How much does a website cost for a small business?

A landing page starts at $600, a multi-page business site at $800, and typically lands at $1,700-2,800 once content, animation and a second language are in. These are bands from delivered projects, not market averages.

Why do quotes differ by several times?

Because "a website" means different things to different people. One quote is a bought theme with your text; another is custom design, hand-written layout, an editable CMS and SEO before launch. Compare inclusions and exclusions, not totals.

What moves the price the most?

The number of unique templates rather than pages; whether a design already exists (worth 25-40%); animation; anything with state such as accounts, carts and payments; and each additional language.

What will it cost after launch?

Hosting at $5-30 a month, a domain at $15-60 a year, premium plugins at $100-400 a year, plus maintenance and content. These are the numbers that surprise people in month three.

Can I get one for $300?

You can buy a template with your logo on it — no performance work, no SEO structure, and nobody to answer when it breaks. That usually leads to a second invoice within eighteen months, larger than the first one you declined.

The Short Answer First

In 2026 a professional business website built by an experienced developer costs between $800 and $3,500 in most cases, and a serious online store or web platform runs from $1,500 to $7,000. Those are not survey numbers — they are the bands my own delivered projects fall into. Everything below explains why the same brief can land at either end of that range, so you can read a quote instead of just comparing totals.

The Real Price Bands

These are starting points for work done properly: a custom design, hand-written responsive layout, a CMS you can actually edit, and basic SEO in place before launch.

Landing page or one-page business card — from $600. One goal, one flow, one call to action
Corporate or multi-page business site — from $800, typically $1,700-2,800 once content, animation and multilingual support are in
Online store — from $1,500, typically $2,500-3,500 with catalogue, filters, payments and delivery configured
Web platform or application — from $2,000, and $6,000+ once there is a real backend, user accounts and external integrations
Fixes and revisions on an existing site — from $50 per hour

For context on the middle band: a multilingual corporate site for a communications agency, an information site with a product catalogue, and an animation-heavy photography portfolio all landed between $2,100 and $2,750. A two-language fashion store with WooCommerce, accounts, payments and delivery came in at $3,400. A proxy management platform with a React front end and a Django backend was $6,500. Same developer, same standards. The difference is scope, not markup.

What Actually Moves the Number

Number of unique templates, not number of pages. Forty pages using six layouts is cheaper than nine pages using nine
Whether a design exists. A ready Figma file removes a whole phase; designing from scratch adds roughly 25-40%
Interaction and animation. Scroll-driven effects, cursor previews and Lottie sequences are built and tested per element, and they are the single most underestimated line in any quote
Anything with state: accounts, carts, payments, bookings, dashboards. This is where a website becomes software and the cost curve changes shape
Languages. A second language is not a translation — it is duplicated content structure, routing, hreflang and QA on every page
Migration from an existing site: content transfer, URL mapping and redirects are real days of work

You are not buying pages. You are buying the number of distinct problems somebody has to solve before the site works.

The Costs Nobody Puts in the Quote

The build is a one-off. The site is not. Budget for the running side before you sign, because these are the numbers that surprise people in month three.

Hosting: $5-30 a month for a business site, more once traffic or a backend is involved
Domain and email: $15-60 a year, plus a mailbox that does not land in spam
Premium plugins and licences on WordPress: $100-400 a year, and they renew
Content: photography, copy and translation are frequently larger than the development invoice
Maintenance: updates, backups and security checks. Skipping this is how a working site becomes a rebuild
Changes after launch, which there will be, because the first real users always reveal something

Why the Cheapest Quote Is Usually the Most Expensive

A $250 site is not a smaller version of a $2,500 site. It is a template with your logo on it, no performance work, no SEO structure, and no one who will answer when it breaks. The pattern I see most often is a business paying twice: once for the cheap site, then again eighteen months later for someone to rebuild it properly. The second invoice is higher than the first quote they turned down, because now there is content to migrate and rankings to protect.

How to Get a Quote That Means Something

Say what the site is for in one sentence — leads, sales, credibility, recruitment. The answer changes the build
List the page types, not the pages. Home, service, case study, blog post, contact — that is five templates
State whether design and content exist, or need to be created
Name every integration up front: CRM, payments, booking, analytics, newsletter
Give a real deadline and say what drives it, so the plan can be sequenced around it
Ask what is excluded. A quote is defined as much by its exclusions as its total

Conclusion

Price ranges exist because scope ranges exist. A developer who quotes you a firm number before understanding what the site has to do is either guessing or planning to charge for the difference later. If you want a number for your own project, describe the goal and the page types in a couple of paragraphs. That is usually enough for an honest range on the same day — and an honest range is worth more than a confident total.