There is no single price, but there are real anchors. Build it yourself on Squarespace and the cheapest plan costs $228 a year. Pay someone to build a simple site that presents your business, and one published range is $1,000 to $7,600. A site that sells online can reach $55,000. After that you keep paying something every year, whichever way you go.
We sell websites, and we don’t publish a price here, because ours depends on the job. So every figure below comes from someone else, with the name next to it, and you can check it yourself.
What the published numbers say
| What you’re buying | Published figure | Who says so |
|---|---|---|
| Squarespace Basic, billed yearly | $19 a month, $228 a year | Squarespace |
| Squarespace Basic, billed monthly | $25 a month | Squarespace |
| Squarespace Core, billed yearly | $29 a month, $348 a year | Squarespace |
| A basic site on any builder | $6 to $50 a month | Small Business Trends |
| A site that promotes your products and services | $1,000 to $7,600 | Small Business Trends |
| A site with bookings | $3,600 to $10,000 | Small Business Trends |
| A shop selling 100 to 1,000 products a day | $5,000 to $55,000 | Small Business Trends |
| Design for a small business | About $2,000 to $5,000 | WebFX |
| A small business website, domain and hosting included | $1,000 to $48,000 | WebFX |
| A web designer, in the UK | £300 to £10,000 or more | Startups.co.uk |
Treat these as a rough map, not a quote, for three reasons:
- Sellers wrote some of them. WebFX sells websites. So do we. Either of us has a reason to frame the costs in our favor.
- The methods aren’t shown. Neither WebFX nor Small Business Trends names a dataset behind its ranges. Small Business Trends also says two-thirds of small business owners spend under $10,000, but it doesn’t say who asked them or when, so we wouldn’t plan around it. We didn’t find a national survey with a published method in the pages we read for this article.
- They count different things. WebFX’s range includes the domain and hosting. Others don’t always say. Before you compare two figures, find out what each one counts.
A sum you can do with any quote
The US Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the median pay for web developers and digital designers at $47.85 an hour (May 2025). That is what an employee earns, not what a business charges, and a business has other costs to cover. Pay also varies a lot by person and country. Still, it gives you a yardstick:
- $500 buys about 10 hours at that wage.
- $5,000 buys about 104 hours.
This is our arithmetic, not a published price. A $500 quote for a custom site isn’t automatically a scam, but ten hours doesn’t go far, so ask what is being reused. It may be a template, and a template may be fine. You should just know that it is one.
What moves the price
- What the site has to do. The table shows it: presenting your business costs less than taking bookings, and taking bookings costs less than running a shop.
- Who supplies the words and pictures. Small Business Trends gives about $100 for one page of written content, $15 to $50 for a stock image, and $100 to $15,000 for a photo shoot.
- What it connects to. Payments, bookings, stock or customer records all add work. This one is our judgment, not a published figure.
- How many rounds of changes are included. Also our judgment. Ask, because it’s easy to leave out of a quote.
The costs that come back every year
- The domain. Small Business Trends says $2 to $20 a year. WebFX says $0.99 to $60. Squarespace includes one free year on yearly plans, so check what the second year costs.
- Hosting. Small Business Trends says $40 to $250 a year. WebFX says $10 to $200 a month. That gap is why you should ask for the exact plan and its renewal price. Squarespace says hosting is included in its plans.
- Maintenance. Small Business Trends says about $100 a year for a small site and $300 to $600 for a mid-size one.
- Updates. The Federal Trade Commission tells small businesses to use the latest software versions with up-to-date security patches, and to ask a host whether it will keep software updated. Ask who does this after launch, and what it costs.
Build it yourself, or pay someone?
This part is our judgment, not data. We sell websites, so weigh it accordingly.
Use a builder if:
- you need a handful of pages
- a builder’s own bookings or shop tools cover what you sell
- you have the time to write and arrange it yourself
- a template that other businesses also use doesn’t bother you
Pay someone if:
- the site has to do something a builder can’t
- customers decide whether to trust you from the site, and a sale is worth a lot to you
- your time costs more than the build
If a builder covers it, use a builder. If you can’t tell which side you’re on, tell us what you want made and you’ll get a straight answer, even if that answer is “not from us”.
Who owns it afterwards
None of the three price guides we compared covers this, yet it decides what you’re left holding if you part ways with whoever built the site. We aren’t lawyers, so take the contract part to one.
- The domain. ICANN says a registrant is the person or entity who registers a domain name, and that the registrant holds the contract with the registrar. So ask that your business is the registrant, and that the login is yours.
- The code and the design. The US Copyright Office says work ordered from an outside creator counts as “made for hire” only if it fits one of nine listed categories and both sides sign a written agreement saying so. A website isn’t named on that list. So don’t assume that paying for a site makes you the copyright owner. Get the ownership terms in writing.
- Who looks after it. The FTC’s advice is plain: “Clarify from the beginning who will manage your website after it’s built.”
- What to end up with. Whoever you hire, ask for your domain login, your hosting account, the source code and the design files. On a builder, ask before you start how you would move away later.
How to compare quotes
- Write one page. Who the site is for, which pages it needs, and anything it has to take, such as bookings or payments.
- Send the same page to everyone. Otherwise you’re comparing different jobs.
- Ask for two numbers: what you pay once, and what you pay every year after.
- Ask what’s included: how many pages, who supplies the words and pictures, how many rounds of changes.
- Get ownership in writing: domain, hosting, code, design files, and who manages the site afterwards.
- Do the hours sum. If one quote is far below the others, ask what it leaves out.
What we don’t know
- Your price. Nobody can give you a real one from an article, us included.
- How typical any of these ranges is. Without a published method, nobody outside those companies can check them.
- Whether they still hold when you read this. We read the Squarespace prices on November 1, 2026, in US dollars. Plans change, so check the page before you buy.
Short answers
Is a $500 website a bad idea?
Not automatically. At the median US wage it buys about 10 hours of work, so ask what is being reused and what is left out. For a few simple pages, that can be fine.
What does a website cost per month?
On a builder, Small Business Trends gives $6 to $50 a month, and Squarespace's plans start at $19 a month billed yearly. A site built for you still has domain and hosting bills.
Do I keep paying after it's built?
Yes. At the very least, the domain and the hosting renew. Small Business Trends puts a domain at $2 to $20 a year and hosting at $40 to $250 a year.
What does Wico charge?
It depends on what you need. You get a price after the fitting, before any work starts.
Sources
- Website pricing, Squarespace. Read .
- How Much Does a Website Cost?, Small Business Trends, published November 20, 2024. Read .
- How Much Does It Cost To Build A Small Business Website in 2026?, WebFX. Read .
- How Much Does a Website Cost? Guide and Fee Breakdown, Startups.co.uk. Read .
- Web Developers and Digital Designers, Occupational Outlook Handbook, US Bureau of Labor Statistics. Read .
- Information for Domain Name Registrants, ICANN. Read .
- Circular 30: Works Made for Hire, US Copyright Office. Read .
- Cybersecurity for Small Business, US Federal Trade Commission. Read .