Building your own website can cost as little as $3 per month, with the use of budget-friendly website builders like Hostinger, or anywhere from $16 to $59 per month for more advanced builders like Wix and Squarespace.
If your site needs to fulfill specific functions and requirements, or if you don't fancy doing the handiwork yourself, hiring a professional is an option too. This costs considerably more than using a website builder, though – with prices averaging at around $500 to $10,000 per site.
- Wix is our best value website builder, from just $14.40/month with our code “GET10!”
- Hostinger offers the cheapest website entry price, from just $2.69/month with our code “TECH”
Whether you're looking for a website builder for beginners, or are happy to splurge on a professional, having a good website pays. Research from Stanford found that 75% of users judge a company's credibility based on its website design! To give you a crystal clear understanding of the costs involved, this guide breaks down how much each stage of the web-building process costs, and points out some additional expenses businesses tend to miss.
Get a quote from a web design professional or get matched to the best deal for your needs with our free website builder quiz
How Much Does it Cost to Build a Website?
Building a website using a web builder can cost anywhere from $3 to $60 per month, with the average price sitting around $30 per month.
Put simply, it doesn't have to cost a fortune to set up a site, especially if your vision is relatively basic. Even our top-rated builders which offer advanced functions like analytics and SEO have plans which start from $16 per month, placing them well in the budget of most businesses.
Most web builders offer much cheaper fees when businesses purchase an annual subscription. Monthly subscriptions are also available, but they tend to cost businesses more overall.
If you choose to create a website with a web builder, you can rest assured that everything you'll need to go live will be covered by the price of the subscription. However, some platforms charge businesses extra for necessary features involved with establishing and maintaining their site. We highlight some factors to be aware of below:
| Price Range | What is it? | Included With Most Builders? | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Website Domain | Website Hosting | SSL Certificate | |
| $10 to $600 | $4 to $190 per month with a third party | $4 to $250 per month with a third party | |
| A domain refers to the name of your website that shows up in the browser URL bar. | Web hosting is a service which allows businesses and individuals to post their website on the internet. | A SSL is a digital certificate that authenticates the identity of a site and encrypts information sent to the server. | |
| Domain names are included in mind website builder plans at no extra cost. | Most web builders include website hosting for free. However, if you use WordPress or build a site from scratch, you'll have to pay extra. | Fortunately, most website builder guarantee a SSL certificate. |
Website domain
While lots of web builders, like Wix and Squarespace, allow you to connect to a domain for free if you've subscribed to one of their premium plans, some solutions require you to cover the cost separately. Buying a new domain costs around $10 to $20 per year, with premium domains coming at a higher cost.
If you hire a professional to design your website, it's almost guaranteed you'll have to pay extra to guarantee and maintain your domain name as well. The prices of domain registrars range heavily, but businesses can secure a decent name from around $32 to $600.
Haven't landed on your domain name yet? We'd recommend making it SEO-friendly to improve your reach. This can be done by choosing the correct domain, leading with your brand's name, keeping it short, and avoiding hyphens and numbers.
Website hosting
If you're moving forwards with a web builder, the cost of web hosting will likely be included in your dues. However, WordPress and WP Pro charge anywhere from $2.95 to $49.95 for the privilege, with the web hosting provider Bluehost being the most popular port-of-call.
Securing your own space on the internet will cost extra if you create your site yourself, too. Depending on the needs of your site and the amount of traffic it's expected to attract, this could cost anywhere from $4 per month for a shared hosting option or $120 to $190 per month for your own dedicated server.
Learn more about website hosting costs here.
SSL certificate
A Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate is needed to prove that your website enables an encrypted connection. Website builders tend to offer the certificate for free, preventing businesses from needing to source it externally.
However, if SSL certification isn't included in your hosting plan, or if you're building a website from the ground up, you'll need to spend anywhere from $7 to $250 a year to purchase the security protocol from a certificate provider.
This may seem like an irritating expense. But in a time when 53.5% of sites still have inadequate security, keeping your customer's data protected has never been more important.
Additional Costs for Building a Website
While building a website is relatively affordable, businesses can opt for a range of integrations to extend the use of their builder even further. We list these additional costs, below.
Ecommerce: Free to $89 per month
Not all website builders let you sell online. But if you want to build a site that sells, you can purchase an ecommerce integration. Lots of these integrations can be free to download too, saving businesses from needing to upgrade to ecommerce website builders.
SEO: Free to $39 per month
While lots of web builders offer SEO tools as part of their roster, some solutions will charge these services at an extra cost. These include keyword tools, link builders, and AI-driven optimization tools.
