Key takeaways
- A small business website costs $0 to $450 to build yourself, $1,500 to $8,000 with a freelancer and $6,000 to $35,000+ with an agency, or $50 to $250 a month on most monthly plans.
- A contractor site gets its price from its jobs: service pages, city pages, a quote form, a project gallery and a Google Business Profile.
- Each city page runs about $150 to $300 and each service page about $225 to $550 at freelance rates, so your service area moves the quote more than design does.
- Storm pages, financing and CRM connections push roofing sites into the $9,500 to $18,000+ range at specialist agencies.
- Before you sign, get the domain in your name, the page count in writing and the place your quote form sends leads.
The short answer
A small business website cost for a contractor runs $0 to $450 upfront if you build it yourself on a builder, $1,500 to $8,000 with a freelancer and $6,000 to $35,000 or more with an agency. Monthly plans skip most of the upfront bill and charge about $50 to $250 a month instead. Where your quote lands inside those ranges depends on the jobs the site has to do: how many services and cities it covers, where the quote form sends leads and who sets up your Google profile.
What a contractor website has to do
Most cost guides price a website by its page count or its design. That works for a bakery. It misses what a trade site is for. A contractor website has one job: turn a search like "AC repair Frisco" or "roof replacement McKinney" into a phone call or a quote request. Every line on a proposal should trace back to that.
Price the site by the jobs it has to do, not by the number of pages. Here is what those jobs are and what each one tends to cost at typical freelance rates, based on one cost estimator's 2026 project data.
| Job | What it covers | Typical cost |
|---|---|---|
| Service pages | One page per service you sell, written to rank for that search | $225 to $550 per page |
| City pages Biggest swing | One page per city in your service area, written for that city | $150 to $300 per city |
| Quote form | A quote or booking widget on every page | $200 to $500 to embed |
| CRM connection | Form leads land in your CRM with a follow-up task | $1,200 to $3,500 |
| Project gallery | Before-and-after photos of real jobs | $600 to $1,400 for 50 projects |
| Photos | A local photographer shoots your crew, trucks and work | About $400 for a half day |
| Google reviews feed | Live Google reviews shown on the site | $400 to $1,200 |
| Google Business Profile Free | Claimed, verified and matched to the site | $0 from Google; setup usually included in the build |
| Domain | yourcompany.com | $10 to $35 a year |
Page, form, review and photo costs from ProjectCostEstimator's 2026 HVAC breakdown at $75 to $110 an hour; gallery from its 2026 roofing breakdown; domain from Forbes Advisor; Google Business Profile from Google.
Service pages carry the search traffic. A homeowner searches for the service, not your company name. One page for water heater installs and another for slab leak repair give Google a page to rank for each search. That cost estimator's data puts each page at about $225 to $550, at $75 to $110 an hour.
City pages decide your price more than design does. A plumber who works Plano, Allen, Frisco, McKinney and Prosper needs a real page for each city, written for that city, not five copies with the name swapped. At $150 to $300 a page, a 10-city service area adds $1,500 to $3,000 before anyone picks a font.
The quote form is the cheapest line and the one most often done wrong. Embedding a booking or quote widget runs $200 to $500. Connecting it to your CRM so every lead lands as a record with a follow-up task runs $1,200 to $3,500. From the CRM side, a form that emails a shared inbox is where leads you paid for go quiet. Ask where the form sends leads before you ask about colors.
Your Google Business Profile is free. Google charges nothing to create a profile and list your business. It still takes work to claim, verify and fill in with services, service areas, hours and photos, and the website has to match it. Most builds include this work. Get it named in the proposal anyway.
Add those lines up and you get the real totals. The same cost estimator's 2026 project data puts a basic HVAC site (one location, about five pages) at $1,800 to $3,200 with a freelancer and $4,500 to $8,000 with an agency. Covering 5 to 10 cities lifts that to $3,500 to $6,500 and $7,500 to $14,000.
Small business website cost by option: DIY builder, freelancer, agency, monthly plan
You can buy those jobs four ways. The ranges below are what each one charges to build the site. Each one also carries a monthly cost after launch, which the section further down covers.
DIY builder: $0 to $450 to build. You pick a template on Wix, Squarespace or a similar builder and write the pages yourself. Forbes Advisor puts the initial DIY build at $0 to $450. The plan itself runs from $17 a month on Wix and $19 to $99 a month on Squarespace when billed yearly. The real cost is your time: every service page and city page above is yours to write, and the quote form goes wherever the builder sends it.
Freelancer: $1,500 to $8,000 one time. Three separate 2026 guides land on the same range: $1,500 to $8,000 for a small business site from a freelancer. Hourly rates swing hard. Upwork lists a median of $21 an hour for web designers on its platform, Clutch puts designers who work in builders at $25 to $49 an hour, and one cost estimator's 2026 project data prices local service pages at $75 to $110 an hour. A freelancer is a good fit when you know what pages you need and can supply the photos and project details.
Agency: $6,000 to $35,000+ one time. The same guides put agency builds at $6,000 to $35,000 and up, and Clutch lists typical US agency rates at $100 to $149 an hour. You pay for a team: strategy, copy, design and someone who answers the phone when the form breaks. Clutch also reports that most web design projects reviewed on its site cost less than $10,000, so a quote at the top of the range should come with a long list of jobs to justify it.
