Website cost: project, running costs and ownership

What does a website cost?

A website has three kinds of cost. The project is paid once. Running costs, such as hosting, the domain, licenses and email, arrive every month or year. Ownership costs are the people time it takes to keep the site current, plus the next refresh.

Most budgets only count the first one. This guide counts all three, with vendor prices opened on November 11, 2026. W3Experts does not publish its own prices; our pricing page explains why and what changes a quote. If you are planning a new site, the service page is website design. If you are replacing an existing one, read how much a website redesign costs as well, because redesigns add line items.

Which line items make up the project cost?

A project quote should list each piece of work and its assumptions. These are the lines to look for, and what moves each one.

Project line items for a new website and their cost drivers. No prices: compare the drivers.

On-page and technical SEO, such as titles, structured data, sitemaps and fast templates, belongs inside the build. Ongoing search campaigns and content production are a separate service. At W3Experts those sit with our sister brand BizAttic.

What do public market figures say about project cost?

Only a few public figures state how they were gathered. We opened each of these on November 11, 2026.

Public cost figures with their sources. Clutch does not publish sample sizes per figure.

The gap between the averages and the typical project matters. When most projects cost under $10,000 but the average is near $38,000, a few large projects are pulling the average up. Neither number tells you what your site will cost. Your scope does.

Which costs recur every month or year?

Running costs are smaller than the project but never stop. These are current list prices from each vendor’s own pricing page, opened November 11, 2026, in US dollars before tax.

Recurring costs from vendor pricing pages opened November 11, 2026. Examples, not endorsements.

What changes at renewal?

Many vendors show a first-year or seasonal discount. On the day we checked, Kinsta and several plugin vendors displayed Black Friday offers. Always budget at the renewal price, not the first-year price. If a page does not state the renewal price, ask before you buy.

What about Shopify transaction fees?

Shopify’s pricing page lists an extra fee for stores that use a third-party payment provider. It is 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow, 0.6% on Advanced and 0.2% on Plus. On $10,000 of monthly sales, 2% is $200 a month, or $2,400 a year. That is more than a year of the Basic plan itself. Card processing fees are separate, and the pricing page did not list them on the day we checked.

Worked example: what does a WordPress service site cost to own?

Here is a one-year and three-year running cost for a typical service business site. It uses only the vendor prices above and one public wage figure. The project price is left as P, because it depends on your quote.

Assumptions: a WordPress site on managed hosting billed monthly, with one .com domain. It uses ACF PRO, Gravity Forms and Yoast SEO Premium. Three people have email accounts, and staff spend four hours a month on content updates.

Running cost of a WordPress service site from vendor prices opened November 11, 2026. Staff time uses the BLS median wage, before benefits. Prices are held flat over 3 years.

The three-year cost to own is P + $9,622.23 + 36 months of care, if you buy a care plan. Two things stand out.

• People cost more than software. Four hours a month of staff time is about 2.5 times the software bill, and that is wages alone.
• Licenses add up per site. Three plugin licenses cost $226.80 a year. Check each one is needed before launch, and whether a free version will do.

How does the same estimate look on Shopify?

On Shopify, hosting is part of the plan. Basic billed yearly is $228 a year, and Grow billed yearly is $588 a year. Apps replace many plugins, and their prices vary by vendor, so list each app and its plan before you compare. Add the third-party payment fee if you will not use Shopify’s own payments.

Worked example: how big is the project?

The running cost is only half the picture. To size the project, we ran two briefs through the Website Project Scoper on November 11, 2026, using its rules dated November 10, 2026. The scoper returns a tier, a timeline and line items, never a price.

What does a small, focused WordPress site return?

Input: Website project, a focused flow or small site, focused design adjustments, WordPress, no migration, one language, no care plan, no integrations. That scores 0 points.

Scope A · Website project · 4–6 weeks
- Discovery and acceptance criteria
- Page system and accessible design
- CMS build and browser testing
- Launch checklist and editor training

What changes for a mid-size site with a CRM?

Input: Website project, several templates or flows, custom page design, WordPress, a small prepared content inventory, one language, core care, and a CRM. That scores 6 points, which is Scope B.

Scope B · Website project · 8–12 weeks
- Discovery and acceptance criteria
- Page system and accessible design
- CMS build and browser testing
- Launch checklist and editor training
- Inventory content and redirects before migration
- Connect the CRM and test lead routing
- Agree the core care plan separately from the project

Size, custom design, migration and the CRM each added points. Two more points, for example adding a second language, would reach Scope C at 8 points. The care plan added a line but no points, because care is a separate agreement from the project.

Use the tier and line items to ask for like-for-like quotes. Two studios quoting the same seven lines are comparable. A quote with four lines and a lower total is not.

Should you budget for the next redesign now?

Yes, as a line in your ownership plan. A site does not wear out on a fixed schedule, so we do not give a lifespan. Instead, write down the triggers that would make a rebuild worth its cost:

• The offer, audience or brand has changed, and the page structure no longer fits it.
• The platform, theme or a key plugin is no longer maintained or no longer gets security updates.
• Core Web Vitals fail in field data and the template, not the content, is the cause.
• Editors avoid the CMS because simple changes need a developer.
• Accessibility problems are built into the templates rather than the content.

Until a trigger fires, small, regular improvements cost less than a rebuild. A care plan or an in-house developer can handle them. When one fires, our redesign cost guide lists the extra line items a redesign carries.

How do you read a website quote?

1. Check every line item. Match the quote against the project table above and mark what is missing.
2. Find the assumptions. Page count, template count, review rounds and who supplies content should be written down.
3. Ask for the first-year bill. Ask which licenses, hosting and services you will pay for after launch, and at what renewal price.
4. Confirm ownership. The domain, hosting account, repository, design files and analytics should be in your name.
5. Read the change rules. A fixed price should come with a list of what changes it and how extra work is approved.

What is often left out of a website quote?

• Copywriting and photography.
• Stock image, font, plugin and app licenses.
• Hosting, domain and email setup, and their yearly renewals.
• Privacy policy and legal text, which a lawyer should review.
• Translation and regional versions.
• A bug-fix window after launch.
• Care after launch: updates, backups and monitoring. See website maintenance for what a care plan covers.

When is a template or site builder enough?

Not every business needs a custom build. A template or hosted builder is often the right call for a small site. That means a handful of pages, one editor and no connections to other systems. Our own redesign page says so: a five-page brochure site needed in two weeks is better served by a template.

A custom build earns its cost when the site has harder jobs. It must explain a complex offer, connect to a CRM or booking tool, load fast on mobile and grow without a rebuild. If you are unsure, run both options through the scoper and compare the line items.

Limits: what this guide does not cover

• We do not state W3Experts prices. Each project gets a written proposal.
• Vendor prices change often, and we saw seasonal offers on the day we checked. Recheck each pricing page before you budget. We plan to recheck this guide every quarter.
• The vendors named are examples with public price pages, not recommendations, and we have no affiliate links.
• Staff time uses a national median wage before benefits, overhead and management. Your real cost per hour will be higher.
• Card processing fees, app prices, taxes and VAT are not included in the worked example.
• We could not open the full GoodFirms 2026 cost survey, so we did not cite it.

To size your own project, run it through the Website Project Scoper. It shows a tier, timeline and line items in about a minute, with no prices.