Most agencies will not answer this question on their website. You get a contact form, a discovery call, and a number three days later, by which point you have no way to tell whether it is fair. So: here is the whole range, what each price point genuinely buys, and how to read a quote you have been given.
Our own numbers are on the pricing page — $1,500, $4,000, and $10,000+ — and the reasoning below is the same reasoning that produced them.
Why nobody publishes the number
Two reasons, one defensible and one not.
The defensible one: website scope genuinely varies more than almost any other purchase. "A website" covers a five-page brochure site and a booking platform with payments and a customer portal. A single published price would be wrong for most enquiries.
The indefensible one: an unpublished price can be adjusted to the buyer. If the discovery call reveals a large budget, the quote grows to fit it. That is not scoping, it is price discovery, and it is the main reason the industry keeps its numbers behind a form.
Publishing a range solves the first problem without enabling the second, which is why we do it.
What each price point buys
| Budget | What it realistically covers | Right for |
|---|---|---|
| Under $500 | A template, configured. DIY builders, or a freelancer swapping content into a theme. | Validating an idea, or a placeholder |
| $1,500–2,500 | A small custom-built site, up to about 5 pages, responsive, on-page SEO, launched properly. | Most local businesses |
| $4,000–7,000 | 10–15 pages, custom design, CMS so you can edit it, integrations, performance work. | Established businesses selling through the site |
| $10,000+ | Bespoke design and build, complex functionality, bookings, payments, portals, multi-language. | Sites that are the product, not the brochure |
The jumps are not linear because the work is not linear. Going from five pages to fifteen is not three times the work — but going from a brochure site to one that takes bookings and payments genuinely is, because you have added state, security, and failure modes that all have to be handled.
Where the money actually goes
- Design. Not decoration — the layout decisions that determine whether a visitor finds the thing they came for. This is the line item most often cut, and cutting it is why cheap sites underperform rather than merely look plain.
- Build. Turning the design into a fast, accessible, responsive site. A competent build is invisible; an incompetent one shows up as a slow phone experience and a bounce rate nobody can explain.
- Content. Someone has to write the words. If the quote does not mention content, you are writing it, and the project will stall for six weeks while you do.
- SEO foundations. Titles, structure, schema, sitemap, Google Business Profile. Cheap to do at build time, expensive to retrofit.
- Testing and launch. Real devices, real browsers, redirects from the old URLs. The step that gets skipped when a deadline slips.
The recurring costs nobody mentions
The build price is not the cost of the website. Budget for hosting, a domain, SSL, updates, backups, and someone to call when it breaks. Some agencies fold this into a care plan; ours are $99, $249, and $499 a month depending on tier, and one year of hosting is included in the build.
Beware of a care plan that is really rent. If cancelling means losing the site, you did not buy a website — you leased one. Ask directly: if I stop paying you, what do I keep? The answer should be "everything, and we help you move it."
How to read a quote you have been given
- Does it say what happens if scope changes? A fixed price with no change-order process is a fixed price that will change.
- Who owns the code and the content? The answer should be you, on final payment, in writing.
- How many rounds of revisions? Unlimited revisions is not generosity — it is an undefined scope that ends in resentment on both sides.
- What is the timeline, and what causes it to slip? Usually your content. A good agency says so up front.
- Is SEO included or "available"? Basic on-page SEO at build time should be included. Ongoing SEO is a separate service and should be priced separately — anyone bundling "SEO" vaguely into a build price is selling you a title tag.
- What happens after launch? Get the support terms before you sign, not after something breaks.
Cheap versus expensive versus overpriced
These are three different things and the middle one is fine.
A cheap site is a legitimate purchase when you are validating an idea. Buy the template, launch this week, learn something. Do not pay $8,000 to find out whether anyone wants what you are selling.
An expensive site is justified when the site is doing real work — taking bookings, processing payments, serving as the actual product surface. Complexity has a price and it is not negotiable by wishing.
An overpriced site is one where the price does not match the work: a five-page brochure site for $12,000, a template with a custom price tag, or a quote that grew after the agency learned your budget. The way to detect it is the itemised breakdown. Work that cannot be described cannot be justified.
What we charge, and why
Starter at $1,500 covers up to five pages, responsive build, on-page SEO, Google Business Profile setup, and a year of hosting. Business at $4,000 covers up to fifteen. Custom starts at $10,000 and is scoped properly before a number is given. Care plans run $99, $249, $499 a month.
Those numbers are on the pricing page where anyone can see them before talking to us, which is the entire point. If your project genuinely does not fit them, we will tell you that on the first call rather than the third.