"How much does a website cost?" doesn't have one answer — it depends entirely on who builds it. Here's roughly what businesses pay across the four most common routes, and how our pricing stacks up.
DIY website builders
Platforms like Wix, Squarespace, and Weebly bundle templates and hosting into one subscription. Upfront cost is close to nothing, but the monthly fee is permanent, and you're doing all the design, writing, and setup work yourself on a template shared by thousands of other sites.
- Typical cost: $0–$500 upfront, roughly $15–$50/month ongoing
- Trade-off: cheapest option, but it's your time, your template, and an ongoing bill that never ends
Freelance designers
Hiring an individual freelancer gets you a custom design without the overhead of a full agency. Quality and reliability vary a lot from person to person, and hosting or ongoing maintenance is usually a separate conversation.
- Typical cost: roughly $1,500–$8,000 per project
- Trade-off: custom work at a lower price than an agency, but scope, timelines, and long-term support depend entirely on the individual
Full-service agencies
Agencies bring a full team — strategy, design, development, copywriting, and project management — which is reflected in the price. This tier makes sense for complex, large-scale sites, but it's overbuilt and overpriced for most small businesses that need a clear, professional site online.
- Typical cost: roughly $4,000–$35,000+ upfront, often with a $100–$500/month retainer afterward
- Trade-off: the most comprehensive service, but the slowest timelines and the highest cost by a wide margin
Where SimplyWebCo fits
We built our pricing to sit well below the freelancer and agency tiers, without asking you to build it yourself. You get a custom-designed, professionally built site — just without the markup that comes from a big agency's overhead.
| Route | Upfront cost | Ongoing cost | Who does the work |
|---|---|---|---|
| DIY builder | $0–$500 | $15–$50/mo | You |
| Freelancer | $1,500–$8,000 | Varies, often separate | One person |
| Agency | $4,000–$35,000+ | $100–$500/mo | Full team |
| SimplyWebCo | $799–$1,499 | Flat $50/mo hosting | Our team |
Figures are general industry ranges as of 2026 based on publicly available pricing guides, meant for comparison rather than any single provider's exact rate.
Why we can charge less
We keep our process tight: a focused survey up front instead of long discovery meetings, a proven build process instead of reinventing each site from scratch, and no bloated retainer stacked on top. The $50/month hosting fee is the one ongoing cost, and it's the same for every plan — no upsells buried in the fine print.
See exactly what's included at each price point.
View Pricing →