How much does a website cost? Average cost and pricing factors
Updated 6:30 AM EDT, Tue April 23, 2024
iStock/milindri
From purchasing a credible domain name to choosing a cost-effective website host to deciding how you want to design your site, a lot goes into making a professional website. Having a breakdown of the website costs involved can help you estimate the budget you need to commit to building and running a secure, engaging site.
So, really, how much does a website cost? Our guide breaks it down for you and shows you where you can save money.
Note: During our research, we found that website hosts, builders and other providers frequently update their pricing and/or offer discounts or introductory deals. The pricing in this guide reflects the most accurate information available at the time of reporting.
We receive compensation from our partners for Featured Offer placements, which impacts how and where their offer is displayed.
How much does a website cost?
Website costs can vary widely based on how complex your site is.
For example, portfolio websites are relatively simple, whereas e-commerce websites require more complicated features and plug-ins for product listings and transaction security, which add to the costs.
The ranges below will give you a good idea of what you can expect to pay, on average:
| Element | Cost |
|---|---|
Domain name
| $10 to $20 per year
|
Website hosting
| $3 to $20 per month for shared hosting
|
Website builder
| $10 to $25 per month for a basic website |
Website design services
| $25 to $199 per hour (depending on the amount/type of design work needed)
|
Website development services
| $25 to $199 per hour (depending on the complexity of your site)
|
Website marketing
| Copywriting services: $200 to $500 per page |
Maintenance and recurring costs
| Varies depending on the complexity of your site and which tools you use; keep in mind that many of the costs above are recurring, and renewal costs are often pricier than introductory discount costs
|
Website cost factors
Here’s a full breakdown of the cost of all the services and tools you need to make a website:
Domain name cost
Your domain name is your website’s address, the unique text that lets people find you online.
You can get a domain name for anywhere between $10 to $20 per year, depending on the domain extension you choose.
Credible domain extensions like .com, .net and .io come at a cost. Non-standard extensions such as .tk, .ml, .ga, .cf and .gq can be used for free but don’t look as professional.
You can also get a free domain name as part of an annual plan with many web hosts or website builders.
Web hosting costs
A web host provides the server space you need to store your website and its data to make it accessible to people online.
The type of hosting you choose determines your web hosting costs:
| Type of hosting | Purpose/features |
|---|---|
Shared hosting
| Shared hosting accommodates multiple sites on one physical server — dedicating specified space to each website. Since the hosting space is shared, costs are relatively low, which makes it suitable for small businesses that don’t need extensive server resources.
|
Dedicated hosting
| Dedicated hosting gives website owners their own dedicated server(s). Because the server is used only by that one site, the cost is higher than shared hosting costs but the site owner gets more control over the server’s resources and configuration. This option is good for high-traffic websites or ones with lots of resources.
|
Managed WordPress hosting
| This type of hosting provides servers and resources specifically optimized for websites built using WordPress. It costs about the same as shared hosting with most web hosting providers.
|
VPS hosting
| Virtual private server (VPS) hosting offers private hosting environments for websites — making it the most expensive option. Users don’t need to share hosting resources like RAM with other website owners, making it suitable for tech-savvy users at businesses maintaining multiple and/or resource-intensive websites.
|
Once you settle on the type of hosting you need, choose a web host that aligns with your budget. Here are a few popular options with pricing information for different types of hosting:
Hostgator
Hostgator has over 2.5 million users and offers round-the-clock customer support.
- Shared hosting: Pricing starts at $3.75 per month for hosting one website. This includes a free SSL certificate for a year, and when paid annually, a free domain name for a year.
- WordPress hosting: The starter plan lets you host two WordPress-powered websites for $4.50 per month. This plan also includes an SSL certificate and, if paid yearly, a free domain name for a year.
- Dedicated and VPS hosting: Depending on the server space you need, dedicated hosting costs between $91.98 to $141.99 per month and VPS hosting between $36.99 to $95.99 per month.
Bluehost
Bluehost is a WordPress-recommended hosting provider with 2 million users.
