Websites

How Much Should A Small Business Website Cost in 2026?

August 18, 2026 | How much a website should cost you

Owning and operating a website in 2026 entails lots of work and services, all functioning together. Each different type of service usually requires a price that can vary by quite a lot - some platforms are free whilst others might charge hundreds, or even thousands of dollars per month. DIY sites are often cheaper than professionally built websites, but they might be harder or more time-intensive to keep up and running, and can lack deep customization that professionals can give.

Up-front costs

The biggest expenses are usually for designing the website and coding or building it.

Design

Website designers might charge $200-600 for a small website, but costs can quickly scale with your site’s size and number of pages. A larger site can range from $1000 to potentially tens of thousands of dollars, but for a small business the cost will very likely stay under $1000.

Production

Coding a site can take lots of time and money if you want lots of app-like functionality, though expenses could stay relatively low (under $500) if you just want a site to display information and not have high interactivity.

DIY sites

DIY websites can be cheap, starting at next to nothing but that doesn’t mean they are always the right choice.

Recurring costs

There are a few recurring costs that you need to account for.

• Domain names might cost $10-25 per year
• Hosting can vary based on a site’s purpose, often starting at $20 monthly
• Hiring a programmer to update content might be $50-200 per month

Example cost

A website for a small restaurant to show that they’re open for business could be about $750. This would include a basic site with little functionality, instead of having a full app for ordering food remotely (that would likely cost closer to $3000+). To break down costs, this includes:

• $300 for design
• $400 for code
• $50 for domain

Conclusion

Small websites can vary a lot in price depending on what they do and how big they are. If you only want a simple site to show off your business, you could probably expect a $500 to $1000 price tag, but one with more advanced functionality can quickly increase it to over $1500. These are just estimates though, and some agencies or developers could charge you a lot more or a lot less if they have a larger portfolio or specialize more in a certain area.