You get two quotes for a website. One is a few hundred bucks. The other is ten times that. Both say "custom design" and "mobile friendly." So which one is right?
There is no single correct price. But once you know what goes into a site, the quotes start making sense, and you can tell which one is padding and which one is cutting corners.
What actually drives the price
Most of the cost of a website is time. Who's doing the work, how many pages they build, and how much they write for you.
Here's what moves the number up or down:
- Number of pages. A one-page site is cheap to build. A site with a page for each service you offer and each town you work in takes longer, and it gives Google and your customers a lot more to go on.
- Who writes the words. Some builders hand you a template and ask you to fill in the text. Others write it for you. Writing good copy for a plumber or a roofer takes real time, and most owners don't have that time.
- Custom design or a template. Templates are fine if they're fast and clean. Fully custom design costs more and doesn't always bring in more calls.
- Extras. Online booking, payment forms, quote calculators, photo galleries, and hooking into your scheduling software all add hours.
- What happens after launch. Hosting, updates, backups, and fixing things when they break. Some quotes include this. Some charge monthly. Some leave you on your own.
When two quotes are far apart, it's usually because one of them includes a lot more of the list above. Or because one of them is cutting corners you can't see yet.
What a cheap site usually skips
A low price can be totally fair. A simple site for a new business doesn't need much. But cheap builds often skip things that matter for a local service business, and you won't notice until the phone stays quiet.
Watch for these:
Speed. A slow site loses people on their phones. If it takes forever to load on a job site with one bar of signal, they hit back and call the next guy.
A clear way to call. Your phone number should be at the top of every page, and tapping it on a phone should start a call. You'd be surprised how often this gets missed.
Basic SEO setup. SEO means search engine optimization, the work that helps Google understand what you do and where. At minimum, every page needs its own title and description, your services and towns should be named on the page, and the site should be easy for Google to crawl. Cheap builds often ship with the same title on every page, or none at all.
Your business details, matched everywhere. Your name, address, and phone number (people call this NAP) should match your Google Business Profile exactly. If they don't, you're sending mixed signals. More on that in our Google Business Profile checklist.
Tracking. If nobody sets up a way to count calls and form fills, you'll never know if the site is working. You'll just have a feeling.
Questions to ask before you pay anyone
Before you sign, ask every builder the same questions. Their answers will tell you more than the price.
- Who owns the domain, the site, and the logins when we're done? The only good answer is "you do."
- Who writes the words on the pages? If it's you, budget the time.
- How many pages do I get, and which ones? Get it in writing. Home, services, service areas, about, contact.
- What does it cost every month after launch, and what does that cover? Hosting, updates, small edits, support.
- If I leave, what do I get to take with me? You want the full site files or an export, not "sorry, it's built on our platform."
- How will I know if it's bringing in calls? Ask what they'll track and how you'll see it.
- How fast does it load on a phone? Ask them to show you a site they've already built, on your phone, right there.
If someone dodges the ownership question, walk away. That's the one that hurts the most later.
What you should always own
This one matters more than the price.
You should own your domain name (yourcompany.com). It should be registered in your name, with your email, in an account you can log in to. Not the agency's account. If they register it for you, have them transfer it to you or add you as the owner.
You should own the website itself, or at least get a full copy of it any time you ask.
You should have logins to your hosting, your Google Business Profile, Google Search Console, your analytics, and any ad accounts. You can give a builder access. They shouldn't be the only ones holding the keys.
And you should own your data: your reviews, your leads, your customer list. Those belong to your business.
Picture an agency that registered your domain under its own name, then stops answering emails. Getting it back is a real headache. Five minutes of asking up front saves you from that.
So what should you pay?
It depends on what you need. A brand-new business with three services in one town needs less than a remodeler working across a whole county. Compare quotes line by line using the list above, and pay for the things that help people find you and call you. Skip the extras that just look nice in a pitch meeting.
For what it's worth, our website build is $1,000, one time. You own the domain, the site, and every login. If you also want help showing up on Google after launch, we do local SEO and Google Business Profile work and ongoing SEO, but neither is required.
Want a second opinion on a quote?
Send it over and we'll tell you what it includes and what it's missing, even if you don't hire us. Get a free quote.