites, custom functionality (e-commerce, booking systems, membership areas), or agencies with significant overhead built into their rates.

Ongoing maintenance: $0-200/month

If you're on a managed platform, this may be included. If you're on WordPress or a self-hosted site, someone needs to handle updates, security patches, and occasional fixes. This cost is often ignored until something breaks.

What to watch for

• Low upfront cost often means high ongoing cost, or constraints you won't discover until you try to make a change.
• "Unlimited" hosting plans are almost always shared hosting. Unlimited has limits.
• Multi-year hosting contracts exist mainly to benefit the host. Month-to-month flexibility is worth a modest price premium.
• Ask what happens to your content if you leave. You should be able to export everything.