How much does a small business website cost, and which way of getting one is right for you?
If you run a shop, salon, clinic, gym, restaurant, studio or a trade, here is what a website costs, what the options are, and which parts are worth paying for. Prices vary by country, so each option shows a range.
What it costs
| Option | Upfront | Per year after | What you get |
|---|---|---|---|
| Freelancer or agency | $500 to $5,000 (₹8,000 to ₹40,000 in India) | $50 to $300 hosting and domain | A custom site, after two to six weeks of back and forth |
| Website builder (Wix, Squarespace, GoDaddy) | 0 | $150 to $400 | Templates you fill in yourself, over a few evenings |
| WordPress on shared hosting | $0 to $200 | $60 to $200 | Flexible, and yours to maintain, update and secure |
| Generated from your Google listing | 0 | 0 to $72 | A one-page site built from your reviews and photos, live in a minute |
The number that surprises people: the domain name itself is only $10 to $20 a year (₹700 to ₹1,200 for a .in). Most of the cost in the first three options is time, either yours or someone you pay.
The four options, honestly
A freelancer or agency gives you the most control and the most delay. You will be asked for text, photos and a logo, and the project stalls on whichever you do not have. Good if you have a specific vision and someone to maintain the site afterwards. Ask who updates the opening hours when they change; the answer is usually "you email us".
A website builder works if you enjoy this kind of thing. Most owners do not finish. The half-built site with placeholder text is a common sight in every country, and it is worse than no site.
WordPress is the right answer for a business that will publish regularly. For a barber who needs one page, it is a lawn mower for a window box, and it needs updates and security patches forever.
A generated site takes what already exists, your listing, your photos and your reviews, and turns it into a page. You write nothing. The trade is control: you get a site shaped by your category, not a blank canvas. For most local businesses that is the right trade, because the blank canvas is the reason the other options stall.
The three things that matter more than design
Owners worry about colours. Customers do not. Three things decide whether a website earns its keep:
- The button. Whatever your customers already use to reach a business like yours: WhatsApp in India, Brazil and the Gulf; a text or a call in the US; a booking link for anything with appointments. If a customer cannot start that in one tap from the top of the page, the site is failing at its one job. Contact forms are where enquiries go to die.
- Speed on a phone. Most of your visitors are on a mobile connection. A page that takes six seconds to load loses half of them before it appears. Check yours on mobile data, not on the office Wi-Fi.
- Proof. A page that says "best salon in town" convinces nobody. A page that quotes a real customer saying "they listen before picking up the scissors", with a link back to the review, convinces. Your reviews are your marketing copy. Use them.
What to avoid paying for
- SEO packages sold alongside the site. A one-page local business site does not need one; it needs a complete Google listing and a domain with your business name in it.
- Yearly "maintenance" retainers for a page that does not change.
- A logo redesign before you have a site. Your signboard is your logo.
What a domain gets you
Your own address (yourbusiness.com) instead of a subdomain looks more established on a card and in a forwarded message, and it is yours for as long as you renew it. It is not required to start. Get the site live, see whether people use it, then add the domain. Everything else about the site stays the same.
If you want to see what a site built from your own listing looks like before deciding anything, paste your Google Maps link on the home page. It is free and takes about a minute.