Website cost calculator for small businesses

How to estimate your website cost in four steps

1. Choose what the site does. Pick whether the site shows your business or sells products, then say how many pages or products.
2. Tick the extras. Add booking, payments, a quote form, a Google listing setup or anything else you need. Each price is shown.
3. Pick a care plan, or none. A monthly plan covers upkeep after launch. You can skip it and add one later.
4. Read, print, ask. Check the estimate, compare it with the market ranges, print it, and ask for a firm quote when you are ready.

What a small-business website costs

There is no single price for a website, because "a website" can mean a one-page card or an online store. What moves the price most is the number of pages, the features you need (booking, payments, a store), who writes the words and takes the photos, and whether someone looks after the site after launch.

Prices you find online vary widely. One vendor blog post from June 2026 puts freelancers at roughly $1,500 to $8,000 for a small-business site. Treat numbers like that as a sign of how wide the range is, not as a quote. This page shows that range as a labelled market estimate next to a fixed-price menu so you can see where a real price list lands.

How this calculator works

The calculator uses Digital Works Forge's real price menu. A site is priced as the smallest package that covers your page count: Spark for 1 to 3 pages, Forge for up to 5, and Forge Plus for up to 10. If your site falls between two sizes, ask and it will be quoted. Forge Plus includes one of online booking or a blog, so if you tick both, the more expensive one comes with the package and the other is added.

A store is priced as the Storefront package, which covers up to 10 products with a cart and checkout. More than 10 pages or 10 products is a custom job, so the calculator gives no number and says the project needs a conversation. Care plans are monthly, and the first-year and three-year totals add them up so you can see the longer picture.

What the number leaves out

Read the Not in this estimate list before you compare prices. Logo design, photography, heavy copywriting and ongoing marketing are not part of a website package, and the money you pay to other companies, such as a domain name, hosting, payment-processing fees or a paid tool, is separate. When you compare any two quotes, ask what each one includes.

Budgeting for the first year

Plan for three kinds of cost. The first is the one-time build: the package and any add-ons. The second is what you pay to other companies, such as a domain name renewed each year or processing fees on each online sale. The third is upkeep, either a care plan each month or your own time. The first-year figure in this calculator adds twelve months of a care plan to the one-time total so you can see a full year at once.

A site you cannot afford to keep up is worse than a smaller one you can. Choose the package for the pages you will really use, and add features later when the business needs them, each at its own price. Your time is a cost too: gather your photos, your hours and a few paragraphs about what you do before the build starts, and the project moves faster.

A one-page site, and what a site costs to run each year

A one-page site is the smallest job on the menu. Enter 1 page and the calculator shows the Spark package, the entry price. It is enough for a business that needs a clear page with services, hours, a map and a way to get in touch.

After the build, a site has running costs. A domain name is renewed each year, hosting is paid to the company that hosts the site, and online payments carry a fee on each sale. Those go to other companies, in your name, and they are not part of this estimate. What you can plan for here is upkeep: the monthly care plan. The three-year total shows what a plan adds up to, so you can compare it with doing the upkeep yourself.

Do it yourself, a freelancer, or a fixed-price studio

A do-it-yourself builder charges a monthly plan and costs your own time. It can be right for a very small site if you enjoy the work, and it can cost far more in hours than it saves in dollars if you do not. We show no price for it here because we have no source we trust for one.

A freelancer's price depends on the person: some are excellent and some disappear. Ask for examples of sites they have finished and what happens if you need a change after launch. A fixed-price studio quotes the whole site up front, which makes the cost easy to plan. That is the model this calculator shows, and we built it, so compare our number with others instead of taking it on trust.

Questions to ask any web designer before you pay

• What exactly is included, and what costs extra?
• How many rounds of changes do I get, and for how long after launch can I ask for fixes?
• Will the domain name and hosting be in my name?
• Who writes the words and supplies the photos?
• What does ongoing care cover, and can I cancel it?
• How and when do I pay, and what happens if we stop part way?

Your answers and your privacy

The calculator runs in your browser. Your answers are not sent, saved or asked for by email. The link to Digital Works Forge at the bottom is an ordinary link: it sends nothing until you choose to write to us.

Frequently asked questions