The honest short answer is "anywhere from nothing to more than a small car", which helps nobody. The useful answer has three parts: what each kind of provider charges for a small-business website in 2026, what the quote usually leaves out, and how to compare two offers that use the same word for completely different things.
The four ways to buy a website, with 2026 prices
The market figures below come from two 2026 guides, Jim's small business website cost guide (updated August 2026) and Levitate's average website design cost report (February 2026). Where they disagree we show both, because the spread is part of the answer. The last row is our own published price list.
| How you buy it | Typical 2026 price | What you are really paying for |
|---|---|---|
| DIY builder (Wix, Squarespace and similar) | $0 to $300 to start, then $10 to $50 a month | Software. The design, the writing, the SEO and the photos are your job, and your evenings. |
| Freelancer | $50 to $150 an hour; $500 to $5,000 per project in one guide, $1,500 to $8,000 in the other; premium freelancers $5,000 to $10,000 | One person's time, at their hourly rate, with whatever SEO and hosting knowledge they happen to have. |
| Agency | From about $6,000; $5,000 to $15,000 for a typical small-business site; e-commerce $15,000 to $60,000 and up | A team, a process, project management and meetings. Discovery phases and account managers are in the price whether you need them or not. |
| Fixed-price studio (this one) | Landing page $490, up to seven-page company site $890, custom WooCommerce store $1,490, ready-made site from $500 | Senior work at a published price, with your domain, a year of hosting, SSL and the SEO work included. |
The spread inside each row is not noise. A freelancer who charges $1,500 and one who charges $8,000 are selling different amounts of design, writing and care. An agency's $12,000 pays for people you will never meet. A builder's low price hides the largest cost of all, which is the forty hours you will spend learning it.
What the quote leaves out
Almost every quote is a one-time number. Almost every website is a recurring cost. Jim's guide puts the typical recurring bill for a small business at $1,100 to $5,000 a year: a domain at $10 to $20, hosting from $24 to $600, an SSL certificate at $0 to $250 and maintenance and security at $240 to $1,800. Ask any provider one question before you sign: what does year two cost?
Then there is the work that quietly falls to you unless it is written down: writing the text, finding or shooting photographs, entering products, setting up analytics and Search Console, and learning to make changes. A quote that leaves these out is not cheaper, it is incomplete.
With us, year one is in the price: domain, hosting on our own MaiaHost servers, SSL and the SEO setup. After that, domain and hosting renew at MaiaHost's published rates, and there is nothing else unless you choose a Site Care plan.
What actually moves the price
- Number of pages. Every page is design, writing and its own SEO. Seven pages cost more than one, and sixty pages of a ready-made site cost less than seven custom ones because the structure already exists.
- Template or custom design. A template is cheap because you are the one adapting it. Custom design starts from your business and is priced for the thinking, not the pixels.
- Selling online. Payments, shipping rules, product data, order emails and end-to-end testing roughly double the work of a brochure site. See what a store costs and why.
- Who writes the content. Copy that has to rank and convert is real work. We polish yours in every package; writing from nothing is quoted.
- Integrations. A booking system, a kitchen order feed, a CRM. Each is a small project of its own.
- SEO and structured data. Sold as an add-on almost everywhere. Included here, because a website nobody can find is not finished.
- Revisions and speed. Unlimited revisions and a three-day deadline both cost money, in opposite directions.
How to compare two quotes
Put them side by side and check these seven lines. If a quote cannot answer one, that is the answer.
- What exactly is included, as a list, not a paragraph.
- Who owns the site and the domain when the invoice is paid. It should be you, in writing.
- What year two costs, and who is hosting it.
- Which SEO work is done, named: titles and descriptions, structured data, sitemap, Search Console, speed targets.
- What happens after launch: how many days of fixes are included, and what a small change costs afterwards.
- A timeline with dates, not "a few weeks".
- Who you talk to, and whether that person is the one building it.
When cheap gets expensive
A $300 template site that no one can find, registered to a domain in someone else's name, with a theme licence that renews every year, costs more than an $890 site that ranks and belongs to you. The warning signs are consistent: SEO is not mentioned, ownership is vague, the theme or builder needs a monthly licence, and nobody talks about mobile or speed.
The same is true at the top of the market. Paying $12,000 for a seven-page site buys a process, not a better website. What matters is whether the people building it are senior, whether the technical foundation is right, and whether you own the result.
What you would pay us, and what you would not
Our prices are public: $490 for a landing page, $890 for a company website, $1,490 for a custom WooCommerce store, all at launch pricing, and ready-made websites from $500 for twenty-three common trades. Every one includes the domain for a year, a year of hosting, SSL, the full SEO and GEO checklist and thirty days of free fixes. You get a fixed written quote within 24 hours, and the price you approve is the price you pay.
What you would not pay for: a discovery phase, an account manager, a theme licence, a hosting bill in month two, or an "SEO package" upsell. Tell us about your project and see the number for yourself.
Questions people ask
Frequently asked
Is a $500 website any good?
It depends entirely on what the $500 buys. A $500 template you fill in yourself is a template. A $500 ready-made site from our catalogue is a finished website of five to sixty-five pages, rebuilt around your business, with your domain, a year of hosting, SSL and local SEO included. Ask what is finished and what you still have to do.
Why are your prices so much lower than an agency's?
Three reasons. We run our own hosting infrastructure, MaiaHost, so a year of hosting costs us little. We have refined an efficient, AI-assisted workflow over eighteen years of building websites. And there is no agency overhead: you talk directly to the people doing the work. The launch prices are also 50% off our regular rates while we fill the first project slots at this brand.
What will the website cost me after the first year?
Your domain and hosting renew at MaiaHost's standard published rates, a small yearly amount, and we remind you before renewal. There are no licence fees and no per-page or per-booking charges. If you want us to handle updates and small changes, a Site Care plan starts at $59 a month, but it is optional.
Do I have to pay extra for SEO?
No. Every package, including the $490 landing page, ships with the full SEO and GEO checklist: titles and descriptions, structured data, Open Graph metas, sitemap, semantic HTML, performance targets and indexing setup. Ongoing monthly SEO or Google Ads campaigns are a separate service run by our parent company, DotCOM Services.
Ready to talk about your own site?
Get a fixed written quote within 24 hours
Tell us what your business does and what the website should achieve. You get the exact price, what is included and a launch date. Free, and no obligation.
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