A website builder advertises a monthly plan. A design studio quotes a project fee. Both are answering the question "what does a website cost", and neither answer is wrong -- they are describing different layers of the same thing, over different periods, with different amounts of work included.
That is why an average is useless here. The number changes with scope, with who does the work, and with how long you keep the site. What does not change is the method: price the same scope over the same period, in three layers, and write down what you do not know.
The bottom line
There is no average, and the advertised plan price is rarely the whole operating cost. Price the same scope over the same period, in three layers: what it costs to build, what it costs to run, and what it would cost to change or leave. Two quotes are only comparable once all three are written down.
- Best fit for
- The billing basis behind every price, what renews at a different rate, and which lines a quote has left out.
- Avoid when
- Comparing a monthly software price with a one-off project fee. They are different layers and neither number answers the other's question.
- Main tradeoff
- Paying less up front usually means paying longer, and paying less per month usually means doing more of the work yourself.
Please note: This is editorial guidance for a general audience, not a quote, a budget, or a prediction of what any particular business will pay. Prices shown are what four providers published on the date recorded and may have changed since.
Evidence: Editorial assessment Last verified
The three layers
Almost every disagreement about website cost is really a disagreement about which layer is being discussed.
- Build
- What it takes to have a working site at all. Setup or design work, writing the words, preparing images, moving content from an old site, and the owner's own hours. Mostly one-off, though "one-off" arrives again at the next redesign.
- Operate
- What it takes to keep the site running once it exists. The platform or hosting, the domain, email, any paid apps, maintenance and backups, support, and a percentage of every sale if the site takes payments. This layer is the one an advertised plan price partially describes.
- Change or leave
- What it costs to move, rebuild or exit. Getting the content out, setting up redirects so old addresses still work, replacing anything that does not transfer, and recovering accounts that are in somebody else's name. This layer is invisible until it is urgent, and it is largely determined by decisions made in the first two.
A quote that covers the build layer and a plan that covers part of the operate layer are not competing offers. They are two lines of the same budget.
Where the money goes
| Cost line | When it is charged Once, monthly, yearly, or per sale | Who charges it Platform, registrar, provider, or nobody | What to check The question that changes the number |
|---|---|---|---|
| Domain registration and renewal The one line almost every site carries. | Once a year | Registrar, or the platform if it registered it for you | What it renews at. A first year given away says nothing about year two. |
| Website platform or hosting | Monthly or yearly | Platform or host | Whether the advertised price is month-to-month or a prepaid year, and what it renews at. |
| Theme or template | Usually once | Marketplace or developer | Whether updates and support are included, and for how long. |
| Apps, plugins and integrations The line that grows quietly after launch. | Mostly monthly or yearly | Each vendor separately | Which ones the site actually needs to work, priced individually rather than as "plugins". |
| Business email | Monthly or yearly, per mailbox | Email provider, sometimes bundled for a first year | Whether it is bundled, for how long, and the per-mailbox price after that. |
| Copywriting | Once, per page or project | A writer, or nobody -- it falls to the owner by default | Whether the quote includes writing the words or only placing them. |
| Photography and media | Once, or a stock subscription | A photographer, a stock library, or nobody | Licence terms on anything not photographed for you. |
| Design and development | Once, per project | Freelancer, agency, or the owner's own time | What is in scope, how many revisions, and what happens after acceptance. |
| Payment processing | Per transaction, as a percentage plus a flat fee | The payment processor, and sometimes the platform on top | That this is a cost per sale. No plan price can tell you what it will total. |
| Maintenance, security and backups The row most often assumed rather than agreed. | Monthly, yearly, or not at all | The platform, a person you pay, or nobody by default | Whether anybody has actually agreed to do it, in writing. |
| Content updates and support | Monthly retainer, hourly, or nothing | Whoever agreed to it | Response time and what counts as included, not just the rate -- and what happens next, because a response time is the time to acknowledge you, not a resolution time. |
| Accessibility work | Once, then on change | Whoever builds and maintains it | Whether it was in the original scope. Retrofitting costs more than building it in. |
| Analytics and operational tools | Free to monthly | Each tool separately | Which accounts are in the business's name. |
| Migration and redirects | Once, when moving | Whoever moves it | Whether old addresses will redirect. Skipping this is what quietly loses traffic. |
| Cancellation, export and handoff Priced last, needed first, in an argument. | Once, if charged at all | Sometimes nobody, sometimes the outgoing provider | What you receive, in what format, and how quickly -- agreed before you need it. |
A caution marks something that commonly surprises people later.
Evidence: Editorial assessment Last verified
Not every website carries every line. This is the full list to check a quote against, not a specification for what you must buy -- a simple brochure site legitimately has nothing in the ecommerce or catalogue rows. "Who charges it" is the column most often left blank in a proposal, and the one worth filling in first.
