A small business website runs from nothing to tens of thousands of dollars. If two quotes for the same job look nothing alike, you aren’t missing something. The spread is real, because you’re buying four things at once and every quote bundles them differently. Once I learned to name the four parts, most quotes got readable in a minute.
The Range, and Why It Is So Wide
Before the four parts, the range itself. The floor is zero. Wix publishes a free plan at $0 a month on its own pricing page, as of August 2026 (Wix).
The top is much higher. Pronto Marketing, an agency that publishes its own build ranges, posts $5,000 to $20,000 to build a small business site of 10 to 50 pages, plus $50 to $1,000 a month to keep it running (Pronto Marketing).
That’s why a search for this question left me more confused the first time I ran it: those are the prices of two different products going by the same name.
What You Are Paying For: The Four Parts
Both products are made of the same four parts.
The domain. The address people type, like yourbusiness.com. GoDaddy’s own cost breakdown puts a domain at $0 to $30 a year (GoDaddy). Paying for a domain and owning it are two different things, and I walked through the check in who owns my domain name.
Hosting. The rented computer your site’s files sit on, so the address has something to point at. GoDaddy puts hosting at $5.99 to $300 and up per month (GoDaddy).
The build. Somebody designing the pages and writing the words. GoDaddy’s own design service starts at $499 as a one-time fee (GoDaddy), & a custom build from a person goes up from there.
Upkeep. Security patches, broken links, the phone number you changed, the article you meant to post. It costs you every month the site exists.
Two of those are one-time & two recur. Write the four on the back of the next quote you get, with a number beside each; the blank one is the question to ask. The builder route answers by bundling all four into one monthly bill.
The cost breakdown behind the four parts, from this February. Remember while you read it that GoDaddy sells three of the four parts. Source: godaddy.com.
The Builder Route, Priced From the Source
Build it yourself and you’re paying a monthly subscription for the tools. Here’s what the three big platforms publish, pulled from their own pricing pages in August 2026 (Squarespace).
| Platform | Published plans |
|---|---|
| Squarespace | Basic $19/mo, Core $29/mo, Plus $49/mo, Advanced $99/mo (Squarespace) |
| Wix | Free $0, Light $17/mo, Core $29/mo, Business $39/mo, Business Elite $159/mo (Wix) |
| WordPress.com | Free $0, Personal $9/mo, Premium $18/mo, Business $40/mo, Commerce $70/mo (WordPress.com) |
One of the three pricing pages behind the table, captured the day this was written. The floor and the top of the builder route on one screen. Source: wix.com.
The renewal line is the one I read first, on every plan page, every year it renews. WordPress.com sells its Business plan as low as $17.50 a month on a three-year prepay, and that plan auto-renews at $35 a month (WordPress.com).
The free tier is a real answer with a real cost: your address becomes a subdomain like yourbusiness.wixsite.com, the platform can run its own ads on your page, and the site lives in an account someone else controls. If the builder route is where you land, getting a Squarespace site found on Google covers what to do next.
The Custom Route: Freelancer, Agency, or the Person Down the Street
Hire it out & you pay for a scope of work instead of a monthly subscription. GoDaddy’s by-business-type table puts a small business website at $640 and up, one time, with a web designer, against $119.88 a year on GoDaddy’s own builder (GoDaddy). Worth remembering while you read it: GoDaddy sells the builder in the second column. Pronto Marketing puts a brochure site of one to six pages at $2,000 to $10,000 to build, with $30 to $300 a month to maintain (Pronto Marketing).
Four things move a custom quote: page count, drawn design versus a bought theme, who writes the words, and whether upkeep sits inside the number. Ask the quote to name all four before you compare it to another.
The agency calculator behind the custom-route ranges. An agency publishing its own numbers is rare enough to be worth a look. Source: prontomarketing.com.
I’m one of the people in this market, so here are my numbers for that same table. I charge $100 one time for a small business site, and that covers the agreed design and website writing, the hosting, and the upkeep, registered to you from day one (small business website design). Ongoing blog and content work is separately scoped and priced, not included in the one-time website fee. The $500 tier adds appointment booking through Cal.com, on-site AI chat is a $100 a month add-on, and changes after launch are $75 an hour in a monthly change window.
A $100 build is unusual, and I’d ask why it’s possible too. I build lean sites that don’t need rescuing every quarter, so the upkeep costs me very little, and I’m one person with no sales team to pay for. That’s also the limit; a $100 site is a lean site, which is why the next question I get is about the thousand-dollar quote.
Is $1000 a Good Price for a Website?
That quote can be a good price, and it depends on what’s inside it. A thousand dollars sits inside GoDaddy’s published $500 to $5,000 range for a one-page site (GoDaddy) and below Pronto’s $2,000 to $10,000 for a brochure site (Pronto Marketing).
The question I’d ask is about month thirteen. If the thousand covers the build and then you’re on your own for hosting, security, and every text change, the real price is that thousand plus whatever the next three years cost. Ask for the second number before you sign, and read the quote itself for the shapes below.
Quote Shapes to Walk Away From
These are build quotes.
The template flip. A bought theme with your logo dropped in, priced like original design work. Ask which theme and what the license cost; an honest answer is fine, a dodge tells you to keep looking.
Page-count padding. A quote that charges per page when the pages are near-copies. Ask what question each page answers for a customer; a page that answers nothing costs you twice, to build & to maintain.
Hostage hosting. The site lives inside the builder’s own account, so leaving means starting over. Ask who the domain is registered to and where the files live; who owns my domain name shows you how to check that yourself.
No number until a sales call. You’re allowed to ask the price first. Mine are on the St. Louis SEO company page: websites $100 to $500 one time, and a consultation at $125 an hour.
If your real question is what ongoing search work costs, that’s a service, priced differently, and I broke it down in why SEO pricing feels so confusing.
FAQ
The People also ask box for this search, captured the day this was written. These are the four questions below, in Google’s own order. Source: Google search results.
Can I run a website free of cost?
Yes. Wix publishes a free $0 plan and WordPress.com publishes a free tier (Wix, WordPress.com). The trade is your address becoming a subdomain of theirs, platform ads on your pages, and a site that lives in an account you don’t control.
How much does it cost to create a website?
Building it yourself starts at $0 and runs to $159 a month on the top Wix plan (Wix). Hiring it out starts around $640 one time by GoDaddy’s own table (GoDaddy) and climbs with page count, custom design, and whether upkeep is included.
Is $1000 a good price for a website?
It’s a reasonable figure for a custom build, sitting inside GoDaddy’s posted $500 to $5,000 range for a one-page site (GoDaddy). Whether it’s good for you depends on what happens after launch, so ask what hosting, security, and edits cost in year two.
How much does a 10 page website cost?
Pronto Marketing prices a 10 to 50 page small business site at $5,000 to $20,000 to build, with $50 to $1,000 a month to maintain (Pronto Marketing). Fewer pages that each answer a real customer question usually do more for you than ten pages that repeat each other.
If you’d rather have someone read the quote in front of you and tell you what’s in it, that’s a consultation: $125 for the hour, & you leave with the list whether or not you hire me afterward.
Bookings are unavailable before January 12, 2027. Inquiries are open.
I hope this helps.