How much does a website cost in 2026? Real numbers by site type
Typical 2026 prices for landing pages, business sites, custom company sites and stores, split by freelancer, studio and agency, with what moves each range.
By Sohail Hussain29 October 20267 min read
As of October 2026, a typical business website costs US$3,000 to US$10,000 from a small studio, US$500 to US$3,000 from a freelancer, and US$10,000 to US$30,000 from a larger agency. A custom company site with original design and a content management system runs US$8,000 to US$30,000 at a studio and US$30,000 to US$100,000 or more at an agency. A one-page site can be had for a few hundred dollars; a store or a bilingual corporate site can pass six figures.
Those are wide ranges because "a website" is not one product. The table below narrows them by site type, and the rest of this guide explains what pushes a project to the top or bottom of its range, what the build price never includes, and when the cheaper option is the right one.
What does each type of website cost?
The figures are typical quotes in US dollars from suppliers serving English-speaking markets. Studios in India, the UAE and Saudi Arabia quote in local currency and often lower; those are covered in their own guides, linked further down.
| Site type | Freelancer | Small studio | Larger agency |
|---|---|---|---|
| One-page or landing page | US$300 to 1,500 | US$1,500 to 5,000 | US$5,000 to 15,000 |
| Small business site, 5 to 10 pages, template-based | US$500 to 3,000 | US$3,000 to 10,000 | US$10,000 to 30,000 |
| Custom company site, 10 to 30 pages, original design, CMS | US$2,000 to 8,000 | US$8,000 to 30,000 | US$30,000 to 100,000+ |
| Bilingual or multilingual corporate site | US$4,000 to 12,000 | US$12,000 to 50,000 | US$50,000 to 150,000+ |
| Online store (Shopify or WooCommerce) | US$1,500 to 8,000 | US$8,000 to 40,000 | US$40,000 to 150,000+ |
| Web app, portal or SaaS product | US$10,000 to 40,000 | US$30,000 to 120,000 | US$100,000 to 400,000+ |
A few notes on reading the table:
- Freelancer means one person doing design and build, often with a bought theme. The low end is usually a template with your logo and copy dropped in.
- Small studio means a team of two to ten with a designer and a developer, custom design, and a project manager who is also the founder. This is where we sit, and it is the tier most companies with 5 to 200 staff end up in.
- Larger agency means dedicated account management, strategy workshops, user research, and a brand team. The price buys process and reassurance as much as pixels.
Stores and apps are different enough that each has its own guide: e-commerce website cost, web app cost and mobile app cost. If you want an AI assistant on the site, see what an AI chatbot costs to build and run.
What moves a quote from the bottom of the range to the top?
Seven things account for most of the difference. Our own website design and development quotes are built from the same list, so you can use it to predict where you will land.
Custom design versus a template. A template is cheap because the layout decisions are already made. Custom design means wireframes, two or three rounds of page design, and a designer's time on every page type. On a 15-page site that is often a third of the budget.
Number of unique page layouts. Thirty pages that share four layouts cost far less than ten pages that each look different. Count layouts, not pages, when you compare quotes.
Who writes the copy. If you supply final text, the build moves faster. If the studio interviews you and writes it, expect US$150 to US$600 per page in addition. Copy is the most common cause of delay, so many quotes assume you provide it and then stall when you cannot.
Content management. A static site that a developer edits is cheapest to build. A CMS your team can use, with editable pages, news, projects and careers, adds setup time and testing but saves money every month afterwards.
Integrations. Forms to a CRM, a booking system, a newsletter tool, a job board feed, a map, WhatsApp chat. Each is a day or three. Five of them is a week.
Languages. A second language roughly adds 25 to 40 percent for layout, content entry and search setup, more for right-to-left scripts such as Arabic.
Performance and search work. Metadata, structured data, sitemaps, image optimisation and Core Web Vitals testing are often sold as an extra by cheaper suppliers and included by better ones. Ask. A site that fails Google's Core Web Vitals thresholds is harder to rank and costs money to fix later.
The post on why web design quotes vary so much goes line by line through what the cheap quotes leave out.
What is not included in the build price?
Every website has running costs that sit outside the quote. As of October 2026, the usual ones are:
| Item | Typical cost | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Domain name | US$10 to 20 a year for .com | Register it yourself, in your own account |
| Hosting | US$0 to 20 a month for a static or Next.js site; US$10 to 50 a month for managed WordPress | Cloudflare's free plan allows commercial sites; Vercel's free Hobby plan is for non-commercial use, so a company site needs Pro at about $20 a month; see Vercel pricing |
| Business email | US$6 to 14 per user a month | Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 |
| Plugins, themes, fonts, stock images | US$0 to 500 a year | Licences often renew annually |
| Maintenance and updates | US$50 to 500 a month | Backups, updates, monitoring, small changes |
| Photography | US$300 to 2,000 for a half day | Stock photos make a company site look like every other |
| Copywriting | US$150 to 600 a page | If you do not write it yourself |
Maintenance is the one most often skipped and most often regretted, particularly on WordPress, where unpatched plugins are the usual way sites get hacked. See how much website maintenance costs for what a fair retainer looks like.
How do prices differ by country?
The work is the same; the hourly rate is not. A studio in India charging ₹1,500 to ₹3,000 an hour produces the same Next.js site as a London studio charging £80 to £150, and plenty of companies in the UK, US and Gulf now buy from Indian studios for that reason. The trade-offs are time zones, communication and how well the studio knows your market.
We have separate guides with local-currency ranges for website costs in India, website costs in the UAE and website costs in Saudi Arabia. Each splits the same freelancer, studio and agency tiers and covers the local extras: GST in India, VAT in the Gulf, Arabic content and .ae or .sa domains.
When should you not spend this much?
Some situations do not justify a custom build, and a good studio will tell you so:
- You are testing whether a business idea has demand. A one-page site on a builder, a Google Business Profile and a WhatsApp number will tell you in a month. Spend on the real site after you know.
- The site has one job and no content plan. A local trade with a phone number and five reviews needs a fast one-pager, not a 20-page CMS site nobody will update.
- Your budget is under US$1,000. A template on Squarespace or WordPress, set up carefully, will serve better than a rushed custom job at that price. Come back for custom when the site is earning.
- You are about to rebrand. Build after the new identity exists, not before. Paying twice for design is the most common avoidable cost we see.
The honest sales pitch is that custom design pays for itself when the site is a real part of how you win work: when buyers research you before they call, when you compete on trust, or when you need the site to generate enquiries on its own. If none of that is true yet, buy the smaller thing.
How do you get a quote you can trust?
Three things make quotes comparable and keep the final bill close to the first number.
- Write a brief. Page list, examples you like and dislike, who writes the copy, which systems to connect, deadline and budget range. The guide to writing a website brief that gets accurate quotes has a template. A one-paragraph email gets you a one-paragraph guess.
- Decide how you want to pay. A fixed price protects you when the scope is clear; hourly protects you when it is not. Fixed price versus hourly explains which to choose and how to avoid the worst of each.
- Ask what is excluded. Copy, photography, stock licences, hosting setup, training, post-launch fixes. The questions to ask a web development company cover the rest, and what a website contract should include covers ownership of the code, the domain and the design files.
If you want a number before you talk to anyone, our website cost calculator takes page count, features, CMS and design level and shows a range with its assumptions listed, so you can see which choices move the price. If you then want to compare a freelancer, a studio and an in-house hire for your situation, read freelancer versus agency versus in-house.
Was this guide useful?