The advertised platform price is not the operating cost
Three things happen between the number on a pricing page and the number on a bank statement, and all three are visible on the providers' own pages.
The billing choice changes the price. Most pricing pages default to showing what a plan costs if you prepay a year. Squarespace and Shopify each publish both figures for the same plan, so the gap is visible without anyone estimating it. Wix publishes only the yearly-prepaid figure and says other subscription periods exist without naming their prices.
The advertised rate may be a first-term rate. WordPress.com's Personal plan shows a promotional price struck through from a higher one, and states on the same card that it auto-renews at a third figure, billed every twelve months, taxes excluded. All three numbers are true. Only one of them is what you pay from year two.
Some costs are not a subscription at all. Where a site takes payments, a percentage of every sale goes to the processor, plus a flat fee per sale. No pricing page can total this, because it depends on how much you sell.
The table below is what these four providers published on the date recorded. Read it across rather than down: the rows are not equivalent plans and this is not a ranking.
| Plan | Paid yearly, up front Monthly equivalent of a prepaid year | Paid month to month What the same plan costs without prepaying | On renewal What the provider states it becomes | Terms stated on the page Tax, conditions, and what is not said |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Squarespace Basic The same plan under both of the provider's own billing toggles. | $19/month billed every 12 months, paid in full up front | $25/month billed monthly | Not publicly stated — Not stated on the pricing page. Not inferred. | From 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction charged per transaction |
| Shopify Basic Both bases are printed in Shopify's own comparison table. | $29 USD/month billed every 12 months, paid in full up front | $39 USD/month billed monthly | Not publicly stated — Not stated on the pricing page. Not inferred. | From 2.9% + 30c USD per transaction charged per transaction |
| WordPress.com Personal The only plan here whose advertised rate is promotional. All three figures come from one plan tile in one session. | $4/month billed every 12 months, paid in full up front | $9/month billed monthly | $5/month billed every 12 months, paid in full up front | Promotional first-term rate on the yearly term, struck through from the month-to-month price of the same plan. Billed every 12 months, taxes excluded. Domain free for the first year only. |
| Wix Light | $17/month billed every 12 months, paid in full up front | Not publicly stated — Wix does not publish one. It says only that other subscription periods exist. | Not publicly stated — Not stated on the pricing page. Not inferred. | Taxes excluded. The free domain is a one-year voucher for a new Wix domain and cannot renew a domain you already own. |
A caution marks something that commonly surprises people later.
Evidence: Official source Last verified
This is the SOFTWARE layer only, and it is the only layer on this page that can be totalled. It is not the cost of a website: it excludes every hour of work, the domain after its first year, email, and anything a business pays somebody to do. These four plans are not equivalent to one another and are not ordered by price: a Shopify store and a Wix Light site do different jobs. They are here to be read ACROSS -- each row showing how one provider's own page describes the same plan under two different billing choices. Every figure was read in a United States browser session showing USD on the date above, and each links to the record it came from. Prices change without notice; the verification date is part of the fact.
Caution: Caution: A free domain is free for one year. Every provider here offers one and none of them publishes what it renews at. Wix adds a condition worth reading twice: its voucher is only valid on a new domain bought from Wix, and cannot be used to renew a domain your business already owns -- which is the usual situation when replacing a site.
Platform billing: one plan, two billing choices
One plan, two billing choices
What this assumes Squarespace Basic for twelve months, taken first as an annual prepayment and then month to month, with nothing else added. Domain, email, apps and any professional work are excluded so that the only variable is how the plan is billed. Both figures are from the same pricing page on the same day. Taxes are not stated on that page and are not included here.
First year · USD · United States
First year
| Item | Amount | Billing |
|---|---|---|
| Squarespace Basic, prepaid for a year The advertised price. Paid in full at the start of the year. | $19.00 x 12 months = $228.00 | Billed annually, prepaid |
| First year total | USD 228.00 | |
Every year after
| Item | Amount | Billing |
|---|---|---|
| Squarespace Basic, paid month to month The same plan, billed monthly, for the same twelve months of the same software. The difference between these two lines was not negotiated and is not a discount: it is what the provider charges for not being paid up front. | $25.00 x 12 months = $300.00 | Billed monthly |
| Every year after total | USD 300.00 | |
Evidence: Official source Last verified
Nothing was negotiated and no discount was applied. The same software costs meaningfully more over the same year because it was paid for monthly instead of up front. That is worth knowing before a comparison treats the advertised figure as "the price of Squarespace".
