What a small business website costs to build

What it costs 6 min read

A plain account of what goes into the price of a small business website, what genuinely pushes it up, and how to compare quotes that look nothing alike.

You asked three people what a website would cost. One answer was small enough to be surprising. One was large enough to end the conversation. One was not a number at all, only an offer to book a meeting.

None of them were lying to you. They were pricing three different jobs and calling all three a website.

Why three quotes come back looking unrelated

The word website covers a page with your phone number on it, a twelve page site with a form and a service area map, and a shop that takes card payments and manages stock. Those are not the same amount of work, and nobody says which one they have in mind.

Then there is the half that is rarely written down. Who writes the words. Who chooses the photographs. Who owns it at the end. What happens the first time you need a price changed. Two quotes can describe identical pages and both be honest, because one includes a person answering the phone next March and the other stops the day the site goes live.

So the first job is working out what each number covers.

What is actually inside the price of a build

A small site is mostly decisions and writing. The building is the quick part.

Somebody has to decide what a stranger sees in the first two seconds, and for a trade that is nearly always what you do, where you do it, and how to reach you. Somebody has to write the service pages in your words rather than the words a template came with. Somebody has to lay it out so it works on a phone held one-handed in a van. Somebody has to connect the inquiry form to an inbox you actually read, and test it from outside. Somebody has to point your domain name at the new site and get a security certificate on it so browsers do not put a warning in front of your customers.

If a quote seems high for what looks like five pages, that list is usually where the hours went. If a quote seems low, it is worth asking which of those steps you are expected to do yourself.

Who builds it changes the price more than what is on it

The same five pages can be produced four different ways.

You can build it yourself on a subscription builder. The cost is your evenings, which are not free but are not on an invoice either.

You can buy a template and pay somebody to fill it in. Cheaper than bespoke, and fine, as long as you know a template is what you are getting.

You can hire a one-person shop. You get the person who did the work, and you can call them, and the number reflects one person's time rather than a business with staff.

You can hire an agency. Offices, a project manager, a designer, a developer and a salesperson all sit inside the figure. Sometimes a job needs that. A six page site for a plumber does not.

What genuinely pushes the price up

Pages are cheap. These are the things that reliably cost real money.

Taking bookings or payments online, because that is software rather than pages, and it has to be tested properly. Photography, if you have no pictures of your own work and somebody has to come and take them. Copy written from scratch, if you cannot supply a rough version of what you would say on the phone. Several locations or a long list of service areas, each wanting its own page. Moving an existing site with years of content on it. Anything with a customer login behind it.

Nearly everything else on a small site is variation, not extra work.

What you can pay for and probably should not

A design nobody else has is a real thing to want. Be clear with yourself that you are buying taste, not an outcome. Nobody can tell you in advance what a particular layout will do to your inquiries, and anybody who does is guessing at your expense.

The same goes for video headers, scroll animations, and a logo redesign bundled into a website quote. They are choices, not frauds, and on a phone with two bars of signal the plain version loads faster.

What Carverpoint charges, and what that includes

A build is $1,450, paid once. That covers the pages, the writing, the form that emails you, the domain pointed at it and the certificate, and it is yours outright at the end. You are not renting it back.

The site still has to live somewhere afterwards and the domain still has to be renewed each year, which is true no matter who builds it. Website Care is $149 a month and covers hosting, backups, the inquiry form and twenty minutes of changes. It is optional. You can host the site elsewhere and never speak to us again, and the site will keep working.

What to have ready before you ask anybody for a quote

Gather these first and the quotes become comparable, because everybody is pricing the same job.

A list of the services you want on the site, in the order you would say them out loud
The towns or ZIP codes you actually travel to
Whatever photographs you already have of your own work, even phone ones
Whether you need people to book or pay online, plainly yes or no
Your domain name, and who you buy it from, if you already have one
The address of your current site, if there is one, and whether anything on it must be kept
A real deadline, if you have one, and the reason for it
Whether you will supply the words or want somebody else to write them

When you should not pay anybody for a website

If you are one person, booked out by word of mouth, and you would not answer an inquiry form anyway, then a website is not the first thing you need. A Google Business Profile costs nothing, shows your hours, your number and your photographs, and appears in the map results that most local searches end at. Fill that in properly first.

If people keep asking for something to look at before they call, a site earns its money. Until then it is a decision you can put off without harm.

Questions people ask

How much should a small business website cost?

There is no single right figure, because the job changes so much. What you can insist on is a quote that says in writing what is included, who owns the site at the end, and what happens when you need a change.

Why is one quote so much lower than another?

Usually because it stops earlier. The cheaper one may assume you write the words, supply the photographs, and handle anything that goes wrong afterwards. That can be a perfectly good deal if you know it is the deal.

Do I pay once or every month?

Both exist. A one-off build means you pay for the work and own the result. A subscription site means you pay monthly and the site stays with the provider. Neither is dishonest, but you should know which you have agreed to before you sign.

How long does a small business website take?

The building is rarely the slow part. Most projects wait on the owner, because the photographs and the details have to come from you. With those ready, a small site is short work.

Can I just build it myself?

Yes, and plenty of owners do. Builders are usable now. The cost is your time, and that it stays on your own list rather than somebody else's.

Does a more expensive website get more customers?

Nobody can honestly promise you that, and be wary of anyone who does. A dearer site usually means more work went into it. What that does to your phone depends on your trade and your area.