- Shared and WordPress hosting: Pricing for hosting one simple website is $1.95 per month. For multiple websites and/or more storage or security resources, prices range from $4.45 to $12.95 per month. All plans include a free SSL certificate and domain name for the first year.
- Dedicated and VPS hosting: The lowest dedicated hosting plan costs $91.98 per month, with higher storage plans for $121.88 and $141.99 per month. VPS hosting ranges between $31.99 to $71.99 per month.
Hostinger
Hostinger is a web hosting service for WordPress, Drupal and Joomla. It comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee and 24/7 customer support.
- Shared and WordPress hosting: Introductory prices for both shared and WordPress hosting range between $2.99 to $9.99 per month. All annual plans also throw in a free SSL certificate and a free domain name for a year.
- VPS hosting: VPS hosting plans range between $4.49 to $19.99 per month, depending on the storage space and bandwidth you need. All plans need to be paid upfront.
Website builder costs
A website builder is a do-it-yourself (DIY) online design tool that lets you build online websites without needing extensive coding knowledge.
If this is your first time creating a website, it’ll likely take you some time to get comfortable with the platform you choose. Most of the best website builders, however, offer a drag-and-drop interface and customizable templates to make it easy to design websites. They cost between $10 and $70 per month, on average.
Here’s a deeper dive into the cost of some of the top website builder tools:
WordPress
WordPress is a popular website builder that offers a free tier to let you test the tool before committing to it.
- Basic website: $9 per month ($4 per month when paid annually) with the Starter Plan.
- Business website with more functionality: $18 and $40 per month (or $8 and $25 if paid annually) for Explorer and Creator packages, respectively. These plans offer unlimited premium themes (templates for how your website design will look), higher storage space and the option to add 4K videos to your site.
- E-commerce website: $70 per month ($45 per month when paid annually) with WordPress’s Entrepreneur plan. It offers integration with top shipping carriers and lets you add unlimited products, manage inventory and set up dynamic product upsells.
All WordPress plans include a free SSL certificate, and if paying annually, a free domain name for a year.
Wix
Wix is another well-known website builder. It has a free version that you can use to test-drive the tool, as well as a 14-day money-back guarantee for any paid plan.
- Basic website: $17 per month with the Light plan.
- Business website with more functionality: $36 per month with the Business plan that gives you 100 GB storage space and marketing and payment tools. For unlimited bandwidth and storage, choose Wix’s Business Elite plan for $159 per month.
All Wix plans offer a free domain for a year.
Squarespace
Squarespace is a top website builder that offers a 14-day free trial.
- Basic website: $23 per month ($16 per month if paid annually) with the Personal plan that offers video hosting and unlimited bandwidth
- Business website with more functionality: $33 per month ($23 per month when paid annually). This plan also gives you access to website conversion metrics and lets you receive payments through your website — charging a 3% transaction fee per purchase.
- E-commerce website: Commerce plans start at $36 per month ($27 per month when paid yearly), taking 0% in transaction fees.
All plans offer a free SSL certificate and if paid annually, a free domain name for a year.
Related: Check out CNN Underscored Money’s comparison guides for Wix vs. Squarespace, Wix vs WordPress and Squarespace vs. WordPress
Website design costs
If DIY website design isn’t your cup of tea or you don’t have the time for it, you can hire a professional website designer. Depending on your budget and preferences, you can either work with an agency or a freelance web designer.
Website builders like Squarespace and Wix offer marketplaces to connect you to a pool of platform-specific web design experts. WordPress offers in-house design services for building WordPress websites.
You can also hire web designers and agencies from third-party service marketplaces such as Contra and Clutch. They’ll charge either a fixed hourly rate or share a personalized quote for your website based on the requirements you share with them.
Here are some web design cost estimates from various design services:
- Website design agencies on Clutch typically charge between $25 to $199 per hour.
- Freelance web designers on sites like Contra range from $25 to $80 per hour.
