How much does a website cost?
How much does a website cost?
$0 – $500 cost to build a personal website
$1,000 – $10,000 cost to build a small business website
$10 – $250 monthly website maintenance cost
Average website cost
The average cost to build a website is $1,000 to $10,000 for a small business or $10,000 to $50,000 for a custom corporate website. The cost to create a website yourself is $0 to $500. Website maintenance costs $10 to $250 per month for a small business website.
| Business type | Average website cost | Annual maintenance cost |
|---|---|---|
| DIY / personal website | $0 – $500 | $0 – $300 |
| Small business website (5-10 pages) |
$1,000 – $10,000 | $100 – $3,000 |
| Corporate website (25-75 pages) |
$10,000 – $50,000 | $500 – $15,000 |
| E-commerce website (100-1000 products) |
$5,000 – $100,000 | $500 – $15,000 |
| Custom database-driven website | $10,000 – $150,000 | $1,000 – $30,000 |
Cost to build a website by type
| Type / service | Average cost | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| DIY website builder software | $0 – $500 | Personal websites, portfolios, and very small businesses |
| Website hosting platform (CMS) | $0 – $3,000 | Startups and small business |
| Freelancer custom website | $2,000 – $20,000 | Small to mid-sized businesses needing a basic website |
| Professional web development agency | $5,000 – $100,000 | Established businesses with larger budgets needing a more complex website |
Website builder cost per month
A website builder costs $0 to $59 per month for a subscription plan that includes free design themes, built-in features, hosting, and security. A technical novice can build a simple website in a day using the easy drag-and-drop software.
| Type | Monthly cost | Features / details |
|---|---|---|
| Wix | $0 – $59 | User-friendly platform for personal, business, e-commerce, and enterprise users |
| Squarespace | $16 – $49 | Complete website creation including hosting and domain name for bloggers, business, and e-commerce users |
| Weebly | $0 – $26 | Long-term free plans for basic websites and paid plans for e-commerce users |
| Godaddy | $0 – $30 | All-in-one website builder for fast and easy sites with few customizations |
| Jimdo | $0 – $24 | Cheap and fast website builders for those needing a site for one specific thing like a landing page or presentation site |
Website hosting platform (CMS) cost
A website hosting platform, or content management system (CMS) costs $0 to 2,000 per month. The CMS platform allows users to build a website using premade themes and store, publish, and modify content in a database. WordPress is the most popular CMS, controlling more than 50% of the CMS market.
| Factors | WordPress | Shopify | Woo Commerce | Joomla | Drupal |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Average monthly program costs | $0 – $45 | $5 – $2,000 | $15 – $120 | Free | Free |
| Design theme prices | $0 – $200 | $0 – $350 | $0 – $100 | Free | Free |
| Plugins and apps prices | $0 – $200 | $0 – $350 | $0 – $300 | $0 – $340 | Free |
| Coding required | No coding required | No coding required | No coding required | Some coding required | Advanced coding required |
| Best for | Small, simple websites | Small or large businesses, e-commerce | Smalle-commerce stores | Blogs, social networking,e-commerce | Large business, feature-rich sites |
| Design choices | 10,000+ themes | 100+ professional themes | 20+ themes | 8,000+ templates | 2,500+ templates |
| Extensions and plugins available | 55,000+ | 8,000+ | 100+ | 5,800+ | 39,000+ |
| Popularity | 810 million sites | 4.4 million sites | 5 million sites | 2 millionsites | 1.5 million sites |
Freelance website builder
A freelance developer charges $2,000 to $75,000+ to create a custom website, depending on the pages and features. A simple website package with 1 to 10 pages costs $2,000 to $10,000.Extra pages cost $100 to $250 each. Freelancers are best for projects with smaller budgets and longer timelines.
| Pages | Average package cost |
|---|---|
| 1 to 10 pages | $2,000 – $10,000 |
| 10 to 50 pages | $10,000 – $25,000 |
| 50 to 150 pages | $12,000 – $50,000 |
| 150 to 250 pages | $15,000 – $75,000 |
Website agency
Hiring a professional agency to create a custom website costs $5,000 to $100,000. An agency is best for businesses with larger budgets and shorter timelines since the larger team will complete the project more quickly. Other advantages of using a web development agency include:
An experienced agency team delivers a better online experience for your customers.
An agency has subject matter experts available to troubleshoot problems.
An agency includes ongoing management and support after the website goes live.
A custom website sets your business apart from your competitors.
Delegating to an agency eliminates the time and stress of a DIY build.
Cost to make a website
| Factor | Average cost | Features |
|---|---|---|
| Domain name & setup cost | $5 – $20 (1 st year) $10 – $50 (renewals) | The address people type in the browser’s URL bar to visit your website on the internet |
| Website hosting | $36 – $3,600 per year | The place where you store all your files on the internet |
| SSL certificate | $20 – $250 per year | A bit of code on your web server that encrypts data to secure information |
| Website design template or theme | $0 – $350 | A group of fonts, colors, and backgrounds that together create a cohesive website |
| Website plugins or apps | $0 – $350 | Software that adds new features or functions to a website |
| Custom illustrations | $200 – $500 | Custom visuals by a graphic designer for a unique website appearance |
| Custom website development | $2,000 – $100,000+ | A website built from scratch to suit your branding, marketing, and business needs |
| Website maintenance (small business site) | $100 – $3,000 per year | Updating the website content regularly, fixing bugs, and repairing broken links |
| Website maintenance (large business site) | $1,000 – $15,000+ per year | Keeping all pages up to date by regularly updating content, fixing bugs, and repairing broken links |
| Website SEO and content marketing | $1,000 – $50,000 per year | Using relevant keywords, appropriate header tags, and fresh, unique content to rank higher in search engine results |
Cost to set up a website
The cost to set up and securely run your website may include:
DNS server setup – The Domain Name System (DNS) translates a domain name to a numeric IP address for connecting to the internet.
