How Much Does a Website Cost in 2026?

Most website cost guides are written by companies that sell hosting, site builders or design work, and they tend to steer you toward whatever that company sells. We build websites too, so we have a stake in this as well. Where our own pricing appears, we say so. The rest of the numbers come from the providers’ published prices as of October 2026, including the renewal increases that usually get left out.

What Is the Absolute Minimum Cost to Get a Website Online?

The cheapest path to a real business website is a self-hosted WordPress site on shared hosting with a free theme. Total first-year cost: $50–$100, covering a .com domain ($10–$15) and annual shared hosting ($40–$80). You handle setup, design, security, and maintenance yourself, and the time investment is 10–20 hours for a beginner.

Guides that quote $0 as the minimum are talking about a free subdomain (yourbusiness.wordpress.com or yourbusiness.wixsite.com) with the platform’s ads on your pages. Visitors read that as a placeholder, and some will wonder why the business would not spend $50.

The $50–$100 floor gets you a functional site, but it requires you to learn how to install WordPress, choose and configure a theme, set up security plugins, configure backups, and troubleshoot anything that breaks. If your time is worth more than the learning curve, the other paths below will make more sense. If terms like hosting and registrar are new to you, read domain vs hosting first.

How Much Does a Website Builder Cost?

All-in-one website builders like Wix and Squarespace charge about $17–$39 per month on yearly billing ($204–$468 per year) for plans that include hosting, SSL, a drag-and-drop editor, and usually a free domain for the first year. No technical skills required, but you pay a premium for convenience and you are locked into their platform.

The major builders charge roughly this per month in 2026 on their most popular business plans:

Wix: Light is $17/month and Core is $29/month, both billed yearly. Light covers a simple site on your own domain with no Wix ads. You need Core or higher to sell products or take bookings.

Squarespace: Basic is $19/month and Core is $29/month, billed yearly. Squarespace raised these prices in July 2026 (Basic was $16 and Core was $23), so older comparison articles quote numbers that are now out of date. Paying month to month costs more: $25 for Basic and $39 for Core.

Budget builders: Some hosting companies sell a basic site builder for a few dollars a month, but the low price usually requires paying for several years upfront, and the renewal rate is higher. Check the renewal price before you compare.

The catch with all builders is that your site lives on their servers, in their format. If you want to leave, you cannot take the design with you. You can export text content, but the visual layout has to be rebuilt from scratch on any new platform. That is the price of not needing technical skills.

How Much Does It Cost to Hire Someone to Build a Website?

Freelancers charge $500–$5,000 for a small business website (5–15 pages). Agencies charge $3,000–$15,000 or more. Newer AI-assisted services charge $500–$700 for a custom-designed site with revisions included. In all cases, add $50–$200 per year for hosting and domain renewal on top of the build cost.

The range is enormous because “build a website” means different things. A freelancer on Upwork building a 5-page WordPress site with a premium theme is doing different work than an agency creating a custom-coded e-commerce platform with payment processing, inventory management, and a mobile app.

For most small businesses launching their first site, the $500–$2,000 range covers everything you need. You get a professional design, your core pages, mobile responsiveness, basic SEO setup, and a site you can update yourself. Anything above $3,000 is for businesses that need custom functionality (booking systems, membership areas, complex e-commerce).

Always ask these three questions before hiring anyone:

Can I see a live preview before I pay? What is the total cost including hosting, domain, and any ongoing fees? Will the domain and site files belong to me when the work is finished?

If the answer to any of these is “no” or “it depends,” keep looking.

What Are the Hidden Costs Most Guides Do Not Mention?

The four biggest hidden costs are: hosting renewal prices that double or triple after the first term, premium plugin or app subscriptions ($50–$300/year), SSL certificate costs if not included (though most hosts now include free SSL), and the opportunity cost of your own time if you build and maintain the site yourself.

Renewal price shock

A hosting company that advertises $2.95/month almost always requires a 2–3 year prepayment. When that term ends, the renewal rate is typically $9–$14/month. You go from paying $106 for three years to paying $108–$168 per year. This is the single biggest hidden cost in website building, and the one that hosting review sites never highlight because they earn affiliate commissions on the initial signup.

