A small business website built by someone else costs US$ 500 to US$ 5,000 and up in the United States, according to WebFX, and £1,200 to £8,000 and up in the UK, according to Brambla. The gap between the ends is scope, not margin. Below are prices vendors actually publish, what a site costs each month, and what changes when the page has to carry paid traffic.
How much it costs to build a website, on prices vendors publish
It depends on who builds it. On a do it yourself builder you pay a monthly plan and your own time. A fixed price studio charges US$ 499 for a page and US$ 1,499 for a full site. A UK package runs from £995 to £1,495. A bespoke agency build starts around £2,500. Every figure in the table is a price the vendor publishes, checked on 13 October 2026.
| Who builds it | Published price | Source |
|---|---|---|
| You, on a builder | US$ 15 to US$ 25 a month on Webflow site plans billed yearly, £10 to £40 a month on UK builders | Webflow and Brambla |
| Fixed price studio, landing page | US$ 499 for design and build | Mr. Framer |
| Fixed price studio, full site | US$ 1,499 for design and build | Mr. Framer |
| UK package, up to 5 pages | £995 ex VAT, live in about 3 weeks | Highscore |
| UK package, up to 10 pages | £1,495 ex VAT, live in about 4 weeks | Highscore |
| Agency landing page | US$ 1,125 from a template to US$ 3,000 fully custom, per page | WebFX |
| Agency or freelancer, small business site | US$ 500 to US$ 5,000 and up | WebFX |
| UK bespoke build with a CMS and integrations | £2,500 to £8,000 and up | Brambla |
WebFX puts the full range for agency and freelancer builds at US$ 1,000 to US$ 145,000, which says less about websites than about how many different things carry that name.
What separates a US$ 500 website from a US$ 5,000 one
Five things, and page count alone is not one of them. In order of weight on the quote they are who writes the copy, whether the design is a template, what gets measured, what gets integrated, and who owns it afterwards.
- Copy. In a package you send the words and the vendor fits them into a template. In a custom build someone interviews you, writes and gets your approval. It is the part that moves results most and the first to vanish from a cheap quote.
- Design. A template swaps colors, logo and photos. Custom design starts from your offer and your buyer.
- Measurement. GA4, Tag Manager, Google Ads conversions, the Meta Conversions API and a consent banner with consent mode. Without it the site exists and nobody knows what it produces.
- Integrations. A form that reaches your CRM and your calendar instead of an inbox nobody opens.
- Ownership. Domain, hosting, code and accounts in your name or in the vendor's.
AI builders can now produce a simple page in minutes, and the people who sold that page feel it. In a 20i survey of 500 web designers in the United States, 75% said AI driven competition had already affected them in the last year. What kept its price is the part a generator does not do, which is the offer, copy matched to the ad, tracking, speed and testing.
What it costs each month to own a website
Owning a website costs from about US$ 15 a month on a builder to US$ 350 a month and up on an agency care plan. WebFX puts yearly maintenance between US$ 3,600 and US$ 50,000 depending on size and features.
| Item | Published figure | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Domain name | US$ 10 to US$ 130 a year | WebFX |
| SSL certificate | US$ 8 to US$ 60 a year | WebFX |
| Hosting | US$ 2 to US$ 500 a month | WebFX |
| Builder site plan | US$ 15 to US$ 25 a month, billed yearly | Webflow |
| Agency care plan for a WordPress site | from US$ 350 a month | WebFX |
| UK monthly package with hosting and edits | from £49, £99 or £199 a month ex VAT | ProfileTree |
Monthly packages that fold the build into the fee look cheaper at the start and cost the same in the end. ProfileTree's own comparison shows £2,500 up front plus £30 a month for hosting reaching £3,580 after 36 months, against £3,564 for a £99 a month package over the same period.
The question to ask is not the monthly number. It is what happens when you ask for a change, and what an hour outside the plan costs. WebFX, for one, bills additional work at US$ 150 an hour.
What people ask before they buy a website
The landing page is the part a paid campaign actually uses, and almost nobody asks what it costs. In the United States there are 2,400 searches a month for how much does it cost to build a website and 70 for how much does a landing page cost, on Google Ads data collected through DataForSEO on 13 October 2026.
| Question typed into Google | US searches a month |
|---|---|
| how much does it cost to build a website | 2,400 |
| how much does a website cost | 1,900 |
| how much should a website cost | 1,900 |
| website design cost | 1,300 |
| website cost | 1,000 |
| how much does it cost to create a website | 880 |
| website maintenance cost | 480 |
| how much does a landing page cost | 70 |
None of those questions is about measuring what the site produces, which is where the money of anyone running ads gets decided.
If the site will carry paid traffic, the price that matters changes
Once a page receives ads, the number that matters stops being the build price and becomes the cost per lead the page produces. Three figures show why.
- The median landing page converts at 6.6% and the top quartile starts at 11.4%, according to the Unbounce Conversion Benchmark Report. On the same budget, a top quartile page delivers about 70% more leads.
- In a Deloitte study for Google, 0.1 seconds faster on mobile sent 21.6% more lead generation visitors to the form, according to web.dev.
- Google reports that consent mode recovers more than 70% of the ad click to conversion journeys lost to cookie choices.
When I audit accounts, the most common problem is not an ugly site. It is a campaign pointed at the homepage, no form being measured, and budget decisions made in the dark.
In the one case I can show with numbers, an HVAC and plumbing company in Houston, CPA fell 44% and qualified leads rose 60%, and the landing pages were part of the work. What is and is not verifiable is in the full case.
I have written in more detail about landing page optimization tools for PPC, about what to do when cost per lead is too high and about what a PPC consultant costs.
Seven questions to compare website quotes
Compare quotes by what each one includes, not by the total. These seven questions put three proposals on the same ruler.
- Who writes the copy, and do I approve it before the build?
- Is it a template or a design made for my offer?
- What will be measured on launch day, and who installs it?
- Do the domain, the hosting and the code stay in my name?
- What does it cost each month, and what does that include?
- How many revision rounds, and what is the deadline?
- If I leave, what do I take with me?
If the third question gets silence, the site may look fine and you will still advertise without knowing what worked. Tracking is a job of its own, and what it covers is under conversion tracking setup.
What I charge, as a reference point
I publish my prices, so they are easy to compare. A campaign landing page is US$ 1,900, a 5 to 8 page business website US$ 6,500, tracking on its own US$ 1,500, and hosting with a care plan US$ 250 a month, optional. The same list in pounds and euros is on landing pages and websites.
That sits above the fixed price studios and inside the agency range for a small business site. The difference is what comes with it. Copy written from an interview, hand coded HTML, full tracking installed and tested, and domain, code and accounts in your name. I do not build online stores or run SEO programmes.
If what you have today is a page that already gets ads and converts poorly, that is a different job, described under landing page optimization.
