How Much Does a Custom Website Cost? A Small Business Owner's Guide
By Chloe Leonard, Founder of CL Studio
Website pricing is one of the most confusing topics for small business owners. You can spend $12 a month on a Squarespace template you design yourself, or $25,000 on a fully custom site from a premium agency. Both are real options. Both exist for good reasons. The question is which one your business actually needs.
Here is an honest breakdown of what web design actually costs at different levels, and what you should expect to get.
DIY Website Builders: $12 – $50/month
Squarespace, Wix, and similar platforms let you build your own website using drag-and-drop tools and pre-made templates. If you have a good eye, time to invest, and a relatively simple site structure, this can work well in the early stages of your business.
The limitations: templates have creative ceilings. Your site may look similar to many others in your industry. And "I'll do it myself" often turns into hours of frustration and a site that never quite feels done.
Freelance Web Designers: $1,500 – $8,000
A skilled freelance web designer working on Squarespace, Showit, or WordPress can deliver a beautiful, functional site in this range. At the lower end, expect a more streamlined project, a template customized to your brand. At the higher end, expect something closer to a custom design built specifically for your business.
The key is finding a designer who asks the right questions before they start building. Your website should be built around your audience and your goals, not just around what looks good on their portfolio.
Boutique Agency Web Design: $5,000 – $20,000
This is the range where strategy and design come together most effectively for small businesses. A boutique web design agency will start with discovery, understanding your audience, your goals, your positioning, and what your site needs to accomplish, before designing anything.
At this level you are typically getting: a custom design (not a template), multiple page designs, mobile optimization, SEO setup, integration with your booking system or e-commerce platform, and a site that is built to convert, not just to look good.
For service-based businesses with an established offer and real revenue goals, this investment tends to pay for itself quickly.
Full-Service Agencies: $20,000 – $100,000+
Enterprise-level web design projects, large e-commerce sites, complex custom applications, or major brand redesigns, live in this range. For most small businesses, this is not the right level. But it is worth knowing it exists so you are not comparing boutique agency pricing to enterprise pricing and feeling confused.
What Drives the Cost of a Website
The biggest factors: the number of pages, whether it is built on a template or custom-designed, e-commerce functionality, animation and interactivity, copywriting (is the designer writing the copy or are you?), integrations, and ongoing maintenance.
A simple 5-page service business site and a 50-page e-commerce store are fundamentally different projects. Make sure you are comparing similar scopes when evaluating pricing.
Platform Matters: Showit, Squarespace, Shopify
The platform your site is built on affects both the cost and what is possible. Showit offers more design freedom and uses WordPress for blogging, it is a favourite for creative businesses and service providers. Squarespace is more streamlined and easier to maintain yourself. Shopify is purpose-built for e-commerce.
A good web designer will help you choose the right platform for your goals, not just the one they happen to like working in.
Ongoing Costs to Budget For
Website costs do not end at launch. Plan for: platform subscription fees, domain renewal, hosting (if applicable), ongoing maintenance, and periodic updates as your business evolves. Most sites also benefit from some SEO work after launch to help Google find and rank them.
CL Studio designs minimal websites for small businesses on Squarespace, Showit, and Shopify, built with strategy, optimized for conversion, and designed to grow with your business. Ready to talk through what your site needs?
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