Contents
01
The honest range
If you Google this question you will see numbers from $0 to $200,000 and up. Both ends are real. A DIY Wix site costs nothing to start. A custom enterprise web app for a Fortune 500 client can cost half a million dollars. Neither answer helps you.
Here is the actual range for the kind of website most local businesses need: $3,000 to $15,000. That covers a hand-built or carefully customized site of 5 to 15 pages, with a clear primary action, real local SEO foundations, and a design built around your brand. Above $15,000 you are paying for things most local businesses do not need, like custom integrations, complex booking flows, or custom apps. Below $3,000 you are usually buying a template build, a freelancer's first project, or a Wix site dressed up as custom.
Where you land in that $3,000 to $15,000 range depends mostly on three things: how many pages you need, whether the site is built from scratch or from a template, and whether you want it to actually rank in Google.
02
What actually drives the price
Most pricing pages stay vague here so the agency can quote whatever it wants. We will not. Here are the seven factors that move the number, in rough order of impact.
- Pages. A 5-page site is half the work of a 12-page site. Most small businesses are fine with 5 to 8 pages.
- Custom-coded vs template. A site coded from scratch loads faster and ranks better, but it takes more design and development time. A template-driven site is faster to build but slower to load and harder to make your own.
- Photography. Stock photos are free. On-site custom photography usually adds $500 to $2,000.
- Copywriting. If you provide finished copy, you save 1 to 2 weeks of agency time. If they research, write, and rewrite, expect to pay for it.
- Integrations. Online booking, e-commerce, CRM connections, email automation. Each one adds $300 to $2,000, depending on how complex it is.
- Design depth. A truly custom design is 2 to 4 weeks of design work. A customized template is 2 to 5 days.
- Maintenance and ongoing updates. The build cost is one number. What you pay each year after launch is another. We cover that in the hidden-costs section below.
03
Cost by website type
Different kinds of websites carry different price floors and ceilings. If a vendor quotes you a number that sounds far off the table below, ask why.
| Website type | Typical range | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Brochure (1-5 pages) | $1,000 - $3,000 | Single-product or single-service businesses with a small online presence |
| Small-business custom (5-15 pages) | $3,000 - $15,000 | Most local-service businesses (home services, medical, professional services, real estate) |
| E-commerce, small (under 100 SKUs) | $5,000 - $25,000 | Local retail with a simple online store |
| E-commerce, large (100+ SKUs) | $25,000 - $200,000+ | Multi-warehouse retailers, complex inventory, custom checkout |
| Enterprise / web app / SaaS | $50,000 - $500,000+ | Multi-team businesses, custom internal apps, multi-tenant systems |
04
Cost by who builds it
Same site, different builders, very different bills. The numbers below are total year-one cost: the build plus the first 12 months of any required platform fees.
| Who builds it | Year-1 total | What you actually get |
|---|---|---|
| DIY (Wix, Squarespace free) | $0 + your time | Template-built, hosted on the platform, your time is the real cost. Slow, locked in, you do not own the code. |
| Wix or Squarespace paid plans | $200 - $1,900 | Same template constraints, monthly fees forever. Migration off the platform is hard. |
| Freelancer | $1,000 - $8,000 | Quality varies wildly. Often built on WordPress with off-the-shelf themes. |
| Custom agency (small) | $5,000 - $30,000 | Real custom work. Project management overhead is real. You own the result. |
| Custom agency (mid-large) | $25,000 - $100,000+ | Heavier process, account managers, multi-stakeholder review cycles. |
| Enterprise dev shop | $75,000 - $500,000+ | Custom apps and complex integrations. Outside what most local businesses need. |
05
Hidden costs people forget
The build cost is the headline number. The annual costs after launch are where the surprise bills show up. Here is what most quotes do not mention up front.
- Hosting. Cloudflare Pages and Netlify are free for static sites. WordPress hosting runs $10 to $50 a month. Wix and Squarespace bake hosting into the monthly fee.
- Domain. About $10 to $30 a year. You should always own this directly, not let the agency hold it.
- Email hosting. Google Workspace is $7 to $18 per user per month. Most agencies do not include this.
- Platform subscription fees. Wix Business Elite is $159 a month, which is $1,908 a year, forever.
- Plugin and app subscriptions. WordPress sites often run 5 to 15 paid plugins, $50 to $500 a year each.
- Content updates. Most agencies charge $75 to $200 an hour for changes after launch.
- Redesigns every 3 to 5 years. The site gets dated, the platform changes, and you are back at the start.
- SEO retainers. Optional. $500 to $5,000 a month if you want ongoing optimization.
06
What a custom website costs in Eagle, Boise, and Phoenix
Local rates change with the size of the metro and the competition. We track this on every quote we win or lose, so the ranges below are real.
Eagle and Boise (Treasure Valley): a custom small-business site usually runs $3,000 to $15,000 at local agencies. Boise rates skew higher because of the crowded agency market and the demand that came with out-of-state buyers. Smaller cities like Star, Caldwell, and Garden City run $2,000 to $10,000.
Phoenix metro (Phoenix, Scottsdale, Tempe, Chandler, Mesa, Gilbert): rates run higher, usually $5,000 to $30,000. Scottsdale and Phoenix in particular skew toward the upper end because of the luxury and medspa buyer base.
Northern Arizona (Sedona, Flagstaff, Prescott, Prescott Valley): closer to the Boise range, $3,000 to $15,000 for most small-business custom builds. Sedona skews higher because of premium positioning and the tourism market.
07
What we charge (and why $5,000 flat)
Aloha Media Websites builds custom-coded websites for a flat $5,000. There are three things baked into that number we want to be plain about.
First, the homepage is free up front. We design and build a real working homepage, not a mockup, before you owe a dollar. If you do not love it, we shake hands and walk away. This is the single biggest difference between us and a typical agency, where you wire a $1,500 to $5,000 deposit before you see anything.
Second, the price is flat. Not a starting point. Not a base. Five thousand dollars is the full custom site, 5 to 8 pages typical, more if you need them. The only way the number changes is if you add an explicit add-on like extra pages, on-site photography, online booking, or e-commerce. Each add-on is its own flat number, listed publicly.
Third, the build window we control is fixed. Once you approve the homepage and place the 25 percent deposit, the rest of the site is delivered within 24 hours. Launch timing depends on your domain and hosting setup, which we walk through with you.
Why flat at $5,000 specifically: it is roughly half what a custom Phoenix or Scottsdale agency would charge for the same scope, and a little above what a Boise freelancer would charge for a comparable build. We set the price so we can build a real custom site and still make a profit, but low enough that a typical local business owner does not need to take a meeting with their accountant before saying yes.
08
How to know what you should pay
Most quotes will land somewhere in the $3,000 to $15,000 range. Pick the right one by working through these five questions.
- How much new revenue do you expect the website to bring in over 12 months? If your answer is $20,000 or more, a $5,000 to $10,000 build pays for itself fast.
- Will you outgrow the platform in 3 to 5 years? If yes, do not pay for a Wix or template build that locks you in.
- Does SEO actually matter to your business? If yes, which is true for most local services, do not buy on a slow platform. The page-speed gap will cost you more in lost rankings than a custom build saves you up front.
- Do you want predictable cost or variable cost? Flat-rate offers protect you from scope creep. Hourly or 'starting at' quotes do not.
- Will the agency deliver before you pay? Free-homepage-up-front offers like ours take that risk off the table. Most do not.
FAQ