The short answer
A site builder costs about $20 to $100 a month. Small studios that publish prices charge roughly $2,250 to $10,000 for a build. Subscriptions run about $550 to $2,000 a month. What decides the real cost is what you pay every month after launch, and whether you own the site at the end.
One owner got quotes of $4,000 to $8,000 and $13,000 to $17,000 for the same redesign, and asked whether either was reasonable.1 Both can be. The numbers below come from each company’s own pricing page, checked on 28 October 2026, so you can see what drives the gap.
What does each route cost?
| Route | Published prices |
|---|---|
| Site builder | Squarespace is $19 to $99 a month billed yearly, or $25 to $139 monthly.2 Webflow site plans are $15 or $25 a month billed yearly.3 You build and maintain it yourself. |
| Studio, flat fee | TMN Creative: $2,250, $3,750 or $5,000 and up, with no retainers.4 Nolara Studio: $2,500, $4,500 or from $7,500.5 Paramount Exposure: $5,000 flat.6 |
| Studio, fee plus monthly | Cairn & Flint: $3,500, $4,500 or $7,000, plus $399 a month for hosting and edits on a 12-month term.7 |
| Subscription | Design Shifu: $549 to $1,099 a month.8 Buzzcube: $1,995 a month, month to month.9 |
| Agency | On Clutch, a marketplace for agencies, the average reviewed web design project cost $38,105, but most cost “less than $10,000.”10 A few large projects pull the average up. |
Freelancers rarely publish prices, and we found no reliable source for typical freelance rates. For scale: the median pay of an employed web developer works out to about $47.85 an hour, before any business costs.11
What will you pay every month after launch?
The build is a one-time number. These keep coming.
- The domain: about $11 a year for a .com at a low-cost registrar such as Porkbun.12 Registrars report that the wholesale .com price goes up on 1 November 2026.13
- Hosting: included in builder plans. On developer platforms like Vercel or Netlify, small sites run from free to $20 a month.14
- Care and changes: Nolara’s care plan is $149 a month,5 Cairn & Flint’s hosting and edits are $399,7 and GEObros support runs $500 to $1,000 a month after a rebuild.15
What software will you pay for on top of the site?
This is the part most quotes leave out. The website is one bill. The tools around it are several more, and each is priced per person.
| Tool | Published price |
|---|---|
| Follow Up Boss | A real estate CRM. $69 per user a month, or $58 billed yearly.16 |
| Calendly | Scheduling. $10 or $16 per seat a month, billed yearly.17 |
| Jobber | For builders and home services. From $21 a month for the first 12 months, then $29; the higher plans step up the same way.18 |
Add a few of these together and the stack can cost more each year than the website. One Houzz Pro user put it plainly: “Paying over 200.00 a month for software that I don’t even use.”19
How much does a website redesign cost?
It depends on whether you’re refreshing what you have or starting over. Studios that publish prices draw that line clearly.
- Fix it without redesigning it. Cairn & Flint’s performance and accessibility rebuild is $2,450 one time: “We repair your site’s engine without redesigning it.”7
- Refresh the pages you have. GEObros’ Tune-Up starts at $3,000 and keeps your site.15 TMN’s $2,250 tier can “refresh agreed pages.”4
- Rebuild it. TMN’s full site rebuild is $3,750.4 GEObros’ Full Rebuild starts at $10,000.15
Redesigns are common. In a Clutch survey of 406 small business owners, 81% said they’d redesigned their site at least once.20
What does each option cost over a year?
Our arithmetic on the published prices above, for the first year only. Domains and software aren’t included.
| Option | First year |
|---|---|
| Squarespace Core | $348 billed yearly, or $468 monthly. You do the work. |
| TMN Creative, full rebuild | $3,750, with no retainer. |
| Nolara Essentials, with care | $2,500 plus 12 × $149 = $4,288. |
| Cairn & Flint Foundation | $3,500 plus 12 × $399 = $8,288, on a 12-month term. |
| Buzzcube subscription | 12 × $1,995 = $23,940. |
A flat fee looks cheaper than a subscription in year one. Over three years, what matters is who keeps improving the site, and what you own if you stop paying.
How do you compare two quotes fairly?
- Total it over three years, including the monthly fee and the software you’ll still need.
- Ask what you own at the end: the domain, the code, the content and the accounts. Our guide to who owns your website lists what to check.
- Ask what the monthly fee buys. Hosting only, a set number of edits, or ongoing improvement?
- Check the term. Month to month, or 12 months with a buyout?
- Look for redirects and content migration as lines on the quote.
- Ask who you’ll talk to after launch, and how fast they reply.
What we charge
Our builds are custom, so we don’t publish one price. A website alone is a different job from a website plus a client portal or follow-up. We quote after a first conversation, and you can own everything outright or spread the cost over a partnership.
Tell us what you’re juggling, and we’ll tell you what we’d build first and what it would cost.