A contractor website costs anywhere from about $20 a month for a basic DIY builder to $15,000 or more as a one-time agency project. In between sits the subscription model, typically $150 to $400 a month with hosting and updates included. The number that matters is not the build price alone, it’s what gets added in the years after launch.
Four ways to get a website built
DIY builder: You build it yourself with Wix, Squarespace, or a similar platform. Cost runs $20 to $50 a month, hosting and SSL are usually bundled in. The price is low, the time cost is not: you write the copy, structure the pages, and pick the photos yourself, with no guidance on layout or search visibility.
Freelancer: One person builds a custom site, often on WordPress, for $2,000 to $6,000 one time. You get direct contact and often solid value for the price. The downside: if that person is on vacation, sick, or booked with other clients, every change waits.
Agency: For $5,000 to $15,000 you get a small team handling strategy, design, and build. Larger projects with multiple service areas, online booking, or several locations can run well past that. Once the site launches, ongoing support usually shifts to separate invoices.
Website subscription: Instead of a project fee, you pay $150 to $400 a month, depending on the provider and scope. Build, hosting, maintenance, and routine content updates are included. Minimum terms of 12 to 24 months are standard.
| Model | Cost | Ongoing costs | Updates |
|---|---|---|---|
| DIY builder | $20 to $50/month | bundled into the fee | you do them yourself |
| Freelancer | $2,000 to $6,000 one time | domain, hosting billed separately | hourly rate |
| Agency | $5,000 to $15,000 one time | domain, hosting, often a maintenance retainer | hourly rate or care plan |
| Subscription | $150 to $400/month | bundled into the fee | usually included |
Why prices swing so much within one model
A freelancer quote can land anywhere from $2,000 to $6,000, and there are concrete reasons for that spread. Page count is the first driver: a home page, three service pages, and a contact form cost less than ten service pages, a project gallery, and multiple service areas. Content readiness is the second driver. If you hand over finished copy and photos, the work is faster. If the freelancer or agency has to write the copy and source the photos too, expect several hundred to a couple thousand dollars more.
The third driver is anything beyond a standard page: online booking, a link to your dispatch or invoicing software, a multilingual site, or a customer portal push the price up across all four models, and on DIY builders they often show up as separate app subscriptions with their own monthly fee. Ask every provider directly how many pages, how many rounds of revisions, and which extra features the quote covers, otherwise you end up comparing quotes that are not actually comparable.
What the follow-up costs actually add up to
The build price is only half the math. These costs show up every year with freelancer and agency builds:
- Domain: $10 to $30 a year, depending on the extension and registrar.
- Hosting: $10 to $40 a month for a standard plan, more for managed hosting.
- Maintenance: $75 to $250 a month if you outsource security updates, backups, and monitoring instead of handling them yourself.
- Content updates: $60 to $120 an hour for freelancers and agencies. A new price list or an updated service page is easily a half-hour job.
- Redesign: Every three to five years a site starts to look dated and needs a visual refresh, which is a new line item on its own.
DIY builders and subscriptions fold these costs into the monthly fee. With freelancer and agency builds, they show up on the next invoice, which is why the first quote rarely reflects the real total.
A five-year cost comparison
Say you need a six to eight page site with two or three small content updates a year:
- DIY builder: $35/month × 60 months, roughly $2,100. The time spent building and updating it is not in that number, it stays on your plate.
- Freelancer: $3,500 build, plus hosting at $25/month × 60, plus domain at $20/year × 5, plus an estimated three update invoices a year at $90 each, roughly $7,500 total.
- Agency: $9,000 build, plus a maintenance retainer at $150/month × 60 months, roughly $18,000 total.
- Subscription: $250/month × 60 months, roughly $15,000, with updates and maintenance included the whole time.
The ranking by total cost is not the same as the ranking by starting price. An agency quote looks more expensive upfront than a subscription, but once maintenance and updates over five years are counted in, the two can land close together, sometimes with the agency route costing more.
Which model fits your business?
A DIY builder fits if you want to invest your own time and a simple site structure is enough. A freelancer fits if you want custom design and a direct point of contact, and you can live with waiting on changes. An agency fits larger, more complex projects with a dedicated budget for strategy. A subscription fits if you want predictable monthly costs, ongoing upkeep without doing it yourself, and fast turnaround on changes. Confirm before you sign what it takes to take ownership of the site after the minimum term.
Before you commit to a model, the 12 questions to ask a website provider help you compare quotes on equal terms. And if your current site is already a few years old, Redesign or rebuild covers whether a refresh is even worth it.
We run several hundred business websites on the subscription model. Our three plans start at 79 euros net a month with no setup fee, hosting, maintenance, and changes included. For how the process works from order to launch, see Website as a service; the plan details are on the pricing page.