Everybody has a nephew who can do a website. Here is what it costs when it is somebody's trade.
What are the price bands?
- $500 to $2,000. A template on Squarespace, Wix, or a page builder. Fine if you need a phone number and hours online by Friday. It will look like a template, load slowly, and say whatever the template said.
- $6,000 to $15,000. An experienced independent designer. Designed for your business, written with you, built to load fast, and set up so Google and the assistants understand what you do and where. I work in this band.
- $25,000 and up. An agency, or anything with a shopping cart, logins, or a lot of pages. Worth it when the site is the business. Overkill for a plumber, a clinic, or a co-op.
What does $6,000 get me?
Five to eight pages, each with one job: who you are, what you do, what it costs, where you are, how to reach you. Help writing the words, where most sites fall down. Photos sorted out. A site that loads in under two seconds on a phone. The structured data and plain-English pages that get you found when somebody asks Google or ChatGPT for a business like yours. Training so you can update it yourself.
What makes a site cost more?
More pages, and more things that have to work. A shopping cart, online booking, customer logins, a members area, a big catalog, or a second language each add real work. So does a brand identity that does not exist yet. The brand and web page lists those up front.
Do I need a new site, or just a fix?
Check five things on your phone. Does it load in under three seconds? Can you reach the phone number in one tap? Does the first sentence say what you do and where? Does it look like a template? Was it last updated before 2023? Two or more bad answers, you need a new site. One, a fix. The longer version has its own page.
How long does it take?
Six to eight weeks for a typical small business site, and most of that is waiting on words and photos. Have both ready and it is four weeks.
What about hosting and upkeep?
Hosting for a site like this is close to free, under $20 a month. I do not charge a monthly retainer for a site that does not need one. If you want me to keep an eye on it and make changes, that is hourly or a small monthly number we agree on.
Answered by Jared Lukes, Minneapolis. Twenty-five years in brand, UX, and technology, currently holding fractional AI and technology seats at three companies. About Jared.