Short answer: on a website builder you run yourself, the entry plan costs $4.00 to $29.00 a month billed yearly, depending on the builder, and the work is yours. If you hire it out, most WordPress freelancers and small agencies charge $1,000.00 to $9,999.00 for a typical project: 85% of the 616 who answered The Admin Bar's 2026 survey. After launch you keep paying for the domain, the hosting or the plan, and the changes. Our landing page costs $1,500.00, one-time.
Who builds it, and what each option costs
Who does the work sets most of the price. Clutch surveyed 406 US small business owners in August 2025: an agency built 45% of their sites, the company's own staff 37%, the owner 9% and a freelancer 9%.
| Option | What you pay | What it buys |
|---|---|---|
| You, on a builder | $4.00 to $29.00 a month for the entry plans, billed yearly | The tool, the hosting and the templates. You write, design and update the site. |
| A freelancer or an agency | $1,000.00 to $9,999.00 for a typical project: what 85% of WordPress freelancers and small agencies charge | Design and build done for you. An agency adds people for copy, tracking and support. |
| A custom build | $20,000.00 to $50,000.00 for a custom web application: what 35.5% of GoodFirms' respondents quote | Features no template has: client logins, quote calculators, links to your own systems. |
| An online store | $29.00 a month on Shopify Basic, billed yearly, plus card fees, if you build it. From $10,000.00 if we build it. | A catalog, a checkout, and shipping and tax settings. |
Sources: the builders' pricing pages, read October 18, 2026. The Admin Bar, State of the WordPress Agency 2026. GoodFirms, website development cost survey, April and May 2026. Clutch, small business websites survey, which also lists 1% built by friends or family.
No survey we found splits freelancers from agencies on price. The Admin Bar asks both, and 59.5% of the people who answered work alone.
What website builders charge
We read the pricing pages of four builders on October 18, 2026. Every price is per month, in US dollars and before tax. For each builder we list the cheapest plan for a business site and the plan where selling online starts or gets cheaper.
| Plan and what it adds | Billed yearly | Billed monthly |
|---|---|---|
| WordPress.com Personal Your domain and plugins, with an 8% fee on payments | $4.00 | $9.00 |
| WordPress.com Premium The fee on payments drops to 4% | $8.00 | $18.00 |
| Wix Light The basics. Payments are listed from Core up | $17.00 | Not listed |
| Wix Core Payments, bookings and a basic store | $29.00 | Not listed |
| Squarespace Basic Takes payments, with a 2% fee on store sales | $19.00 | $25.00 |
| Squarespace Core No fee on store sales | $29.00 | $39.00 |
| Shopify Basic An online store | $29.00 | $39.00 |
Sources: the pricing pages of WordPress.com, Wix, Squarespace and Shopify, US prices read October 18, 2026. Wix lists only its yearly prices.
Billed yearly means you pay the whole year on the first day. Wix says its prices are "for yearly subscriptions, paid in full at the time of purchase", so Light comes to $204.00 up front.
The yearly plans of Wix, Squarespace and WordPress.com include a domain for the first year. Wix's voucher "is only valid with a purchase of a new domain from Wix", so it doesn't cover a domain you already own. From the second year, the domain is one more bill.
Selling online adds a fee to every sale. Squarespace charges card rates from 2.9% + $0.30, plus 2% of store sales on Basic. Shopify Basic charges card rates from 2.9% + $0.30, and another 2% if you take payments through a provider other than Shopify Payments. WordPress.com keeps 8% of payments on Personal and 4% on Premium, on top of the processing fee.
The plan buys the tool and the hosting. The words, the photos and the hours of setup are still on you.
What freelancers and agencies charge
The Admin Bar, a community of WordPress professionals, asked 622 freelancers and agency owners in 51 countries what they charge for a typical client project. Of those, 299 are in the US.
| Price of a typical project | Share |
|---|---|
| $100.00 to $999.00 | 7.8% |
| $1,000.00 to $2,499.00 | 22.9% |
| $2,500.00 to $4,999.00 | 37.7% |
| $5,000.00 to $9,999.00 | 24.4% |
| $10,000.00 or more | 7.3% |
Source: The Admin Bar, State of the WordPress Agency 2026, surveyed in February and March 2026, 616 answers to this question. The last row adds three bands of the survey (5.2%, 1.5% and 0.6%). Shares are rounded and add up to 100.1%.
GoodFirms surveyed more than 300 web development companies, agencies and independent professionals in 31 countries in April and May 2026. For a basic website, 59.9% quote $1,000.00 to $3,000.00, and for a mid-sized site, 53.9% quote $5,000.00 to $20,000.00. Where they work moves those figures: 30% bill $10.00 to $15.00 an hour, almost all of them in India, and the survey puts US rates at $50.00 to $100.00 an hour.
Most of a quote is hours. In The Admin Bar's April 2025 survey of 1,233 WordPress professionals, the median rate was $95.00 an hour. At that rate, $2,500.00 pays for about 26 hours and $5,000.00 for about 53. With 26 hours you get a few pages on a template, with your own words and photos. With 53 there's room for a design of your own, copy written for you and a round of changes. That split of the hours is our estimate, not survey data.
What moves the price
Two quotes for "a website" can describe very different jobs.
