In short
The price of a small business website mostly comes down to six things: how many different kinds of page it needs, who provides the words and photos, what it has to do beyond showing information, how much design detail it has, whether it’s new or a redesign, and how soon you need it. Hosting and upkeep are separate, ongoing costs.
How many kinds of page you need
Page count matters, but the number of different kinds of page matters more. Ten service pages that share one layout cost less to build than five pages that each need their own design, because the layout is designed once and then filled in.
Our Alder Cup concept shows what a small site can look like: two kinds of page, a homepage and a menu. The menu page took real thought, with a 22-item sample menu split into categories and navigation that stays easy to use on a phone, but it’s still a single layout.
A single landing page is usually the least expensive place to start. Our Dayfold Movement concept pairs one landing page with a short campaign, which is often all a launch needs.
Who supplies the words and photos
Content is the cost people most often forget. If you hand over finished text and good photos, the work is mostly design and building. If the copy needs writing, or there are no usable photos, that’s extra work, and it’s often the part that takes longest.
For Alder Cup we wrote the café copy and created the concept imagery from scratch, because there was nothing to start from. A real café with its own photos and menu would skip most of that.
- A page of rough notes on what you do and who it’s for is enough for us to write from.
- Photos of your real work or space, even taken on a phone, often beat stock images.
What the site has to do
A site that explains what you do and how to get in touch is the simplest kind. Each thing it has to do adds work: contact forms, booking, online payments, a shop, member logins, or connections to other tools you use.
Even a contact form has more to it than it looks. The project form on this website checks what’s typed, filters out spam, limits repeated submissions, and still works if a visitor’s browser blocks scripts. That’s worth doing properly, because a form that quietly fails costs you customers.
If you want to edit pages yourself after launch, say so early. A site you can update without help is built differently from one someone else maintains.
How much design detail and motion
A clean, well-organized layout doesn’t have to be expensive. Custom illustrations, animation, and lots of one-off sections add time. Alder Cup uses subtle motion that switches off for visitors who’ve asked their device for reduced motion. This website uses more, with headings and images that animate in as you scroll. Both are choices, not requirements.
Starting fresh or redesigning
A redesign isn’t automatically cheaper than a new site. You already have content, which helps, but it usually needs reorganizing, and old page addresses need to point to the new ones so you don’t lose what search engines already know about your site.
Our Juniper Home Repair exercise shows what a redesign often involves: the same services and information, reorganized under one clear heading, with readable type, a single column on phones, and the contact button moved up to where people see it.
If your site already works well for the people who reach it, and the problem is that too few reach it, you may not need a redesign at all. See Does your website need a redesign or an SEO cleanup?
How soon you need it
A tight deadline can raise the price, because other work has to move to make room. If your date is flexible, say so. It leaves more room to get the details right.
Costs after launch
The build is a one-off cost. Separately, expect to pay every year for your domain name, plus hosting, and email if it uses your domain. Edits and additions after launch are usually priced as small projects of their own.
How to keep the cost down
- Start with one strong page and add more when you need them.
- Write a rough version of your text, even as bullet points.
- Gather your photos, logo, and brand colors before the project starts.
- Keep what already works on your current site.
- Leave features like booking or payments for a second phase.
How we price a website
Every Pinebox project starts with you telling us what you need, your budget range, and your timeline in the project form. We come back with any questions, then a written summary of what’s included, when it’s due, and what it costs. Nothing starts until you agree, so there are no surprise invoices.
Search basics, like page titles, descriptions, and a sitemap, are part of every website we design and build. If you already have a site and it just isn’t being found, an SEO cleanup may be all you need.