Plugin and app costs

WordPress itself is free. But many essential functions require plugins, and the best ones charge annual fees. A contact form plugin ($0–$99/year), an SEO plugin ($0–$199/year), a backup plugin ($0–$100/year), and a security plugin ($0–$200/year). Free versions exist for all of these, but the paid versions are significantly better. Budget $100–$300/year for plugins if you go the WordPress route.

Website builders have a similar dynamic with “apps” or “extensions.” Wix and Squarespace include most features in the subscription, but some advanced functions (email marketing integrations, booking systems, membership areas) require add-ons with their own monthly fees.

Your time

The least discussed cost. If you spend 20 hours learning WordPress, choosing a theme and fighting with plugins, and your time is worth $30/hour, you just spent $600 on a “free” website. Sometimes paying $700 for someone to build it in 3 days is the cheaper option when you account for your time.

What Does Ongoing Maintenance Cost?

A small business website costs $100–$500 per year to maintain, covering domain renewal ($10–$20), hosting ($40–$180), and optional professional maintenance such as updates and backups ($50–$300). Website builders bundle maintenance into the subscription. Self-hosted sites require you to handle it yourself or pay someone.

For a self-hosted WordPress site, maintenance means updating WordPress core, your theme, and plugins regularly (at least monthly). Skipping updates is how sites get hacked. Automated backup services run $20–$100/year. Managed WordPress hosting handles all of this for you at a premium ($6–$25/month instead of $3–$10/month for unmanaged hosting).

If you hire someone to build your site, ask about maintenance before the project starts. Some builders include a few months of support in the build price. Others charge separately. A clear maintenance agreement prevents the situation where your site breaks six months after launch and you have no one to call.

How Does Total Cost Compare Across All Three Paths?

Over the first year, self-hosted WordPress costs $50–$300 (hosting + domain + plugins, your labor is free), a website builder subscription costs $204–$468 (hosting included, domain free in year one), and hiring someone costs $550–$5,700 (build fee + hosting + domain). Over three years, DIY WordPress costs the least in cash (around $460), a builder runs about $650, and a done-for-you site about $1,040. Most of the gap is the time you would spend doing it yourself.

Over three years, a 5-page small business site breaks down like this:

DIY WordPress: Year 1: $100 (hosting + domain) + $100 (plugins) = $200. Years 2–3: $130/year (hosting renewal + domain + plugins) = $260. Three-year total: $460. Plus 15–25 hours of your time over three years for setup and maintenance.

Website builder (Wix Light): Year 1: $204 (yearly plan, domain free for the first year). Years 2–3: $204 plan + about $20 domain renewal = roughly $224/year, or $448. Three-year total: about $652. Zero maintenance time.

Done-for-you service (our own pricing at AltHealth Works): Year 1: $699 build, which includes the first year of hosting, + about $15 for the domain = $714. Years 2–3: $149/year hosting and care + $15 domain = $164/year, or $328. Three-year total: about $1,042. Near-zero time investment. You get your own WordPress login to make edits; an optional $29/month plan where we make the edits for you is extra.

The right answer depends on how much your time is worth and how comfortable you are with technology. There is no universally cheapest option once you account for the hours you spend.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is it worth paying for a premium WordPress theme?

Usually yes, but only if you pick a well-supported theme with regular updates. Premium themes ($40–$80 one-time) typically include better design and dedicated support compared to free themes. Avoid themes that charge annual renewal fees unless the ongoing support and updates justify the cost.

Can I start cheap and upgrade later?

Yes, and this is the smartest approach for most beginners. Start with shared hosting and a free theme. Upgrade to managed hosting or a premium theme once your site gets traffic. Move to a custom design when your business revenue justifies the investment. Your domain follows you through every upgrade.

Why do some agencies charge $10,000+ for a website?

At that price, you are paying for custom design from scratch (no template), custom-coded features, extensive content strategy, SEO setup, and ongoing support from a team of specialists. Some of that value is real and some is overhead. For a standard small business site with 5–15 pages and no custom functionality, $10,000 is overpaying unless the agency is delivering measurable business results beyond the website itself.

Are “free website” offers legitimate?

They exist but come with significant trade-offs: a branded subdomain instead of your own domain, ads from the platform displayed on your site, limited design options, and no access to advanced features. They work for personal projects, hobby sites, or testing an idea before committing money. They do not work for a business that wants to be taken seriously by customers.

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