A website for your business
What a Website Costs a Trade Business: Quotes, Line by Line
A small-business website quote has nine lines. What each covers, the market range from template builders to custom builds, and how to compare quotes.
Photo by Kindel Media on Pexels
In short
A website for a small trade business costs anywhere from a few hundred dollars a year on a template builder to the low thousands or more for a custom build, and the headline price is almost never the whole cost. A quote is nine separate lines, and two quotes can only be compared when each one names what it includes and what it leaves out. The lines people forget are the ones that repeat every month or every year: hosting, the domain, maintenance and the changes you will want after launch.
- Template builders publish plans from about $4 to about $139 a month, depending on plan and billing term, hosting and SSL included12.
- A custom site from a freelancer or an agency commonly runs from the low thousands into five figures, as of November 2026.
- California requires a licensed contractor’s license number in all forms of advertising, and the board’s guide says advertising includes a website. That is content to supply, not a feature to buy.
This is the pillar for our cluster on websites for trade businesses and independent practices. It explains what a quote contains, what the market charges for each kind of work, and how to put two quotes side by side. The trade-specific pieces follow it: what a contractor website must show, contractor websites audited, a fence or landscaping site ready for spring, an acupuncture site that books first visits and a design studio site, portfolio first.
We write it because the question reaches us in the same form every time: “What does a website cost?” There is no single answer, but there is a list of lines, and each line can be priced separately. We give the market’s range, as of November 2026, and we leave our own prices out.
A quote, line by line
Ask for the quote in these nine lines. A provider who cannot separate them is telling you something.
| Line | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Design | How the site looks; mockups before building |
| Build | Turning the design into a working site |
| Content | The text on every page |
| Photos | Your work, shot or sourced |
| Hosting | The server the site runs on |
| Maintenance | Updates, backups, security, monitoring |
| Domain | Your web address |
| Mailboxes at your domain | |
| Extras | Integrations, a shop, booking, a page-builder license |
Good to know Photos are the line that most often turns out to be the owner’s job. Ask whether they are included in the build price.
What the market charges, by kind
Template builders
A template builder sells a design you fill in yourself, with hosting included. Squarespace, Wix and WordPress.com publish plans from about $4 to about $139 a month, depending on plan and billing term12. Hosting and SSL are included on the paid plans, and the free domain they offer applies to the first year on annual terms, renewing at the standard rate afterward. The first year costs under $500 on most plans. The cost that arrives later is the domain at its renewal price and your own time. Read the sentence about renewal on each pricing page before you compare totals.
Freelancers and agencies
A custom site from a freelancer or an agency commonly runs from the low thousands into five figures, as of November 2026. The range is wide because the work is: complexity, how far the design departs from a template, who writes the content and takes the photos, and what is done for search during the build all move the price. Whatever the provider, ask for the same nine lines.
Maintenance after launch
A maintenance or care plan is the line that repeats. Plans differ on how often updates run, how long backups are kept, and whether edits are counted in hours or called unlimited with exclusions. Our piece on what a maintenance plan should include goes through them.
What moves the price
For a trade business the drivers translate into five questions:
- How many pages? A site with one page per service and one per city costs more than one page that lists everything.
- Is the design a template or drawn for you?
- Who writes the text, and who takes the photos?
- Does the site need a feature beyond a phone number and a form, such as booking, financing or a gallery you update yourself?
- Who looks after it afterward, and how often?
What is not included, usually
Hosting, the domain, SSL, content and maintenance are usually separate from the build. Add three more that no price list can include:
- Your license number. California requires a licensed contractor’s number in all forms of advertising, including “any website or post that solicits business on the Internet,” with a civil penalty of $100 to $1,000 for a first offense3. The number is yours to supply, and it belongs on every page a designer builds.
- Your photos. A designer can place them; only you can take them.
- Changes after launch. A site is not finished when it goes live. Ask what a change costs and who makes it.
How to compare two quotes
- Put both in the nine lines. Write each quote into the list above. A blank line is a question for the provider.
- Convert everything to a year, then to three years. A monthly plan over 12 months and a one-time build are not the same shape. Add hosting, domain and maintenance to both for three years.
- Ask who owns the domain and the hosting account. The answer decides what happens when you change providers. Our piece on who owns your domain shows how to check, and fifteen questions to ask a web designer starts there.
- Ask what a change costs. An hourly rate or an hour or two a month in a plan is a number you can plan around.
- Ask what is excluded. Content, photos, email, page-builder licenses and integrations are the usual answers.
How a sliding scale works
A fixed price list assumes every customer is the same size. A sliding scale does not: the price is set after a free consultation, according to what the site has to do and what the business can carry, so the same work can cost two businesses different amounts. What should not slide is the list of lines. Whatever the scale, ask for the nine lines in writing, with what each includes. How we work is on the how-we-work page.
What we do about it
We build WordPress sites with themes we write ourselves, with no page builder, and we take one new build a month. A fence contractor’s site has run on our managed servers since 2021. Because the theme is ours, the page-builder license in the extras line is empty, and because the hosting is ours, the hosting and maintenance lines are one line. We price on a sliding scale after the consultation. See website management for what that covers.
When to get help
If you have two quotes and cannot tell what the difference is, send them to us. Putting them into the nine lines is quick work, and the consultation is free. If one of them leaves out hosting, maintenance or the domain, it will say so once the lines are filled in.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does a website cost for a small business?
Is a template builder enough for a contractor?
For a first site it can be, if you can supply the text and photos and the page can carry your license number. The builders include hosting and SSL; they do not make the content or the number for you.
What does it cost to keep a WordPress site running?
Hosting is often separate from the build, and a maintenance plan is a further line. Our piece on what a maintenance plan should include gives the market range and what the plan should cover.
Do I have to pay for a domain every year?
Yes. The builders’ free domain applies to the first year only, renewing at the standard rate afterward.
Do I need my contractor license number on my website?
California requires the number in all forms of advertising, and the board’s guide counts “any website or post that solicits business on the Internet”. Ask a licensed professional about your own case.
Why are quotes so far apart?
Complexity, how far the design departs from a template, and who supplies the content and photos move the price, and a quote that leaves a line out looks cheaper than one that includes it.
Sources
- Squarespace pricing — Squarespace, 2026.
- WordPress.com pricing — WordPress.com, 2026.
- Advertising Guidelines for Contractors (Fast Facts) — California Contractors State License Board.
Research and drafting assisted by AI, reviewed before publication. Editorial policy.