Taylor Family Disclosure: Taylor Family Software builds websites, including the kind described here. The price ranges and tradeoffs below are honest and apply whether or not you hire us.
Quick answer: In 2026, a website ranges from almost free to many thousands of dollars. DIY builders like Wix or Squarespace run on a monthly subscription. A simple, professional custom site starts in the low hundreds of dollars (ours start at $300). Complex or custom builds run into the thousands and up, and agencies sit at the top of the price range.
I’m Chris Taylor. I run Taylor Family Software, a small Christian-owned studio in Kingman, Arizona, and I’ve built a lot of websites for small businesses. The most common question I get is the simplest one: what’s this going to cost me? The honest answer is “it depends,” but that’s a cop-out unless I tell you what it depends on. So let me actually break it down.
What actually drives the cost of a website
Two websites can be priced ten times apart and both be fair. The difference is almost always in these factors.
Number of pages. A one-page site is cheaper than a fifteen-page site. More pages means more design, more copy, and more to maintain.
Custom design vs. a template. Dragging a pre-made template into shape is fast and cheap. Designing something built around your brand takes more time, and it costs more because it’s worth more.
Features. A brochure site that just tells people who you are is the floor. Add online booking, a contact form that routes leads, e-commerce, a customer login, or a connection to your CRM or payment processor, and the price climbs with each one.
Copywriting. Words sell. If someone has to research your business and write the page text, that’s real work. If you hand over finished copy, you save money.
SEO. A site that’s invisible in search is a brochure nobody reads. Real SEO, both the technical foundation and the on-page work, takes effort. Plenty of cheap sites skip it entirely.
Who builds it. This is the biggest lever of all. The same site costs wildly different amounts depending on whether you build it yourself, hire a freelancer, hire an agency, or work with an indie studio.
The real price tiers in 2026
Here’s the honest landscape. I’ve kept other people’s costs as ranges, because anyone quoting you an exact figure for “a freelancer” is guessing. My own row is concrete, because I can be.
| Option | Typical cost | Best for | Tradeoffs |
|---|---|---|---|
| DIY builder (Wix, Squarespace) | Monthly subscription, ongoing | Hobbyists, testing an idea, very tight budgets | You do all the work; you don’t own the platform; SEO and speed are limited; it can look templated |
| Freelancer | Wide range, low hundreds to several thousand | Small projects, one-off needs | Quality and reliability vary a lot; availability can be spotty; you may not own everything |
| Agency | Highest tier, often several thousand and up | Larger companies with bigger budgets | Most expensive; slower; you’re a small account among big ones |
| Indie studio (like us) | From $300, source code yours, SEO included | Small businesses that want it done right without agency prices | Smaller team than an agency, which we think is a feature, not a bug |
The sweet spot for most small businesses sits between “do it yourself” and “hire an agency.” That’s the gap we built our studio to fill.
What you should get for the money
Price matters, but so does what’s actually in the box. When I say we build a “complete, SEO-optimized website,” here’s what that phrase should mean from anyone you hire.
You own the source code. When the site is done, the code is yours. No hostage situation, no lock-in, no monthly ransom to keep your own website online. This is the single thing most people forget to ask about, and it matters the day you ever want to move or hire someone else.
It works on phones. More than half your visitors are on a phone. Mobile-responsive design isn’t a premium add-on in 2026. It’s the baseline.
Technical and on-page SEO are included. Technical SEO is the plumbing: clean code, fast load, proper structure, a sitemap search engines can read. On-page SEO is the content: titles, headings, and copy written so the right people can find you. A site without both is just a digital business card.
It’s fast. Speed is part of SEO and part of whether a visitor stays. A slow site quietly costs you traffic and trust.
It captures leads. A pretty site that doesn’t turn visitors into phone calls or emails is decoration. Lead capture, clear contact paths, and forms that actually reach you are the point of the whole exercise.
If a quote doesn’t include these, it isn’t cheaper. It’s incomplete.
When a cheap website costs you more
Cheap isn’t always wrong. If you’re testing whether an idea has any pulse, or you genuinely just need a placeholder, a DIY builder on a monthly plan is a fine place to start. No shame in that.
The trouble starts when a real business runs on a site that can’t carry it. A restaurant whose menu loads slowly on a phone. A contractor whose site never shows up when someone searches their town. A shop whose “cheap” site has no working contact form, so every lead falls through the floor without anyone noticing.
That’s the hidden cost. A bad website doesn’t send you a bill. It just quietly loses you customers, month after month, and you never see the ones who bounced. When your website is how people decide whether to trust you, “cheap” can be the most expensive option you’ll choose.
How we price websites
I’ll just tell you how we work, because the whole point of this post is honesty.
We give you a fixed quote up front. No hourly meter, no surprise invoice at the end. You know the number before we start.
Our websites start at $300. That’s a real, complete, SEO-optimized site, not a stripped-down teaser. Web apps and SaaS start at $1,000, and custom or mobile apps are quoted to fit the project. You can see pricing and read more about our website builds on our services page.
You own everything. The source code is yours, there’s no lock-in, and technical and on-page SEO plus mobile-responsive design are included in the price, not bolted on.
Turnaround is typically one to two weeks for a website. We’re based in Kingman and Mohave County, Arizona, if you’re local, see our website design in Kingman, AZ page, and we work with clients nationwide.
For proof, here are real sites we’ve built for our own businesses: kingmanpainters.com, our referral site that matches Kingman homeowners with local painters; mohaverealtor.com, our real-estate lead site here in Mohave County; and taylorfamilystore.com, our family’s estate sale business in Kingman. They’re ours, not client projects. Go look at them. That’s the work, not a mockup.
One more thing, because it’s part of who we are: 15% of our revenue goes to our local church and to Tools for Teens. Hiring us puts a little good into the community on top of getting you a website.
If you’re weighing a bigger build, I’ve also written about the cost of building a SaaS or web app and about custom website vs a website builder, which go deeper on those specific decisions.
FAQ
What’s the cheapest way to get a real website?
The cheapest legitimate option is a DIY builder like Wix or Squarespace on its lowest monthly plan, where you do all the work yourself. The cheapest professionally built option is a small indie studio. Ours start at $300 for a complete, SEO-optimized site you own.
Why pay for a custom site instead of using a website builder?
A builder keeps you on a monthly subscription, limits your speed and SEO, and often looks templated. A custom site is yours to own, built around your brand, and tuned to actually rank and convert. For a business that depends on its site, that difference pays for itself.
Do I own the website when it’s finished?
With us, yes. You own the source code outright, with no lock-in and no monthly ransom to keep it online. Not everyone works this way, so always ask before you hire. On most DIY builders, you’re renting the platform, not owning your site.
Does the price include SEO?
It should, and with us it does. Both technical SEO (clean code, speed, structure) and on-page SEO (titles, headings, content) are included in our quote, not sold as an upsell. A site without SEO is just a business card nobody finds in search.
How long does it take to build a website?
For a typical small-business website, our turnaround is one to two weeks. More pages, custom features, or e-commerce can add time. Because we quote a fixed price up front, you’ll know the scope and the timeline before any work begins.
Is a more expensive website always better?
No. An agency’s higher price often reflects overhead, not better results for a small business. What matters is what’s in the build: code ownership, mobile, real SEO, speed, and lead capture. A focused indie studio can deliver all of that for far less than agency rates.