What a website actually costs for a local business (and why)
Prices run from $20 a month to $20,000 up front, and almost nobody explains the difference. An honest breakdown of what you are paying for at each level.
Ask five people what a website costs and you will get five answers, all confident and all different. The honest answer is a range, and the useful question is what you are actually buying at each point on it.
The $20-a-month builder
Squarespace, Wix, and friends. Fine for testing an idea or a side project. The catch is that the $20 buys software, not a website: you still do the design, the copy, the photos, and the parts that make Google take you seriously. Most owners spend three weekends on it, land somewhere around "fine," and never touch it again. The subscription is cheap. Your weekends are not.
The $99-a-month template shop
Agencies that rent you a site built from the same template as your competitors. Quick and hands-off, but you usually do not own the site. Stop paying and it disappears, along with whatever Google ranking it earned. Read those contracts closely.
The freelancer: roughly $1,500 to $5,000
This range holds real craft and real gambles, sometimes in the same person. The build can be lovely. The risk is month six, when you need an update and the person who has your passwords has a new day job. Before hiring, ask who handles updates, security, and hosting after launch. The answer tells you what you are really buying.
The studio build: $3,000 to $15,000 and up
At this level you are paying for the thinking, not just the pages: what the site needs to say, how a visitor becomes a booked appointment, why it loads fast on a phone. The good ones also stay on afterward, maintaining and improving the site on a monthly retainer. That ongoing part matters more than the launch. A site is not a purchase, it is equipment, and equipment gets serviced.
Why we publish our pricing
Most shops will not quote until you get on a call. We think that wastes everyone's time, so our pricing is public: a build fee plus a monthly care plan, with what each tier includes spelled out.
The number that actually matters
The build price is the wrong thing to optimize. Cost per booked client is the right one. A $3,000 site that brings a $400-a-visit business five extra bookings a month pays for itself before the second invoice. A free site that books nobody is the most expensive thing you own.
Wondering which side of that line your current site is on? Send it to us for a free teardown and we will tell you, plainly.