A website for a contractor usually costs anywhere from about $10 a month if you build it yourself on a site builder, to a few thousand dollars for a designer, to $15,000 or more from a bigger agency. Most trade owners end up somewhere in the middle, and the price matters a lot less than whether the site actually brings calls.
A site only pays off if people find it, so read what local SEO is and what to fix first on your Google profile before you buy one.
That's a wide range, so here's what you're really paying for at each level, and why two sites with the same price can do completely different jobs for your business.
How much does a website cost for a small business?
There are roughly three ways to get one, and they cost very different amounts:
- Do it yourself. Site builders usually run about $10 to $200 a month, and a domain name is usually around $10 to $20 a year. It's cheap, but you're the one building it, and that takes nights most owners don't have.
- Hire a freelancer or a small shop. This usually costs a few thousand dollars up front. One 2025 pricing guide puts a 10 to 25 page small business site at about $3,000 to $10,000, plus hosting and any changes you ask for later.
- Hire a bigger agency. In a 2026 GoodFirms survey, most agencies quoted between $1,000 and $15,000 for a site, and custom builds can go well past that.
Then there's upkeep. Somebody has to keep the site updated, fix things when they break and add new pages, and one estimate puts that at about $1,100 to $5,000 a year depending on how much you do yourself.
Can my son-in-law just build it?
He can, and plenty of owners start that way. A site that looks nice is the easy part now, because the site builders make almost anything look decent.
The hard part is everything that doesn't show at first glance. That means a page for each job you do and each town you work in, so Google knows what to show you for. It means a site that loads fast on a phone, because that's where most people find a contractor, plus a call button that works, a form that actually reaches you, and your business details matching what's on your Google profile.
A good-looking site that's missing those things gets looked at and then closed, because nothing on it tells Google or the customer that you do the job they need.
What should a contractor website include?
At a minimum, a trade site needs a few things to bring calls instead of just sitting there:
- A page for each service, written about that job, not one page that lists everything.
- A page for the towns you serve, so people in those towns find you.
- Real photos of your work and your crew.
- Your reviews, and the same name, address and phone number you use everywhere else.
- A big, easy way to call or ask for a quote on a phone.
The pages for each job and each town are where most cheap sites fall short, because they take real work to write and most builders skip them.
Why do some websites never bring in calls?
Usually because they were built to look good and then left alone. The site goes up, nobody adds to it, nobody checks whether Google is showing it, and a year later the owner decides websites don't work.
That's the worry I hear most, paying every month for a site that never brings a call, and it's a real one. A site is only worth paying for if it's set up to be found and somebody keeps it sharp. For what it's worth, that's how we set up our own Growth Plan: the full build is included, then it's $400 a month with no contract, and you see a free preview of your site before you pay anything.
Is a cheap website a waste of money?
Not always. A cheap site that has the right pages and gets kept up can beat an expensive one that sits untouched, so the better question to ask is whether the site tells Google and your customers what you do and where, and whether anyone will look after it once it's live.
One thing to try this week
Check your site from your phone like a customer would.
- Search your main job plus a town you serve and see if your site shows up.
- Open your site on your phone and time how long it takes to find your phone number.
- Look for a page about that exact job and that town. If it's not there, that's the gap to fix first, whoever builds it.
If your site disappeared tomorrow, would you lose any calls?
Common questions
- How much should a small business pay for a website?
- A do-it-yourself builder runs about $10 to $200 a month, a freelancer or small shop usually charges a few thousand dollars, and agencies often quote $1,000 to $15,000 or more.
- Do I need to pay for website upkeep?
- Usually, yes. Somebody has to keep it updated and add pages, and that often runs about $1,100 to $5,000 a year depending on how much you do yourself.
- Can I build my own contractor website?
- You can. The hard part isn't making it look good, it's having a page for each job and town, a fast site on phones and a call button and form that work.