Website Price List: What You’ll Actually Pay at Every Range
Let’s just get right into it: you searched “website price list” or some version of that, and you landed on a hundred pages that say “contact us for a custom quote” instead of an actual number. So here’s an actual number. Several, in fact.
The short version, before the long version: you get what you pay for, but only to a point. Good work doesn’t come cheap. It also shouldn’t be a mystery, and it definitely shouldn’t be a trap. Our prices are fair on both sides of the equation — fair for the work it actually takes, and fair for you, the person paying for it.
Table of Contents
What you can expect to pay, by range
Before we get into our specific numbers, here’s the honest map of what’s actually out there, because “website price list” is a pretty universal search — you’re probably comparing more than just us.
Under $1,000 — DIY platforms. Wix, Squarespace, a “free” template from somewhere. The platform itself is cheap or even free. What’s expensive is your own time — hours of fiddling, no real strategy behind any of it, and the end result usually still looks templated because nobody actually said anything specific about your business in the copy. You saved money. You didn’t necessarily save effort, and you definitely didn’t get strategy.
$1,000–$3,000 — freelancers and small studios, basic builds. This range usually gets you a real human doing real design work, but often on a tighter scope — fewer pages, less strategic depth, sometimes templated under the hood even if it looks custom on the surface.
$5,000 and up — strategic, custom builds. This is where you’re paying for someone to actually think about your business before they touch a single pixel — who you’re talking to, what you’re trying to get them to do, how the words and the design work together instead of being two separate jobs. This is where we live.
Some of what pushes a price up or down inside any of these ranges is more about the studio’s business model than the actual work. Before you compare apples to oranges:
The “$99 website” bait-and-switch. A shockingly low number gets you in the door, and then the real cost shows up later — a $40/month “maintenance fee,” hosting forced through them at three times the market rate, a contract that locks you in for years. The site often looks fine on day one and slowly rots, because you’re not allowed to touch it yourself without paying them again. I HATE THIS SO MUCH.
The endless scope-creep quote. “It depends!” forever, no real number until you’re three calls deep and emotionally invested enough to say yes to whatever number they eventually land on.
The “free build,” paid forever after. Same idea as the bait-and-switch, different door. The build is free or nearly free. The ongoing fees are where the actual business model lives. And the free build is usually, honestly, trash.
Big agency markup. You’re often paying for the agency’s overhead — the account manager, the fancy office, a junior designer who’s never actually met you — more than you’re paying for craft. The end result often still doesn’t sound like you, because the person doing the actual writing never talked to you in the first place.
One thing that bugs me specifically: a lot of studios charge you for hosting and domain registration, sometimes marked up, forever, as a way of quietly keeping you locked in as a client. I think that’s gross. (Don’t ask me about this on a call because I will GO. OFF. Ha) You should be able to pay your hosting and domain company directly. We obviously hope you’ll want to keep working with us — but if you ever don’t, your stuff is yours. That’s not negotiable for me. The industry can be disgustingly gatekeepy about this, and I don’t want any part of that.
What we actually charge
Website Design: $8,000–$11,000. This is a full custom build — strategy, copywriting, and design, built on Showit (more on why that platform specifically, below). It includes the AI-search layer baked in as standard now too, not sold separately — so you’re not just findable on Google, you’re set up to be found and recommended by AI search tools as well!
Where you land in that range depends on scope — number of pages, how much copywriting is involved, how much strategy work the project needs. It’s not a number we make up on a call to see what you’ll say yes to. It’s a real range for real work.
Claude Setup: $1,100. If you’re already using AI for your business and it still sounds like it could belong to anyone, this is the fix. We sit down with you for a 90-minute conversation and pull out everything that’s currently only in your head — your voice, your offers, your actual clients — and build it into a custom Claude setup that already knows your business instead of one you have to re-explain every single time. Each additional skill beyond the core build is $85.
Marketing Sprint: $1,200. One focused sprint, dedicated entirely to the pile of half-finished ideas sitting in your notes app — blog drafts, opt-ins, that ChatGPT brainstorm you never quite finished. You leave with a folder of real, brand-aligned, finished work. Open to anyone, not gated behind being an existing client.
AI-Search Retrofit for existing Showit sites: $1,200. Brand new, and something I’m so, so excited about: if you already have a Showit site and it’s just not showing up the way you want it to in search — Google or AI search tools — we can come in and fix specifically that layer. You don’t have to totally rebuild or start over. We just the part that’s actually broken.
Why Showit, specifically
We build on Showit, and here’s why, since the platform itself affects both the price and what you get for it.
Showit is, to me, what Canva is to graphic design — drag-and-drop, visually intuitive, no fighting with code to get something to look right. There’s a learning curve, the same way there’s a learning curve on literally every platform (nobody opens any new piece of software and is instantly fluent), but once it’s set up, it’s reasonably intuitive for a savvy business owner to maintain on their own. We’re always happy to help if you get stuck, but you’re not locked out of your own site waiting on us for every small change.
It also avoids the plugin rot that platforms like WordPress are prone to — no fragile chain of fifteen plugins that break every time one of them updates. And because of how it’s built, it plays well with the AI-search layer we bake into every site: clean, crawlable structure underneath a visually beautiful front end.
The actual point of this whole post
You get what you pay for, up to a limit. Past that limit, you’re often just paying for someone else’s overhead, or for a business model built around keeping you stuck. Our prices reflect real work, real strategy, and real care — and they’re fair on both sides of the equation. That’s the whole philosophy, and now you have the actual numbers to go with it.
If you want to talk through what your specific project would actually cost, that’s a much shorter conversation now that you know the ranges going in.
Questions I get a lot:
How much does a custom website cost?
For a fully custom, strategy-driven build with copywriting included, expect $5,000 and up. Ours runs $8,000–$11,000 depending on scope. Below that range, you’re typically looking at templated or DIY options with less strategic depth behind them.
Why do some web designers charge for hosting?
Often as a way to keep you as a locked-in client long after the build is done, sometimes at a marked-up rate. We don’t do this — you pay your hosting and domain company directly, and your site is yours regardless of whether you keep working with us.
Is a cheap website actually a good deal?
Sometimes, if your needs are genuinely simple. But “cheap” often means the real cost shows up later — in ongoing fees, in your own time spent fixing it, or in a site that doesn’t actually say anything specific about your business because no real strategy went into the copy.
What if I already have a website that’s just not showing up in search?
If you’re on Showit already, we can retrofit just the AI-search and findability layer without a full rebuild — that’s a $1,200 project, separate from a full redesign.
Paying for a site is one thing — getting one that actually brings in clients is another. → Why Your Website Isn’t Getting You Clients (Even Though Your Work Is Great)
Whatever you spend, you’ve got about eight seconds to make it count. → Your Website Has 8 Seconds to Make Her Stay
Liked this? I send a short email every couple of weeks — a real story plus one useful thing about your website or marketing. Never longer than your coffee. Come hang out →
Doreen Vanderhart is the founder of Knap Creative, a boutique design and marketing studio for established, service-based businesses. She thinks pricing should be boring and honest, so here we are.
