Short answer
Roughly $0–30 a month if you build it yourself on a site builder. About $1,500–3,000 from a freelancer or a template shop. $3,000–8,000 from a small agency for a proper multi-page site with the copy written for you. $10,000 and up for custom builds with bookings, portals or integrations. Whichever route, add $10–250 a month to keep it running. The thing that matters more than the build price is what you own at the end of it.
What drives the price
Two quotes for "a website" can be $2,000 apart and both be fair. The difference is almost always in one of these:
- Pages. A five-page site (home, about, services, work, contact) is a different job from a site with a page per service and a page per suburb. Every extra page is writing, layout and a photo.
- Copy. Who writes the words? If you do, the price drops and the timeline stretches, because the copy is usually what holds a site up for months. If they do, expect an interview and a couple of drafts in the quote.
- Photos. Your phone, stock images, or a photographer for half a day. Real photos of your team and your work beat stock every time, and cost more.
- Forms and what happens after. A form that emails you is cheap. A form that logs every enquiry with where it came from, pushes it into your job software and texts you is not.
- Integrations. Online booking, a client portal, payments, your Google reviews on the page, a link to your job-management software. Each one is hours.
- Design from scratch or from a system. A bespoke design is design hours. A well-built system with your colours, photos and content is a fraction of that, and for most small businesses looks no different to a visitor.
- Rounds of changes. Two rounds is normal. "Unlimited revisions" is a timeline with no end, and the price allows for it.
The ongoing costs people forget
The build is the number everyone asks about. The running costs are the ones that surprise people in year two.
| Item | Typical cost | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|
| Domain name | $10–40 a year for a .com.au | Registered in your business's name, against your ABN, renewing to a card you control. |
| Hosting | $0–50 a month | A static site can cost almost nothing to host. Managed WordPress sits at the top of the range. |
| SSL certificate | Should be $0 | Free certificates are standard now. A separate line for "SSL" on a quote in 2026 is a question to ask. |
| Plugins and themes | $0–300 a year | WordPress sites usually carry a few paid plugins that stop getting security updates when you stop paying. |
| Care plan | $50–250 a month | Updates, backups, security patches and small changes. Ask what's included and what's charged by the hour. |
| Separate, per user | Don't run your email through the web host. Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, in your own account. | |
| Changes outside the plan | By the hour | Agree the rate before launch, not when you need a price changed on a Friday afternoon. |
Ranges from the quotes and renewals we see, checked 31 October 2026. Your registrar, host and plugin list will put you somewhere inside them.
Four ways to get a site, compared
| Route | Typical price | Who it suits | The catch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Build it yourself on a site builder | $0–30 a month, plus the domain | Just starting out, a handful of pages, happy to spend a few evenings on it | Your time. It looks like everyone else's. Moving off the platform later is hard, and the subscription never ends. |
| Freelancer or template shop | $1,500–3,000 | You want it done, and you'll supply the words and the photos | Quality varies a lot. Support after launch can be thin. Check whose name the domain and hosting are in. |
| Small agency or specialist | $3,000–8,000 | A proper multi-page site, copy written for you, forms wired to tracking, the SEO basics done | Get the scope in writing. Make sure the monthly care cost is stated, not discovered. |
| Custom build | $10,000 and up | Bookings, portals, integrations, or a design that genuinely has to be unique | Long timelines, design hours you're paying for, and maintenance that doesn't stop at launch. |
What you must own, whatever you pay
Price is negotiable. Ownership isn't. Before launch, make sure each of these is in your name and under your control:
- The domain registrar login. Registered to your business, against your ABN, renewing to your card. If the agency "handles it for you" in their account, you're renting your own name.
- The hosting login, or at least an administrator account on it.
- The code and the content. A copy of the site files or access to the code repository, and a way to export your pages and images.
- Google Analytics and Search Console, created in your Google account with the agency added as a user. If they create them in theirs, your history leaves with them.
- Your Google Business Profile, which isn't the website but usually gets set up alongside it, and should be verified to your account. Our Business Profile checklist walks through it.
- DNS. Whoever controls DNS controls your email as well as your site.
Questions to ask before paying a deposit
- What exactly is included: how many pages, who writes the copy, how many rounds of changes?
- Whose name will the domain be registered in?
- What will it cost per month after launch, and what happens if I stop paying?
- If I leave, what do I get: the files, the content, an export, the database?
- Where do form enquiries go, and is each one logged somewhere I can see?
- Will Analytics and Search Console be set up in my Google account?
- What does "SEO included" mean: which pages, which search terms, what work?
- Will it work properly on a phone? Most of your visitors are on one.
- What's the payment schedule and the timeline, and what do you need from me to hit it?
Red flags
- No fixed price. "It depends" is fine for the first conversation. It isn't fine on the quote.
- The agency owns the domain, or offers to register it for you in their account.
- "SEO included" with no detail about what will be done or to which pages.
- "Lifetime hosting" or "free forever". Someone pays for hosting every month. If it isn't you, you don't control it.
- A platform of their own that you can't leave with your site intact.
- Nothing about after launch. No care plan, no hourly rate, no mention of backups.
- They won't hand over the logins. There is no good reason for this.
When a cheaper site is the right call
Plenty of businesses don't need a $5,000 site yet. If you're starting out, the work comes from word of mouth and the site's job is to prove you're real (a phone number, what you do, where you work, a few real photos, a Google Business Profile that's filled in), then a site-builder page or a tidy one-page build does the job. Spend the money when the site has a job to do: landing pages for ads, a page per service that Google can rank, a form that feeds your job software. Our websites for tradies page shows what that looks like for a trade. The one thing not to skimp on, even on the cheapest version, is owning the domain.
Where we fit
Our websites start at $2,500, with most landing between $2,500 and $3,500, and care at $75 a month per site for hosting, SSL, backups and minor changes. They're static sites served from a global content network, so they load fast and there are no plugins to patch. Every form posts to the site's own backend and logs each enquiry with where it came from, an SEO audit runs before every deploy, and you own the domain and the code from day one. Three builds this year, each about two weeks. The details, and what's in the care plan, are on our website design and hosting page.
Sources
- Google: Verify your site ownership in Search Console, Set up Google Analytics for a website
- ACCC: Advertising and promotions (claims on your site are advertising too)
- OAIC: Australian Privacy Principles (if the Privacy Act applies to you, your site needs a privacy policy)
- ACSC: Small business cyber security handbook (turn it on at your registrar and host)
Checked 31 October 2026. Price ranges are what we see in quotes and renewals, not published figures. If something here looks out of date, tell us.