Insights · October 4, 2026

How much does a small business website cost in 2026?

It depends on who builds it and who keeps it running. Building it yourself on Wix or Squarespace means a yearly plan fee plus your own time. Freelancers and local web companies usually bill by the hour, so the total depends on the hours. The domain, email and upkeep come on top of every option. Our own prices are published below.

By Travis Abadie

Updated October 4, 2026

What does a website cost if you build it yourself?

A plan fee plus your own time. Squarespace and Wix both price their plans by the month on a yearly term, charge more if you pay month to month, and include a free domain for the first year only. Online stores and the top tiers cost more. Builder prices change, so check the live pricing page before you sign up.

The plan fee is the smallest part. It doesn't pay for the hours you spend writing, taking photos, setting up your Google profile and fixing what breaks.

What do builder sites cost you that the plan price doesn't show?

Control. The most common problem we see on builder sites is the lack of customization options: the template decides what you can change, and some things you can't change at all. You usually find out the day you try to fix something the builder didn't expect you to touch.

Three examples from a site we're migrating off Wix:

• —The template hid the home page's main heading behind the hero image. Changing it meant a session digging through the editor's Layers panel.
• —The site has a single "Google tag" field. Its GA4 analytics only work because they ride on an old Universal Analytics ID in that field, and that ID can't be removed without switching off the site's only analytics.
• —Files hosted on the builder, including the privacy policy, guides and 106 media files, stop working when the plan lapses. And because the builder also runs the domain's DNS, its plan has to stay paid until the move is finished.

What does a freelance web designer charge?

Most freelancers bill by the hour, and the ones who build on Wix, WordPress, Squarespace, Webflow or Shopify sit at the low end of the rates in Clutch's web design pricing survey. The total depends on how many hours your site takes, so ask for the estimate in hours.

Before you hire one, ask four things: who owns the files and the domain, who hosts the site, what a change costs after launch, and what happens if they stop answering.

What does a local web company charge?

Web design companies bill higher hourly rates than freelancers, because the bill pays for a team: design rounds, copywriting and someone managing the project. Custom features and online stores take more hours, so they cost more.

Clutch's survey shows the average project running well above the typical one, so don't read an average as the small business price. Whatever the quote, ask whether hosting and changes after launch are in it or billed as a separate monthly retainer.

What does a monthly website plan cost?

Monthly website plans bundle the build, hosting and some changes into one monthly price, often with a minimum term. Prices and terms vary widely from one provider to the next, so compare what the price covers, not just the price. The question that matters most is who owns the site when you stop paying.

Ask these before you sign:

• —The minimum term, and what happens when you cancel
• —What counts as a change, and how many you get
• —Whether the domain is registered in your name
• —Whether you get the site files if you leave, and when

What does a website cost every year after launch?

Plan on four recurring costs: the domain, hosting, email, and someone's time to keep the site current. Builders fold hosting into the plan fee, and a basic security certificate is free. The cost that grows is time: changes, fixes and updates, whether you make them yourself or pay someone to.

• —Domain: renews every year. Squarespace and Wix include the first year free on yearly plans; after that it renews at the standard rate.
• —Hosting: included in a builder plan, billed separately if your site lives anywhere else.
• —SSL certificate: free. Let's Encrypt issues trusted certificates "at zero cost," and most hosts and builders include one.
• —Email: billed per inbox. Google Workspace prices every plan per user, per month.
• —Changes and upkeep: your time, or someone else's at their rate.

What costs surprise owners after launch?

Mostly the things that were free or cheap in year one. Introductory extras renew at full price, add-ons bill on their own, email is charged per person, and plugins carry yearly licenses. Two more we know first-hand: paying for the old platform while a site moves, and losing the domain.

• —Renewals: Squarespace's free first-year domain renews at its standard rate after year one, and so does the Google Workspace email it includes free for a year on its Core plan and up.
• —Add-ons: apps in the Wix App Market can charge their own recurring or usage-based fees, separate from your Wix plan.
• —Email per inbox: Google Workspace bills per user, per month, and Squarespace bills additional Workspace users at the standard rate.
• —Plugin licenses: on a WordPress site, premium plugins can be yearly subscriptions. Yoast SEO Premium, for one, is billed annually.
• —The old platform during a move (first-hand): on the site we're migrating off Wix, the builder runs the domain's DNS, so its plan stays paid until the move is finished, and our move plan keeps it paid for 30 days after the switch as a safety margin.
• —Losing the domain (first-hand): the costliest surprise of all, covered in the next section.