A free DNS offers a basic configuration and service level agreement (SLA).
A paid DNS costs $20 to $200 per month and provides a better SLA with faster lookup speeds, better security, and personalized DNS configuration.
Security – Network security software costs $50 to $1,500 per year for the average small business depending on whether charging per license, per user, per endpoint or device, or a tiered package. Cloudflare, Wordfence, and Jetpack are popular security services.
Analytics – Website analytics cost $0 to $350 per month to track and report on visitor behaviors, including time spent on the site, button clicks, and form submissions.
CDN – A content delivery network (CDN) costs $20 to $220 per month. The network of strategically located internet exchange points (IXPs) works together to provide fast and secure content delivery. Free CDNs are available, but their limited features are not suitable for business and large website needs.
Website hosting & database setup
Website hosting costs $3 to $300+ per month, depending on if you use shared, dedicated, or managed hosting to publish your website files on the internet. A database management system (DBMS) costs about $100 per year for a basic package to store and organize information to make processing and data querying more efficient.
| Type | Average cost per month | Examples | Details |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shared hosting | $3 – $10 |
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| Virtual Private Server (VPS) hosting | $10 – $70 |
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| Dedicated hosting | $80 – $300 |
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| E-commerce / CMS managed hosting | $50 – $250 |
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Website design
Website design costs $0 to $500 for a DIY website design or $2,000 to $5,000 for a freelancer to design a simple website from scratch. In addition to a website, you can hire designers to create custom graphics, illustrations, logos, or a matching mobile app to build your company brand.
| Factor | Average cost |
|---|---|
| DIY website builder | Free to $500 |
| Freelance template customization | $200 to $2,000 |
| Simple custom freelance design | $2,000 – $5,000 |
| Complex custom agency design | $20,000 – $100,000 |
| Website content and copywriting | $100 – $600 per page |
| Stock photos | $1 – $50+ per photo |
| Interactive media (Quizzes, maps, infographics, and animations) |
$15 – $50 per month subscription |
| Graphic design cost | $20 – $150 per hour |
| Custom illustration cost | $200 – $500 |
| Logo design costs | $200 – $2,500 each |
| App design costs (UI/UX design) |
$5,000 – $30,000 |
| App development costs (Plan, design, code, test, deploy, and maintain an app) |
$50,000 – $250,000 |
Custom website development cost
A custom website costs $2,000 to $100,000 depending on the size and location of the development team.
Onshore and in-house development teams are more costly than foreign outsourced developers.
A typical development team includes specialists for front-end UI/UX design, back-end software development, quality testing, and program management.
| Region | Average hourly rates |
|---|---|
| Australia | $80 – $120 |
| USA | $100 – $150 |
| UK | $90 – $130 |
| Western Europe | $70 – $100 |
| Ukraine | $40 – $80 |
| India | $10 – $30 |
Website maintenance cost
Website maintenance costs average $100 to $3,000 per year for a small business or up to $30,000+ per year for larger business sites with more features, marketing, and security needs.
Website running and maintenance costs often include:
Web hosting
Link repairs and bugfixes
Security updates
Software updates
Regular backups
Site speed monitoring
Analytics
Marketing and SEO
FAQs about building a website
How much does a website cost per month?
A small business website costs $10 to $250 per month to run and maintain. Corporate, enterprise-level, and e-commerce sites can cost $50 to $2,500+ per month to maintain due to their numerous features and frequent bug fixes.
How much does a website cost per page?
Website creation costs $100 to $1,000 per page, depending on the design complexity and the development team’s size, location, and expertise.
How long does it take to build a website?
Building a simple business website from scratch takes 50 to 200 hours, while a large, professional site with more features takes 500 to 750+ hours.DIY building your website with an online website builder takes as little as a day.
What is the cheapest way to make a website?
The cheapest way to make a website is to build it yourself using a drag-and-drop website builder. The monthly subscription costs are free to $50 per month and include hosting, security, free basic themes, and numerous built-in features. Adding paid apps costing $6 to $60 can expand the website’s functionality.
Hiring a web developer near you
When looking for a website developer, it is important to:
Determine whether an agency, freelancer, or offshore developer is best for your budget and timeline.
Look for website builders with at least five years of experience.
Schedule interviews with at least three developers with exceptional online portfolios and reviews from previous clients.
Select a website development team with a development approach that suits your business goals and vision for the website.
Get a written contract including the payment schedule, project timeline, and details of ownership for the final website design.
Questions to ask a website developer
These important questions can help you find the best website designer for your project:
How many websites have you built in the last year?
Do you have experience in UI and UX design?
How much do you charge for website design and development?
Do you charge an hourly rate or a flat-rate fee?
How long does it take to complete the website?
Where can I find examples of your past work?
How will you test the website user experience design?
Who owns the design when it’s finished?
Do you provide site maintenance once the website goes live?
Using our proprietary cost database, in-depth research, and collaboration with industry experts, we deliver accurate, up-to-date pricing and insights you can trust, every time.