Platform billing: what renews, and at what rate
What renews, and at what rate
What this assumes WordPress.com Personal over two years. The plan advertises $4/month, struck through from $9; the same card states "Auto-renews at $5 per month. Billed every 12 months, excl. taxes." Both years are billed as a prepaid twelve months. Taxes are excluded by the provider's own wording. The custom domain is free for the first year only, and its renewal price is not published on that page -- so it appears below as an unknown rather than as zero.
First year · USD · United States
First year
| Item | Amount | Billing |
|---|---|---|
| Year one, promotional rate First term only. The struck-through figure beside it on the card is a reference price, not what anybody pays today. | $4.00 x 12 months = $48.00 | Billed annually, prepaid |
| First year total | USD 48.00 | |
Every year after
| Item | Amount | Billing |
|---|---|---|
| Year two, stated renewal rate Calculated from the renewal rate the provider states on the same card, not from the advertised one. Nothing about the plan changes; only the rate does. | $5.00 x 12 months = $60.00 | Billed annually, prepaid |
| Domain renewal, year two The domain is free for the first year. WordPress.com does not publish the year-two renewal price on its pricing page, so it is not recorded here and not guessed at. It is a real cost that this scenario cannot put a number on. | Not publicly stated | Not applicable |
| Every year after total | Can’t total One figure is unavailable: Domain renewal, year two. Not published by the provider Domain renewal, year two The provider does not publish this figure. Ask them directly, or read it on the purchase page before you commit. We will not estimate it. Known lines only, not a total: USD 60.00 The real figure is higher by whatever the lines above come to. | |
Evidence: Official source Last verified
The second year costs half as much again as the first, from two figures printed on the same card. Notice also what the panel refuses to add: the domain is free for the first year and nobody publishes the second-year price, so the total is incomplete and says so rather than treating an unknown as nothing.
Platform billing: when the subscription is the small part
When the subscription is the small part
What this assumes Shopify Basic for twelve months, prepaid annually, for a store whose sales volume is not specified. The subscription is a published figure. The card rate is a percentage of every sale plus a flat fee per sale, so the yearly cost depends on revenue this scenario does not assume. Third-party gateway fees, apps, theme and any professional work are excluded.
First year · USD · United States
First year
| Item | Amount | Billing |
|---|---|---|
| Shopify Basic, prepaid for a year Shopify states both billing bases for this plan in its own comparison table; the month-to-month figure is in the snapshot above. | $29.00 x 12 months = $348.00 | Billed annually, prepaid |
| First year total | USD 348.00 | |
Usage-based
| Item | Amount | Billing |
|---|---|---|
| Card processing on every sale Shopify states "Card rates from 2.9% + 30c USD" on this plan. That is a cost per sale. At $2,000 of monthly card sales it is roughly $700 a year -- twice the subscription -- but this scenario assumes no sales volume, so the figure is genuinely unknown and the total below refuses to compute rather than pretending the subscription is the cost of running a shop. | Not publicly stated | Not applicable |
| Usage-based total | Can’t total One figure is unavailable: Card processing on every sale. Depends on your sales volume Card processing on every sale This is a cost per sale, so it depends on how much you sell. The formula is shown; put your own expected volume into it. | |
Evidence: Official source Last verified
This is the shape of an ecommerce budget: a knowable subscription and an unknowable percentage. For a shop of any size, the processing fees can exceed the subscription several times over. The panel will not total it, because this scenario does not assume a sales volume -- and any page that gives you a single ecommerce figure has assumed one without telling you.
What professional work costs
This is the number most readers came for, and this page does not have it. That is a finding, not an omission, and it is worth explaining because the explanation is more useful than the number would have been.
We went looking. Publishing a responsible range needs a defined scope and then twelve to twenty current offers priced against it, each recorded with its geography, platform, revision count, ownership terms and recurring fees. We found eleven candidate offers across four providers, and none of them qualified. No independent freelancer publishing package pricing was found at all.
The reason is consistent and worth knowing before you start collecting quotes yourself. Providers who publish a price publish a figure and a page count. They do not publish who writes the copy, who supplies the images, how many revisions are included, who owns the site, or what happens if you cancel. The closest offer we found stated five pages, hosting, a domain, two revisions and cancel-anytime terms — and still said nothing about copy, photography or ownership.
Searching instead returns articles about what websites cost, written by providers, quoting ranges with no sample and no method. Several contradict each other several times over. None of them is evidence.
Caution: Caution: We will not publish a professional price range we cannot defend, and we do not approach providers for quotes in order to publish them. What follows is the alternative: the scope written precisely enough that quotes for it are comparable, and the fields a proposal has to state before two of them can be compared at all.
The scope, written so quotes are comparable
A simple local service site
What this assumes The brief's first defined professional scope, set out precisely so that quotes for it are comparable to each other: five core page types, one contact or quote form, the owner supplies final copy and images, no custom integration, and a standard template or design system. Professional fees are NOT priced. Publishing a range would require 12 to 20 current documented quotes for this exact scope, collected with geography, platform, revision count, ownership terms and recurring fees recorded. That research has not been done, so the lines below say so and the total refuses to compute.