The US Bureau of Labor and Statistics estimates an average hourly rate of $48.91 for web and digital interface designers.
Website development costs
A website builder with design templates is enough to help you put together a simple website. However, if your goal is to create a highly customized website for your business, you’ll need development help.
Unlike web designers, who work on the front end or the visual aspects of a website, developers work on the back end — using code to create high-functioning websites.
Sam Phipps, web designer at DAVID.MARKET, explains the difference, “A website designer is typically an artist focusing on the organization, branding, user experience and visual elements of a website. Website developers are typically not artists, but coders, specializing in back-end technical work and coding languages like PHP, CSS, Java and more. Developers are required on any complicated or custom web project, from a fully custom site to a custom theme for WordPress or Shopify.”
Web developer companies on sites like Clutch charge anywhere between $25 per hour to $199 per hour, depending on the complexity of the job and the number of pages, as well as the experience level of the developer.
Website marketing cost
It’s not enough to just get your site up and running — you also need to drive traffic to your website. This is where marketing tools and services come into play.
Some of these costs can be recurring, such as software subscription costs for optimizing your site for search engines. Other costs may be upfront investments like copywriting costs.
The following are basic costs to factor in:
Copywriting costs
You can DIY web copy if you’ve got a knack for writing and the time for it. Alternatively, you can hire professional copywriters. Freelance copywriters on sites like Upwork charge between $19 to $45 per hour — or roughly $200 to $500 per page.
You’ll want to invest more if you plan to publish optimized blog content to drive traffic to your website. In that case, you can hire an SEO (search engine optimization) content writer’s help for $15 to $150 per hour.
SEO optimization tools
SEO tools help you track and improve your search engine results ranking and your website speed. Free tools like Google Analytics, for example, give you essential data on your website traffic, including number of users and session numbers.
SEO tools like Semrush and Ahrefs can assist with keyword research, link building and competitive analysis. Semrush paid plans range from $129.95 to $499.95 per month with Ahrefs’ plans between $99 to $999 per month.
Visual design tools
These website marketing tools help you design business logos and branded graphics for your site, as well as graphics for SEO blog posts you publish on your site. You’ll need the following:
- DIY design tools. Tools like Canva and Visme come with free plans that you can use to design basic images. To unlock premium features such as brand kits and unlimited templates, choose premium plans for $15 to $25 per month.
- Stock images and icons subscription. Basic subscriptions to stock image services like Shutterstock or iStock cost $29 per month and allow up to 10 royalty-free image downloads a month. If you have higher image requirements, choose higher plans ranging from $49 to $199 per month.
Website conversion tools
Website conversion tools help move site visitors into your marketing funnel by encouraging them to take action — prompting them to sign up for your newsletter or take a personalized quiz to find which product would suit them best, for example.
You’ll need:
- Funnel builders. A tool like ConvertFlow lets you create personalized website popups, quizzes, surveys and sticky bars to gather audience information and convert them. Depending on your website traffic, ConvertFlow can cost between $29 to $300 per month.
- Heat mapping tools. Heat mapping tools like Smartlook and Hotjar can visualize and map your site visitors’ journey, showing you how people are interacting with your content and where they’re getting stuck. Pricing for these tools for a small team ranges between $32 to $55 per month, with the price dependent on your website traffic.
Maintenance and recurring costs
To keep your website running efficiently, you’ll need to dedicate budget to yearly maintenance costs. These are crucial for sustaining your website security, performance and user experience.
Software costs
This includes budget for your website builder, host, design and marketing tools.
Keep in mind, many providers offer an introductory price for the plans you choose. So they charge you more in renewal costs than what you paid initially.
For example, Hostinger’s basic shared hosting for $2.99 per month renews at $7.99 per month after the plan expires.
Domain name renewal costs
Many website builders and web hosting services give you a domain name for free for a year with their annual plans. Post that, you’ll need to renew the domain name to keep it — it costs between $10 to $20 per year.
SSL certificate cost
A Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate allows you to enable HTTPS, which ensures the connection between your site and visitors’ browsers is secure.
