Pricing, plainly
What a small-business website costs
The honest answer is that most of what you'll be quoted isn't a price for a website — it's a price for renting one. That's the thing to understand before you spend a dollar.
There are two ways to pay for a website
The rental model. A lot of agencies — especially the ones selling "marketing systems" to contractors — charge a monthly fee, often around $299 a month. For that you get a website, some automation, and a login. It works. But you're renting: the day you stop paying, the site is gone, and you never owned it. Three years of $299 a month is over $10,000, and you walk away with nothing.
The build-it-and-own-it model. You pay once for the site to be built. It's yours. You can host it wherever you want, change hosts, or hand it to someone else — nobody can switch it off on you. That's how I work.
What actually drives the price
- Number of pages. A sharp one-pager costs less than a ten-page site with a page per service.
- Whether it does anything. A site that just tells people who you are and how to reach you is simpler — and cheaper — than one that takes bookings, payments, or logins.
- Who writes it and how. A template filled in fast is cheap and looks it. A site built by hand for your trade takes longer and lasts.
What I'd tell a neighbor
If someone's quoting you a monthly fee, ask one question: do I own this, or am I renting it? If the answer is renting, add up three years of it before you decide. For most small businesses in the valley, a site you own outright — built once, live within a week — is the cheaper and saner choice. Tell me what you need and I'll give you a real number, not a subscription.
Keep reading
Tell me what your business does.
I build the site by hand, it's live within a week, and it's yours the day the job is paid for — no monthly rent, no lock-in. Based in the Gila Valley, working with businesses anywhere.