First year · USD · United States
First year
| Item | Amount | Billing |
|---|---|---|
| Design and build, to the scope above Not researched. This is the figure a reader most wants and the one this page will not invent. Take the scope above to two or three providers and ask them to price it. | Not publicly stated | Not applicable |
| First year total | Can’t total One figure is unavailable: Design and build, to the scope above. Not yet researched Design and build, to the scope above This is our gap, not the provider's. It needs a documented sample of current offers for this exact scope before any figure can be published here. | |
Every year after
| Item | Amount | Billing |
|---|---|---|
| Website platform, if a hosted builder is used One published option for the software layer, prepaid annually, so the scenario shows what IS knowable. Wix does not publish a month-to-month price. | $17.00 x 12 months = $204.00 | Billed annually, prepaid |
| Domain renewal after the first year Wix's free domain is a one-year voucher valid only on a new domain bought from Wix, and it "cannot be used to renew or extend a domain you already own". The renewal price is not published on the pricing page. | Not publicly stated | Not applicable |
| Maintenance and support after launch Not included in the scope above, and not priced. On a hosted builder the platform maintains the software; what is unpriced here is somebody to make changes and answer the phone. | Not publicly stated | Not applicable |
| Every year after total | Can’t total 2 figures are unavailable: Domain renewal after the first year, Maintenance and support after launch. Not published by the provider Domain renewal after the first year The provider does not publish this figure. Ask them directly, or read it on the purchase page before you commit. We will not estimate it. Depends on your choice Maintenance and support after launch You can complete this total yourself once you have decided this line. Nothing here can decide it for you. Known lines only, not a total: USD 204.00 The real figure is higher by whatever the lines above come to. | |
Optional
| Item | Amount | Billing |
|---|---|---|
| Copywriting The scope assumes the owner supplies final copy. If that changes, this becomes a real line and it is usually quoted separately. | Not publicly stated | Not applicable |
| Optional total | Can’t total One figure is unavailable: Copywriting. Not part of this scenario Copywriting This scenario deliberately excludes it. A different scenario would include it, and its cost would be real. | |
Evidence: Illustrative example Last verified
What a proposal must state before you can compare it
Two proposals are comparable only when both answer all of these. Where one is silent, that is the question to ask — and the silence itself tells you something.
- Scope
- Exactly which pages and functions, counted. "A website" is not a scope.
- Copy
- Who writes the words. Almost no package includes it, and almost every project stalls on it.
- Media
- Who supplies photography and graphics, and under what licence.
- Revisions
- How many rounds, and what counts as one.
- Integrations
- Which third-party tools must work, and who configures them.
- Ownership
- Whose name the domain, hosting and accounts are in, and what transfers on completion.
- Handoff
- What you receive at the end, in what format, and how quickly.
- Recurring services
- Everything billed after launch, itemised, with its billing basis.
- Cancellation
- What ending the arrangement costs, and what you keep.
- Exclusions
- What the price explicitly does not include. A proposal with no exclusions section has not been written carefully.
Comparing two real proposals
Put them side by side and fill in the same ten rows for each from the list above. Then:
- Price the silences. A row one proposal fills and the other leaves blank is not a saving; it is work that still has to happen, by somebody, at some cost.
- Separate the layers. A project fee and a monthly plan are different layers. Add the recurring rows over the same period before comparing anything.
- Ask what year two looks like. The proposal describes the build. The invoice arrives every year.
That comparison is something you can do with two documents on a table. It does not need a market average, and it is more accurate than one, because it is about your actual scope.
What a quote often leaves out
Not because anyone is hiding it. A proposal prices the work the provider is doing, and these are mostly the things nobody has agreed to do.
- Writing the words, and preparing images
- The domain, after its first year
- Business email
- Paid apps or plugins the site needs to work
- Payment processing, on every sale
- Entering products or catalogue content
- Accessibility work, if it was not in the original scope
- Analytics and search-console setup, in the business's name
- Maintenance, backups and support after launch
- Migration and redirects from the old site
- Taxes
- What happens at the end: export, handoff, and who helps
Warning signs
- One total, with no scope written down.
- "Unlimited changes", with no definition of a change or a turnaround.
- Hosting bundled in, with no renewal or cancellation terms stated.
- The domain registered in the provider's account rather than the business's.
- "Plugins included", without naming them or their individual prices.
- No acceptance criteria and no handoff definition.
- A promotional software price presented as the ongoing one.
What to do next
Decide the scope first, then the approach, then the provider -- in that order. Pricing a decision you have not made yet is how budgets get compared against each other instead of against the work.