Who should own your website's domain?

You, always: registered in your own account, with auto-renew on. A domain that lapses can be registered by someone else, and getting it back is then on their terms. It's one of the cheapest lines on this page and by far the most expensive one to lose.

Before Saltwater Studio, I worked for a company whose domain lapsed. Someone else registered it and posted vulgar statements about the owner on it. The owner ended up paying a five-figure sum to buy it back through GoDaddy's domain broker service.

That's why the client always owns the domain on every site we build. If you don't have one yet, we buy it, invoice you for it, move it into your account and set it up.

Does a Google Business Profile cost anything?

No. Google says it plainly: "Yes, creating a Business Profile and listing your business on Google is free." What takes time is keeping it current: posts, photos, review replies, hours and services. You can do that yourself or pay someone to, and for a local business it's worth doing either way.

If you'd rather hand it off, our Local Growth plan runs the profile every month for $297/mo (no setup fee — 3-month minimum, then month to month), and the Google Profile Fix corrects it once for $199, flat, one-time — done in 5 business days, no call.

Why do website quotes vary so much?

Because quotes price different things. One covers a template with your logo on it; another covers writing, photos, local pages, schema, hosting and a year of changes. Put every quote against the same list, line by line, before you compare the totals.

• —The number of pages, and whether each service and town gets its own page
• —Who writes the words and supplies the photos
• —Who registers the domain, and whose name it's in
• —Who owns the files, and from when
• —Hosting, SSL and backups: included or extra, and the renewal price
• —What a change costs after launch, and how fast it's done
• —The minimum term, and what happens when you cancel
• —Whether the Google Business Profile and basic search setup (indexing, schema) are included

What does Saltwater Studio charge?

Our prices are published. The Page Plan is $149/mo, no setup fee — 3-month minimum, then month to month. Buy It is $497, once, plus $29/mo hosting & care — no setup fee, no minimum. Local Growth, our standard package (the site plus your Google Business Profile run every month and your Bing and Apple listings kept current), is $297/mo. The Page Plan and Buy It go live within 3 business days of payment; bigger builds are quoted with a timeline.

Why publish them? Because we want them affordable for local service businesses. The rule behind the numbers: a monthly plan should cost a local service business about one day's work or less, never three to five days of it. That's a matter of fairness.

A Page Plan build takes at least a full working day, sometimes more. There's no setup fee for that work; the monthly price covers it.

• —Page Plan, $149/mo: hosting, SSL, uptime and unlimited small changes, done within 2 business days. Your domain, photos and words are always yours; the page files become yours after 12 paid months, or any time by paying the Buy It difference.
• —Buy It, $497 once: you own the files from day one. Hosting & care is $29/mo; cancel any time and the files are handed over.
• —Hosting & care, $29/mo, also for sites we didn't build. Send the link; within a business day you'll hear whether it moves as-is (no setup fee) or needs a redesign (quoted).
• —Local Growth, $297/mo, our standard package: the Page Plan plus Google Business Profile upkeep, Bing and Apple listings, up to 4 service or area pages and a plain-English monthly report.
• —Google Profile Fix, $199 flat, for owners who only need the profile corrected.
• —Not sure yet? The Google & AI Visibility Audit is $50 through Oct 31 (regularly $150), and it's credited in full against the Google Profile Fix.
• —Redesigns and migrations off a builder are quoted per site.
• —In the first 14 days after go-live, ask and your first payment is refunded and the site comes down.

Sources

• Squarespace pricing
• Wix plans and pricing
• Clutch, web design pricing
• Let's Encrypt, about
• Google Workspace pricing
• Wix, app pricing and billing models
• Yoast pricing
• Google Business Profile

Common questions

Every plan, with its full terms, is on our website plans and prices page, the Page Plan, hosting and care for a site you already have, the Beach House Moving build, or the Kai's Run build.