There is no single price for a small business website. The cost follows the scope: how many kinds of pages you need, how much is designed from scratch, who writes the content, what the site connects to, and which platform it runs on. Ongoing costs such as hosting, the domain, licenses, and maintenance come on top. The most useful thing you can do before asking for quotes is to write down what the site must do.
What you are paying for
A website project is mostly people's time: planning the structure, designing pages, building and connecting them, testing on phones and computers, and launching without breaking anything. The more of each step your site needs, the higher the price. Two quotes can differ a lot simply because they assume different scopes.
Factors that change the price
Page types, not page count
A site with forty pages built from three templates can cost less than a site with ten pages that each need their own layout. Count the distinct page types: home, service page, project or product page, article, contact, and so on.
Custom design or a theme
A ready-made theme is faster and cheaper to start with, but you work within its limits. A custom design is planned around your business and your buyers, and takes more time. Neither is automatically better; it depends on what the site has to do.
Content and copy
Someone has to write and organize the text, collect images, and prepare any documents. If that work is part of the project, it is part of the price.
Forms, integrations, and features
A contact form is simple. Booking, payments, connections to a CRM or other systems, client areas, or calculators add work for building and testing.
Editing and the platform
If your team needs to edit pages themselves, the site needs a content management system and some training. The choice of platform also affects how the site is maintained later.
Quality work you don't see
Testing on different browsers and devices, accessibility checks, page speed, redirects from old URLs, and basic search setup all take time. Skipping them makes a quote look lower but shifts the cost to later.
One-time and ongoing costs
- One-time: planning, design, development, content work, testing, and launch.
- Ongoing, paid by you directly: hosting, the domain name, and licenses for paid themes, plugins, or services. Keep these accounts in your name where possible.
- Ongoing care: updates, backups, monitoring, and fixes after launch. See how much website maintenance costs.
How to compare quotes
Quotes are only comparable when they describe the same work. Ask each provider for a written scope that lists:
- The pages or page types included, and what is excluded
- Who provides the content and images
- Integrations and features, named one by one
- How the site is tested, and how many revision rounds are included
- What you receive at handover: access, documentation, and accounts
- What happens after launch, and what it costs
Does the platform change the price?
It can. A WordPress site built on an existing theme and a custom-built website are different projects with different costs and trade-offs. See WordPress vs. custom website and custom website vs. website builder.
Page experience is part of the value
A fast, stable, easy-to-use site helps visitors. Google says its core ranking systems look to reward content that provides a good page experience, but that relevance comes first and good scores alone don't guarantee top rankings.
Next step
Write down your goals, the pages you need, and must-have features, then ask for a written scope and price. DEXVANE builds custom websites and WordPress & CMS websites; both pages list a starting price and what it includes, and how projects are priced is explained in how we work.
Sources
- Google Search Central, Understanding page experience in Google Search results (accessed October 4, 2026)