How much does a website cost in 2026?

Website cost at a glance

The first two rows are platform prices. The rest are what I charge, so treat them as one designer’s numbers, not an industry average. For hourly rates and how designers price their work, see how much a web designer costs.

Builder websites: Wix and Squarespace

A builder charges a subscription instead of a design fee. Wix lists paid plans at $17.77, $29.77, $39.77 and $159.77 a month when you pay for a year (Wix plans). Squarespace lists $19, $29, $49 and $99 a month on a yearly plan, or $25, $39, $65 and $139 paid month to month, and its lowest plan takes 2% of anything you sell (Squarespace pricing).

On Squarespace’s $29 plan, a year comes to $348 before store fees. That is the whole cash bill for a simple site. The real cost is the hours you spend on the template, the words, the photos and the search settings.

Online stores on Shopify

Shopify’s plans are $29 a month for Basic, $79 for Grow and $299 for Advanced on a yearly bill ($39, $105 and $399 paid monthly), and Plus starts at $2,300 a month. On Basic, an online card payment costs 2.9% plus 30¢ (Shopify pricing). Paid apps and a premium theme add to that. The full breakdown, with worked fee examples, is in Shopify pricing explained.

A landing page

A landing page is a single page for one offer, usually the page an ad or email links to. Mine start at $1,500 for one page, with the copy, design, build and tracking included. Several versions for different ads, a long sales page, or a connection to a CRM or checkout cost more. See landing page design.

A custom website

A custom site is designed for your business and built to your content, instead of starting from a template. A custom site from me starts at $5,000, and most land somewhere between $5,000 and $50,000+. Where a project lands depends on a handful of things:

• Page types, not page count. Ten service pages that share one layout cost far less than ten pages that each need their own design.
• Who writes the words. Copy written from scratch takes longer than editing what you already have.
• Selling online. A store adds product pages, checkout, shipping and tax setup.
• Connections. Booking, a CRM, payments or a quote form that feeds another system all take extra build and testing time.
• Moving an old site. Carrying over old pages and redirecting every old URL protects the search traffic you already have.

For a small business, see small business website design. If you already have a site and want it replaced, see website redesign services.

The costs after launch

A website keeps costing a little every year, whichever route you take:

• The domain. It renews every year. Squarespace includes one free for the first year on yearly plans, and Wix’s paid plans come with a domain voucher.
• Hosting. Builders and Shopify include it in the subscription. A custom site is hosted separately, in your name.
• Paid plugins, apps and themes. Many renew yearly or monthly.
• Upkeep. Updates, backups, fixes and small edits, done by you or someone you pay.

My maintenance plan is $250 a month. It includes software updates, backups, uptime and security monitoring, fixes, a check-in each month and up to an hour of edits; anything past that hour is $100 an hour. See website maintenance services.

Two first-year examples

• A do-it-yourself builder site: Squarespace’s $29 plan billed yearly is $348 for the first year, with the domain free that year, plus your time.
• A custom site with a maintenance plan: a $5,000 build plus 12 months at $250 is $8,000 for the first year, plus hosting and the domain, which stay in your name.

How to get an accurate quote

A designer can only price what they can see. Send the sites you like, a rough list of the pages you need, who will write the words, whether you sell online, and the tools the site has to connect to. With that, a fixed price is possible after one call; without it, any number is a guess.