Guide 1 of 5 · 7 min read

How much does a small business website cost?

By the ContentMetric team · Checked on 17 October 2026

The short version

• Do it yourself on a website builder: about $4 to $39 a month. You do the work.
• Hire an agency: an estimated $3,000 to $15,000 to build, plus upkeep.
• ContentMetric: free to start. Pro is $49 a month, and a design specialist designs the site and handles updates.

The price on the front of a page is rarely the whole bill. The rest of this guide covers what is usually left out: your time, the domain name, the second-year price, and the cost of keeping the site up to date.

What you are really paying for

Every website has the same five costs. Some are hidden inside a plan. Some are extra.

• Design and building. Someone has to lay out the pages and write the words. That someone is you, an agency, or an AI tool.
• Hosting. The computer that keeps your site online. Most builders include it.
• A domain name. Your web address, like yourbusiness.com. It is usually bought once a year.
• Updates. New prices, new hours, new photos. A site that is not updated goes out of date fast.
• Your time. Doing it yourself is cheap in money and costly in hours.

Option 1: Hire an agency

An agency builds a custom site for you. One cost guide from howmuchdoesawebsitecost.com says small business websites typically run $3,000 to $15,000 from a local or boutique agency, with a 4 to 8 week timeline. The same guide puts agency hourly rates at $100 to $200 and ongoing maintenance at $100 to $500 a month.

That guide is a third-party estimate, not a quote. Real prices vary by country, page count and how much custom work you want. Ask for an itemised quote that shows design, building, hosting and monthly upkeep as separate lines.

Where an agency is the better choice: you want a fully custom look, you have complicated needs, or you want one team to own everything. If your budget is $5,000 or more and you have a clear brief, a good agency can be worth it.

Option 2: Use a website builder yourself

A builder gives you templates and an editor. You choose a plan, build the pages and keep them updated. These are the prices each company listed on its own page when we checked.

Builders are the cheapest way to get a real site online. You pay with your time instead. You choose the template, write the text, take the photos and keep every page current.

The renewal trap

Some prices are a first-term deal. Hostinger's own page shows it clearly: the Premium plan is $2.99 a month on the 48-month offer and "renews at $10.99/mo". That is more than three times the headline price once the term ends.

Free domains work the same way. Squarespace's page says its free domain is for one year and that it "will renew at our standard rate" after that. WordPress.com and Wix also say their domains are free for the first year. None of those pages shows the renewal price next to the offer. Before you pay, find the renewal price for your plan and your domain, and put a reminder in your calendar.

Option 3: ContentMetric

We make ContentMetric, so read this section with that in mind. Here are the plans from our pricing page.

A credit is one AI change to your site. A typical edit uses one. If you run out, 100 extra credits cost $29.

What is extra: we do not sell domain names. You buy one from a registrar and connect it on Pro or above, so add the registrar's yearly price to your budget. A site on the free contentmetric.com address is not listed by search engines, so it will not show up on Google until you connect your own domain.

No renewal surprise on the plan itself: the price on the pricing page is the price. Paying yearly costs 20 percent less than paying monthly. If you stop paying, your site stays live on the Free plan and your work is kept.

Where we are not the cheapest: a do-it-yourself plan from Wix, WordPress.com or Hostinger can cost less per month than our $49 Pro. The difference is who does the work. On Pro, a specialist does the design and the updates, and you can also change things by asking in plain words. See our Wix comparison or the full list of AI website builders.

A worked example: the first year

Say you run a small plumbing business and want a five-page site with your own domain. These are rough, illustrative totals using the prices above. Your domain cost will vary.

• Agency: $3,000 to $15,000 to build, plus $100 to $500 a month if you pay for upkeep. That is $4,200 to $21,000 in year one.
• Wix Core, yearly: $29 x 12 = $348, plus your own time every month.
• ContentMetric Pro, yearly: $470, plus a domain from a registrar. A specialist designs the site and handles updates.

The agency is the most expensive and the most custom. The builder is cheaper but needs you. Pro sits between them: more than a do-it-yourself plan, far less than an agency, with the work done for you.

Seven questions to ask before you pay anyone

1. What is the price in year two, not just year one?
2. Is the domain included, and what does it cost to renew?
3. Who updates the site when my hours or prices change, and what does that cost?
4. Can I take my content with me if I leave?
5. Does the plan show the company's badge or ads on my site?
6. Is the site listed by search engines? A free test address often is not.
7. What happens to my site if I stop paying?

Once the site is live, make sure it has everything a customer expects: see what a small business website should have. To keep it fresh without paying for every change, read how to edit your website with AI.

Common questions