Marketing: Free to $284 per month
If you're looking for a way to expand your site's reach, you can also pay extra for marketing add-ons like social media integrations, advert builders, and email marketing tools.
Communication: Free to $250 per month
Communication tools like web chats, forums, polls, blogs, and reviews & testimonials provider businesses with powerful ways to connect with their community and relay information.
Design elements: Free to $89 per month
If your chosen website builder doesn't let you customize your site to your liking, you may be able to purchase extra design elements — like page templates and banners — at an extra cost. Research shows site design and usability can have a major impact on customer behavior, so while it may be easier to rely on your builder's toolkit, slashing out on advanced features will likely pay for themselves over time.
What Impacts the Price of a Web Builder?
The main factors that influence the cost of the web builder are the demands of your website. If you're a small business after a simple website, a static site, a blog, or a portfolio, you'll probably be able to get by on an affordable monthly plan without needing to splurge on heaps of extra features.
Alternatively, for larger businesses with precise requirements, the cost of building a website yourself can rack up quickly. For instance, if you require large storage limits and advanced tools like email marketing and professional logo designing, you should expect to pay around $45 per month for plans like Wix VIP.
Businesses selling a high turnover of goods can expect costs to escalate even more, with Shopify's Advanced plan – a package with affordable credit card rates at up to 1,000 inventory locations – costing $499 per month and the provider's enterprise ecommerce package starting at a very steep $2,000 per month.
No matter what your business's precise needs are, there'll be a website out there that will be sitting within your budget. If you're not sure where to start, we sifted through the competition and narrowed down six website builders that we think are ideal for small businesses. You can see how they compare below:
| Paid plan Monthly | Free Plan | Pros | Cons | Rating Overall score based on features, value, support, ease of use, and customer score | Value for Money Price factors including plan costs and feature tiers. | Try it Today | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BEST FOR BUSINESS  |  |  |  |  | ||||
| Wix | Squarespace | Go Daddy | Shopify | Hostinger | ||||
|
|
|
| ||||||
| | | | | | ||||
|
|
|
|
| ||||
|
|
|
|
| ||||
| 4.8 | 4.8 | 4.1 | 4.2 | 3.6 | ||||
| 3.6 | 4.0 | 4.4 | 3.0 | 3.7 | ||||
| Claim Deal | Save 10% | Try GoDaddy | Try Shopify | Save up to 10% |
Should You Hire a Web Designer Instead?
If you don't have the time or technical know-how to build a website using a web builder, hiring a professional web designer could be a good alternative.
Outsourcing this service allows you to create a website that matches your exact needs. From design to functionality, it can be fully customized to your liking and since it'll be built from scratch, you can ensure it'll be completely one-of-a-kind too.
Hiring a professional won't be an option for every business, though. Using this method can cost anywhere from $500 to over $10,000 per site, depending on your business's requirements. If you're able to afford this premium, bespoke sites do tend to offer businesses a higher return on their investment.
However, with web builder platforms advancing every year, you don't need to hire a professional to build a unique and high-performing site in 2023.
Read our guide to the cost of hiring web designers to learn how much this method would set your business back.
Verdict: How Much Does it Cost to Create & Run a Website?
If you’re using a website builder to create a site, you can expect to spend anywhere between $3 and $60 per month to use the tool, although extra capabilities like ecommerce and marketing can bump up this price more.
Fortunately, these monthly fees tend to include necessary functions like domain registration, web hosting, and SSL certificates too, preventing you from having to pay for these externally. It's important to double-check with your provider first, however, as solutions like WordPress charge businesses extra for domain names and web hosting.
If you’re considering hiring a professional, building a site can cost anywhere from $500 to $10,000, with site maintenance incurring regular costs on top.
You don’t need to fork out to make a polished, high-performing website, though. Take our free comparison quiz to get matched to a website builder that suits your needs today.
Web Builder Costs: Frequently Asked Questions
If you click on, sign up to a service through, or make a purchase through the links on our site, or use our quotes tool to receive custom pricing for your business needs, we may earn a referral fee from the supplier(s) of the technology you’re interested in. This helps Tech.co to provide free information and reviews, and carries no additional cost to you. Most importantly, it doesn’t affect our editorial impartiality. Ratings and rankings on Tech.co cannot be bought. Our reviews are based on objective research analysis. Rare exceptions to this will be marked clearly as a ‘sponsored' table column, or explained by a full advertising disclosure on the page, in place of this one. Click to return to top of page