Monthly plan: $0 to $500 setup, then $50 to $250 a month. A monthly plan, sometimes called a pay-monthly site, builds the site for little or nothing upfront and bundles hosting and updates into one payment. A pay-monthly vendor's published range puts most plans at $50 to $250 a month with setup fees from $0 to $500. Another vendor's managed plans run up to $500 a month. Read the term: some providers lock you in for 12 or 24 months, and you need to know who owns the site if you leave.
How much should a custom website cost?
"Custom" means two different things in proposals. Sometimes it means a site designed from scratch instead of from a template. Sometimes it means hand-coded instead of built on WordPress or a builder. Both cost more, and neither one guarantees more calls.
One 2026 HVAC comparison puts a custom-built site at $2,000 to $6,000 upfront. Another guide puts custom design at $2,000 to $10,000. One cost estimator's 2026 project data puts fully custom builds at about 2.5 times a standard WordPress build and says they rarely pay off for a single-location shop.
A custom site earns its price when the jobs demand it: an instant quote calculator, a financing application, a portal where commercial clients check job status. If your list is service pages, city pages, a gallery and a form, a well-built template does the same work for less. Spend the difference on photos of your own crews and trucks.
How much does a roofing website cost?
Roofing sites cost more than most trade sites because they carry extra jobs. One cost estimator's 2026 project data lists four tiers:
- Basic site, built yourself or by a freelancer: $2,200 to $3,800
- Storm-ready site from a freelancer: $4,500 to $9,500
- Basic agency site: $5,500 to $9,000
- Storm-specialist agency site: $9,500 to $18,000+
The extra jobs are what move a roofer up those tiers. In the same data, storm-response landing pages run $250 to $450 each, and a roofer working hail season across Denton, Collin and Tarrant counties may want several. A before-and-after gallery of 50 projects adds $600 to $1,400. Financing integrations add $300 to $800 from a freelancer. Inspection booking tied to a CRM adds $1,400 to $3,500.
HVAC, plumbing and electrical sites follow the same pattern with different extra jobs. An HVAC shop needs emergency and seasonal service pages. A plumber needs separate pages for drain, water heater and repipe work. An electrician working residential and commercial needs both audiences on the site. Price each of those as its own line.
What you pay after launch
The build is only part of the bill. Ongoing costs cover hosting, the domain, security, software updates and someone to make changes when you add a service or a city, and each option above charges for them differently. Contractor website builder vs done-for-you runs the 36-month math so you can compare total cost, not just the upfront price.
What to ask before you sign
A proposal that lists only a price and a page count leaves out the parts that cost you later. Ask these questions and get the answers in writing.
Ask before you sign
- Is the domain registered in my name, on my account?
- Do I own the site, the copy and the photos if I leave?
- How many service pages and city pages does this price include?
- Where do quote form leads go: email, text or my CRM?
- Will you set up or clean up my Google Business Profile?
- Who writes the page copy, and who supplies the photos?
- What does hosting cost after launch, and what does it cover?
- How do I request changes, and what does each one cost?
- Is there a minimum term, and what does it cost to leave early?
- Can I see three live sites you built for trade businesses?
“Price the site by the jobs it has to do, not by the number of pages.”
Colin has spent five years building and running the CRM inside a major Dallas–Fort Worth general contracting firm. He started Conduit to bring the same systems to owner-operated trades and contractors.
More from ColinFrequently asked questions
How much does a fully custom website cost?
A custom-built trade site typically runs $2,000 to $6,000 upfront, and custom design guides range up to $10,000. One cost estimator's 2026 project data puts fully hand-coded builds at about 2.5 times a standard WordPress site. For a single-location contractor, that premium rarely pays off unless the site needs a feature a template can't handle, such as an instant quote calculator or a client portal.
How much would a professional website cost from an agency?
Agency builds for small businesses run $6,000 to $35,000 or more, according to several 2026 cost guides. US agencies on Clutch typically bill $100 to $149 an hour. Most projects reviewed on Clutch still come in under $10,000, so a quote near the top of the range should list the extra pages, integrations and content that justify it.
How much does a web designer charge per hour?
It depends on where the designer works and what they build. Upwork lists a median of $21 an hour for web designers on its platform. Clutch puts designers who work in builders like Wix or Squarespace at $25 to $49 an hour, and US agencies at $100 to $149. One cost estimator's 2026 project data uses $75 to $110 an hour for local service pages.
Is it better to build your own website or hire someone?
Build it yourself if you serve one city with a handful of services and have the time to write every page. Hire someone when you need a page for each service and each city, a quote form that feeds your CRM, and a Google Business Profile that matches the site. The DIY route costs less in cash and more in evenings.
Is Google Business Profile free?
Yes. Google charges nothing to create a Business Profile and list your business. The cost is the setup work: claiming and verifying the listing, adding services, service areas, hours and photos, and making sure your name, address and phone match your website. Most professional website builds include that setup, but confirm the proposal names it.