How Much Does a Small Business Website Cost in 2026?

Ask three web designers what a website costs and you will get three numbers that are nowhere near each other. One quotes $800. One quotes $8,000. One says it depends. All three are telling the truth, which is exactly why the question is so hard to answer from a search result.

This article gives you the real numbers. Lackey Designs has built websites for small businesses from Fishers, Indiana since 2006, and our prices are published on our pricing page rather than hidden behind a sales call. So the figures below are what we actually charge, with an honest look at what cheaper and more expensive options buy you.

The short answer

For a small business website built and maintained by a professional studio in 2026, expect one of three shapes:

• A custom website for a one time fee: from $5,000, and typically $5,000 to $20,000 depending on size and features.
• A monthly plan: $200 a month, with design, development, hosting and support rolled into one bill and no large invoice at the start.
• A performance plan: nothing up front, and a percentage of the sales the site brings in. Ours is called Grow Together and the share is 10%.

Below that range you will find template builders at $15 to $50 a month where you do all the work yourself, and freelancers at $500 to $2,000 who build once and move on. Above it you will find agencies quoting $25,000 and up for the same number of pages, usually because of the overhead that comes with a large team.

What actually drives the price

Every quote you receive is a sum of the same handful of parts. Once you can see the parts, you can compare quotes that look nothing alike.

1. The number of pages

A five page site (home, about, services, portfolio or gallery, contact) is the most common small business website and the cheapest to build. Every additional service page, location page or product category adds design and writing time. A contractor who wants a page for each of twelve services and each of eight towns is asking for a site four times the size of the five page version, and the price follows.

2. Who writes the words

This is the part most owners underestimate. A website with no writing is a wireframe. Someone has to write the headline, the service descriptions, the about page and the calls to action, and they have to write them for the customers you want, not for you. If you write it yourself, the site is cheaper and usually takes longer to launch, because the words are the step that stalls. Professional copywriting is $200 a page with us, and it is included in the Small Business plan.

3. Design: template or custom

A template is a finished layout you pour your content into. A custom design starts with your business, your customers and your competitors and builds a layout around what the site has to do. Custom costs more and it is worth it when the site has to compete, which for most local businesses it does. We wrote a longer comparison in Template vs. Custom Built Websites.

4. Features beyond pages

Anything the visitor does on the site, beyond reading and clicking to call, is a feature with a cost. Online booking, a quote calculator, a product catalog, a members area, a job application form, integration with your scheduling software. Our Croix Area Fence site has a fence designer that gives the visitor an instant quote, which is a feature that earns its cost many times over for a fence company and would be pointless for a law firm. Be specific about the features you need and skip the rest.

5. Hosting, security and upkeep

A website is never finished. It needs hosting, an SSL certificate, backups, software updates and someone to change the hours when they change. Some quotes include all of that. Some include none of it and the surprise arrives twelve months later as a renewal invoice. Ask. Our one time builds include hosting, security and backups, and full hosting and maintenance with content changes is $200 a month.

6. Branding and photography

If you have a logo you like and photos of your actual work, team and premises, your site will cost less and look better than one that needs both created. If you do not, budget for a logo (from $750 with us) or a full brand identity (from $2,000), and plan a morning with a photographer. Stock photos are the single fastest way to make a professional site look like a template.

Our prices, line by line

These are the a la carte prices on our pricing page as of this writing. They are starting points, and the quote you receive is in writing before any work begins.

• Custom website design and development: from $5,000
• Website copywriting: from $200 per page
• Landing page: from $500
• Logo design: from $750
• Branding and identity: from $2,000
• Hosting, support and maintenance: $200 per month
• SEO: from $600 per month
• Google Ads management: from $600 per month
• Social media management: from $200 per month per channel

Add those up for a typical five page custom site with professional writing, a new logo and ongoing hosting, and the first year lands around $8,000 to $10,000. That is the honest number for a site that is designed for your business, written for your customers and looked after by someone who answers the phone.

Three ways to pay for the same site

The price above assumes you pay for the build once. Most of our clients do not, and the alternatives change the math.

Pay once: the custom website

You own a finished site for a one time fee from $5,000. Hosting, security and backups are included, and support is added separately when you want it. This suits an established business that has the cash and wants the lowest total cost over several years.

Pay monthly: the Small Business plan

$200 a month covers branding, copywriting, design, development, hosting, daily backups, security and your content changes, with no large invoice at the start and no hidden fees. Over three years that is $7,200, in the same range as the one time build plus hosting, but spread out, and with the writing and upkeep included. This is the plan most new and small businesses choose, and we compare the two in detail in Pay Monthly Website vs. Paying Upfront.

Pay from results: Grow Together

Nothing up front. We build the site and run the marketing, SEO included, and we are paid 10% of the sales it brings in. If the site does not produce, we do not get paid, which keeps us honest. It is built for new businesses that have a good product and no budget yet.

What the cheap options really cost

We are not going to tell you a $20 a month builder is a bad product. For a hobby, a one person side business or a site that only exists so the Google Business Profile has somewhere to point, it can be enough. But owners who come to us from a builder usually describe the same three costs that never appeared on the invoice.

Your time. The builder is cheap because you are the designer, the writer and the support desk. Forty hours of an owner's time at any reasonable value is more than the difference in price.

The results. A site that looks like every other site in its template does not win the comparison a customer makes with your competitors in three open tabs. That is the comparison that decides who gets the call.

The lock-in. Many builders will not let you take the site with you when you leave. The pages, the design and sometimes the domain stay with them. When a business outgrows a builder it usually starts over from zero, which is the most expensive website of all.

How to compare quotes

When quotes arrive, put them side by side and ask the same six questions of each:

1. How many pages, and is the writing included?
2. Is the design custom or a template?
3. Which features are included, and which are extra?
4. Is hosting included, for how long, and what does it cost after that?
5. Who owns the domain, the hosting account and the design when we are done?
6. What happens when I need a change in month seven, and what does it cost?

A quote that answers all six in writing is a quote you can trust. One that answers "it depends" to half of them is where the surprises live.

Where to go from here

If you have a site already and are weighing a replacement, run it through our free website grader first. It scores any site from 0 to 100 on speed, SEO, accessibility and security, with no email address required, and it will tell you whether the site needs a redesign or just some upkeep.

If you are ready for a number for your own project, tell us about your business. Jason reads every request and replies in under 24 hours with next steps, and the price arrives in writing before anything is built.