- Pages. Each page needs its own design, copy and build, and new pages are where most projects grow. A one-page landing page and a twelve-page site are different projects.
- Languages. A second language costs less than the first, since the design and the build already exist, but someone has to write it. In Miami it's worth pricing in from the start: 67% of Miami-Dade residents age 5 and over speak Spanish at home.
- Copy. Only 37.1% of the WordPress freelancers and agencies in The Admin Bar's 2026 survey offer copywriting. If a quote doesn't say who writes the words, assume you do.
- Bookings, WhatsApp and forms. A WhatsApp button is a link. A form that sends to your email is quick, and one that feeds your customer database (CRM) takes longer. Booking tools charge their own fee: Calendly has a free plan with one type of event, and its Standard plan costs $10.00 a seat a month billed yearly.
- Online payments. Besides setting up the checkout, you pay a fee on every sale. Stripe's standard pricing is 2.9% + $0.30 per successful transaction with a US card, and some builders add their own fee on top.
- Accessibility. The Department of Justice says businesses open to the public must make sure the goods and services they offer online are accessible to people with disabilities. Its guidance on web accessibility points to the WCAG guidelines for how to do it. Only 27.3% of the WordPress professionals The Admin Bar surveyed offer accessibility work.
- Speed. Google's guide Understanding Core Web Vitals says: "We highly recommend site owners achieve good Core Web Vitals for success with Search". Getting there takes images sized for each screen and few plugins, and those hours are part of the price.
What you keep paying after launch
| Cost after launch | First year | Later years |
|---|---|---|
| Domain A .com at Porkbun | $11.08 | $11.08 |
| Hosting for a WordPress site SiteGround StartUp | $35.88 | $215.88 |
| Maintenance, if you want it Ours, with 1 hour of changes a month | $2,340.00 | $2,340.00 |
Cost per year, our calculation from each page's prices, read October 18, 2026. Porkbun: $11.08 for a .com, and the page promises the same price at renewal. SiteGround: $2.99 a month prepaid for 12 months, then "Renews at $17.99/mo". Maintenance: $195.00 a month on our pricing page.
Hosting is where renewals catch people out. SiteGround's StartUp plan costs $2.99 a month for the first 12 months, paid up front, and $17.99 a month after that: six times as much. A builder plan already includes hosting, so you pay for one or the other. Every site pays for a domain, with a builder or without one.
Then come the changes. In Clutch's 2025 survey, 61% of small businesses update their site at least once a week, and 81% have redesigned it at least once. Opening hours, prices, a new service, a seasonal offer: someone has to do it, and if that someone isn't you, it's paid by the hour or by the month.
What our websites cost
- Landing page: $1,500.00, one-time, in one language. We write the copy and build the form, the WhatsApp button and the tracking in WordPress, so you can edit it yourself. You pay half to start and half before launch, and it takes about 10 business days. A second language costs $500.00 more.
- Business site: up to six pages in one language, $4,500.00, one-time. Each page in the second language costs $250.00.
- Bilingual site: up to twelve pages in English and Spanish, $8,500.00, one-time.
- Online store: on WooCommerce or Shopify, from $10,000.00, with a fixed quote for each store.
- Maintenance, optional: $195.00 a month, month to month, with 1 hour of changes. Each extra hour costs $200.00.
The domain and the hosting go in your name and aren't in the price. More on each plan: web design, landing pages and pricing. If your business is in Miami, see web design in Miami.
Frequently asked questions
How much does a website cost for a small business?
It depends on who does the work. On a builder, the entry plans cost $4.00 to $29.00 a month billed yearly, and you build it. Of the WordPress freelancers and agencies The Admin Bar surveyed, 85% charge $1,000.00 to $9,999.00 for a typical project. Our landing page costs $1,500.00, one-time.
How much does a website cost per month?
Once it's live, a .com domain costs $11.08 a year at Porkbun. Hosting for a WordPress site starts at $2.99 a month the first year at SiteGround and renews at $17.99. A builder plan includes hosting and costs $4.00 to $29.00 a month billed yearly. Maintenance and changes come on top.
Is it cheaper to build a website yourself?
In cash, yes: a builder plan costs $4.00 to $29.00 a month billed yearly. You pay with your time instead. You write the copy, choose the photos, set up the forms and keep everything up to date. If the site has to bring in calls or sales, put a price on those hours before you decide.
How much does website maintenance cost?
Ours costs $195.00 a month, month to month, and includes tested updates, daily backups, security and uptime monitoring, and 1 hour of changes. More changes cost $200.00 an hour. In GoodFirms' 2026 survey, 30% of web development companies charge $500.00 to $1,500.00 a month for retainers that often cover maintenance.
How much does it cost to add Spanish to a website?
With us, a landing page in a second language costs $500.00, and a business site $250.00 a page. Both are written by a person, not machine-translated. In Miami, 67% of Miami-Dade residents age 5 and over speak Spanish at home, according to the Census Bureau.
Before you ask for a quote
Ask for these answers in writing:
- How many pages and languages?
- Who writes the copy?
- What happens after launch?
- Whose name are the domain and the hosting in?
Two quotes that answer all of them can be compared. If the site will get its visitors from Google or from ads, our articles on SEO pricing and what Facebook ads cost cover what it costs to bring them in.