In 2026, a small business website costs anywhere from $20/month on a DIY builder to $35,000 from an agency — a range so wide it's useless. The real question is what you're paying for: your own time, a freelancer's hours, an agency's process, or a done-for-you service that launches everything. Here's the honest breakdown, including our own pricing — SiteRocket builds start at $500.
| Approach | Typical cost | Your time | What you get |
|---|---|---|---|
| DIY builder (Wix, Squarespace, GoDaddy) | $15–$50/mo, forever | 20–60+ hours | A template you build, write, and maintain yourself. SEO, forms, booking, and payments are extra apps you configure. |
| Freelancer | $2,000–$8,000 | Hours of back-and-forth | Quality varies widely. Handoff usually ends at the design — hosting, SEO, and integrations are on you. |
| Web design agency | $10,000–$35,000+ | Weeks of meetings | Polished result on an agency timeline — discovery phases, retainers, and long-term contracts. |
| Done-for-you (SiteRocket) | Starting at $500 | One short conversation | Design, copy, domain, hosting, SEO, smart forms, booking, payments, and an AI lead-capture agent — built and launched for you. |
Most cost guides are written by companies selling one of the options. DIY builders quote the monthly subscription and skip the value of your weekends. Agencies quote custom scopes because bespoke discovery is the product. Neither tells you the number a small service business actually needs: what it costs to be professionally online, capturing leads, with nothing left on your to-do list.
We keep it simple: three tiers, no long-term contracts, everything included and wired up before launch.
| Tier | Price | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Launchpad | Starting at $500 | A polished, conversion-tuned landing page with lead form, basic SEO, and fast launch. |
| Liftoff | Custom quote — scoped in your free launch plan | Multi-page site (up to 5 pages) with SEO starter kit, smart forms, booking, and an AI assistant on every page. |
| Orbit | Custom quote — scoped in your free launch plan | Custom builds: e-commerce, integrations, custom-trained AI agents, and quarterly growth strategy. |
The free launch plan is the whole quote process: tell us about your business, and we send back what we'd build and the exact price. No discovery retainer, no sales pressure, no lock-in.
Freelancers typically charge $2,000–$8,000 and agencies $10,000–$35,000+, usually with long timelines and ongoing retainers. A done-for-you service like SiteRocket starts at $500 for a conversion-tuned landing page, with everything — domain, hosting, SEO, forms, booking, payments, AI lead capture — set up for you and no long-term contract.
A DIY builder can work if you have the time and skills to design, write, and maintain the site yourself — plus configure SEO, forms, booking, and payments as separate apps. Most owners find the subscription is the smallest cost; the real price is their weekends. That trade-off is exactly why done-for-you services exist.
Somewhere, always — hosting, domains, and any tools you add have real costs no matter who builds your site. SiteRocket bundles domain, hosting, and maintenance into transparent pricing laid out in your launch plan, so you see the complete number up front instead of discovering subscriptions later.
Your free launch plan lays out exactly what your site needs and exactly what it costs — before you commit to anything. No contracts, no surprises.