Why the quotes are so different
Ask five people what a website costs and you will get five numbers a long way apart. That is not because four of them are lying. It is because "a website" can mean a template with your name typed in, or a platform with pages for every service and city you serve, a booking system, intake, tracking and someone keeping it running. Those are different products that happen to share a word.
So the first question is not "how much", it is "what is this site for". A site whose job is to be found on Google and turn visitors into enquiries has to be built differently from one whose job is to exist so you can put the address on a business card. The price follows the job.
What actually changes the price
How many pages, and whether they are written for you. A five-page brochure is a few days of work. Pages for six services across twelve towns, each with real local content, is a content project as much as a build, though generating them from one content file makes it manageable.
Whether it is built by hand or assembled from a page builder. Page builders are cheaper up front and slower, more fragile and harder to rank later. Sites written in code load faster, pass Google's speed tests and can grow into booking systems, calculators, portals or AI chat without being rebuilt. That is why I build in Next.js rather than WordPress.
What it connects to. Forms that go to an inbox are simple. Intake that qualifies an enquiry, fills a CRM, books a call and sends a confirmation is a system. Tracking that tells you which page and which search produced each enquiry is another layer. Each of these is worth paying for only if you will use it.
Who keeps it running. A site that nobody maintains decays: broken forms, expired certificates, plugins that stop updating. Hosting, updates and fixes are either included in a monthly fee or become an emergency later. Ask which.
What a fair quote looks like
A fair quote names the pages, the features, the launch date and the price, in writing, before any money changes hands. It says what you own afterward: your domain, your content, your accounts. It says what happens if you leave. And it says what is not included, so there are no surprises when you ask for something in month three.
Be wary of quotes that are vague about scope, that require you to buy hosting or a builder subscription through the vendor, or that cannot explain why the site will rank. A cheap site that brings in nothing is the expensive one.
My own approach: a 20-minute call to understand the business, then a short written plan with a fixed price. Local business sites usually launch in two to three weeks. You own everything with your name on it; the platform underneath is mine, and you rent it for a fraction of what building it would cost. If a Google profile and three pages is what you need, that is what the quote will say.
Take this to the first call
- What the site is for: enquiries, bookings, orders, credibility
- The services and towns that need their own page
- What it must connect to: inbox, CRM, calendar, payments
- Who hosts, updates and fixes it, and what that costs monthly
- What you own afterward and what happens if you leave
Further reading & sources
Google changes how search and ads work often. Check the linked official guidance for the current rules; this guide is general information about how I approach the work, not a quote or a guarantee for your business.