Several website builders and hosts offer a year-long free SSL certificate, but you’ll need to renew it to maintain your website’s security. Premium SSL certificates cost $60 per year on average (costs can go higher or lower depending on factors like the number of domains, the validation process or the certificate authority).
Should I use a web designer or a web builder?
Website builders are an ideal solution for cash-strapped businesses to build a basic website using ready-to-use templates.
This cost-saving benefit is, however, offset by the time investment it takes to learn and use a DIY website builder. Website templates also don’t offer much flexibility in terms of design customization and website functionality.
This is where web designers come in handy. Although costly, they build visually engaging websites that reflect your business values.
To determine the best solution for yourself:
- Review your available resources: Do you have the time to learn a new platform or do you have the budget to hire help?
- Review your website requirements: Do you need a simple website or a complex one with several pages, product listings, etc.?
How to reduce the cost of your website
Design, marketing and software costs can quickly skyrocket your total website cost. With these four tips, you can keep overhead low:
Tip 1: Invest in annual plans
Instead of paying monthly for website tools, commit to annual plans, as those typically offer reduced pricing. WordPress, for instance, offers up to 55% discount when you pay yearly.
Before you make a long-term commitment to an annual plan, though, take advantage of free trials for website builders and other tools to test their ease of use. If there’s no free tier or free trial period available, consider paying for a month to test drive the platform before investing in an annual plan.
Tip 2: Get a one-year free domain name and SSL certificate
Most website builders and web hosting services provide a one-year free SSL certificate and domain name with their annual plans, reducing your initial website costs.
Tip 3: Choose an all-in-one service provider
Certain website builders and hosting providers bundle the two functions in their packages.
For example, WordPress and Wix provide free hosting with their packages. Similarly, HostGator provides a free website builder with selected premium hosting packages.
Tip 4: Keep development costs low
If you need to build a fully custom website, save on development costs by using a combination of web designers and builder templates.
“To save money, businesses can hire a designer to build a unique design on top of an existing theme framework on Squarespace, Wix or even WordPress or Shopify, eliminating the need for development work,” advises Phipps.
Sarah Schumacher, founder and creative director at Cyclone Press, agrees: “For small businesses, it’s ideal that they have edit access [to the website builder that web designers use] without needing to know how to write code. There are many web designers who will build sites with WYSIWYG [what you see is what you get] editors that will allow the website owner to edit themselves after launch, which is what I recommend.”
We receive compensation from our partners for Featured Offer placements, which impacts how and where their offer is displayed.
Frequently asked questions (FAQs)
The best website builder is one that meets your requirements effectively. If you’re creating an e-commerce website, for example, Shopify offers a robust builder. Similarly, if you’re looking to build a customized website, WordPress is your best pick. And if you’re looking for an affordable provider, Weebly is ideal.
Website maintenance costs for a simple website are roughly $200 to $250 per year for a website builder, web hosting, SSL certificate and domain name. If you use website marketing tools in your tech stack and plug-ins to support your website functionality, the cost will go up.
Monthly website costs depend on software costs and website complexity. A simple site, built using WordPress, costs $9 per month. A Wix-made simple website costs $17 per month. If you choose to pay this cost annually, you can save on paying for a domain name and SSL certificate. You may also get free hosting depending on the package you select.
You can get a free domain name from a site like Freenom and use a free website builder plan to build a website for free. When you make a website this way, you’ll have access to limited features and your domain name won’t look professional. But, it can be a good start for marketing your business at an early stage.
Editorial Disclaimer: Opinions expressed here are the author's alone, not those of any bank, credit card issuer, airlines, hotel chain, or other commercial entity and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of such entities.
This content is for educational purposes only and is not intended and should not be understood to constitute financial, investment, insurance or legal advice. All individuals are encouraged to seek advice from a qualified financial professional before making any financial, insurance or investment decisions.
Note: While the offers mentioned above are accurate at the time of publication, they're subject to change at any time and may have changed or may no longer be available.
