The honest math · updated July 2026
How much does a small business website actually cost?
Short answer: anywhere from $0 to $10,000 — because “a website” is four different products wearing the same name. Here are the real 2026 numbers for each, including the costs nobody itemizes, from a company that sells one of the four and will tell you honestly when the other three fit better.
Local agency
- Upfront
- $2,000–$10,000
- Ongoing
- $50–$150 maintenance
- Time to live
- 4–12 weeks
You get real professionals and a custom design. You also get proposals, meetings, revision rounds, and invoices for every change after launch. Agencies are built for businesses that need complexity — e-commerce, custom software, big content sites. For a service business that needs a great five-page site, you're paying for overhead you'll never use.
Freelancer
- Upfront
- $500–$3,000
- Ongoing
- usually nothing — and that's the problem
- Time to live
- 2–8 weeks
A good freelancer is the best per-dollar build there is. The risk isn't the build — it's year two. Freelancers move, get busy, change careers. When your site breaks or needs an update and the person who built it has vanished, you're starting over. Ask any business owner with a site that still shows their old phone number.
DIY builder (Wix, Squarespace, GoDaddy)
- Upfront
- $0
- Ongoing
- $16–$50 + your nights and weekends
- Time to live
- 20–60 hours of your life
The ads make it look like an afternoon. The reality is a part-time job: choosing templates, fighting layouts, writing your own copy, finding photos, figuring out SEO. Most DIY sites are abandoned half-finished — and it shows. Your hourly rate matters here: 40 hours you could have billed, spent doing a job you've never done before.
Website subscription (that's us)
- Upfront
- $0
- Ongoing
- $99, everything included
- Time to live
- 24 hours, none of them yours
A professional team builds the whole site from a ten-minute questionnaire — copy, design, photography, local SEO — then hosts, maintains, and edits it forever, included. Over three years that's $3,564 total, with zero hours of your time and no risk of your web person disappearing. And you see your finished website before paying anything.
The costs nobody puts in the quote
Hosting
$10–$50/mo that agencies and freelancers quote separately. Included in a subscription.
SSL certificate
Often $0 now, but some hosts still charge $50–$100/yr for it.
Changes after launch
The big one. $75–$150/hr at agencies. "Can you update our hours?" shouldn't be an invoice.
Copywriting
Most quotes assume YOU write the words. Professional copy is $500–$2,000 extra — or a blank page with your name on it.
Stock photography
$10–$50 per image licensed properly. A ten-photo site adds up.
The redesign cliff
Sites age. In year 3–4 the agency quotes you a fresh $5,000. Subscriptions redesign for free — ours is one click.
The three-year comparison
Websites aren't one-time purchases — they're three-to-five year commitments. Compare total cost of ownership, not sticker price:
| Option | 3-year total | Your hours |
|---|---|---|
| Agency build + maintenance | $5,600–$15,400 | 10–20 |
| Freelancer + fixes as needed | $1,400–$5,000 | 10–20 |
| DIY builder | $576–$1,800 | 40–100+ |
| UpKept subscription | $3,564 | ~0.2 (the questionnaire) |
Want to skip the spreadsheet?
Answer ten minutes of questions and see your finished website — built by our design team, for your business — before you pay anything. If it's not clearly worth $99/month, walk away and you've spent nothing but the ten minutes.
See my website first →More: Will a website pay for itself? (free calculator) · DIY website builder vs. done-for-you — an honest comparison · See real sites we've built