How much does a website cost for a small business?
If you have asked around Port St. Lucie about getting a website built, you have probably had three conversations and come away without a number. How much does a website cost is a fair thing to want answered before you call anyone, and you should not have to sit through a meeting to find out.
So here is ours, in the open. A clean marketing website starts at $500. A web app, meaning a site where customers log in, pay, or book, starts at $1,500. And if you want us looking after it afterwards, a $500 marketing site comes free with a care plan, which starts at $49 a month.
The short version
- A marketing website starts at $500. It is fast, it works properly on a phone, and it is yours when it is done.
- Or it comes free with a care plan, from $49 a month. You pay for the upkeep and a $500 site is built as part of it.
- A web app starts at $1,500. That is the number once people need accounts, checkout, or a link to software you already run. Larger projects earn a discount when they come with a plan.
- Four things move the price: how many pages you need, whether the words and photos already exist, whether the site has to talk to another system, and whether customers need to log in.
- You own every file. There is nothing to buy back later and nothing you cannot take with you.
- We work across Port St. Lucie, Stuart, Fort Pierce, and Vero Beach, and you can sit down with us in person.
How much does a website cost once you get specific
Two sites can both be good and cost very different amounts. Nearly all of the gap comes down to four things.
How many pages you need. A five-page site for a trade, a shop, or a clinic is a smaller job than a site with a page for every service you offer and a library of articles behind it. Most owners need fewer pages than they expect, and we will say so when that is the case.
Whether the words and photos exist yet. If you already have your own copy and real photographs of your work, the build moves quickly. If the pages still have to be written, that is genuine work and it shows up in the price.
Whether the site has to talk to anything. A site that tells people who you are and how to reach you is straightforward. A site that has to drop a booking into your calendar, take a card, or update a record in software you already run is a bigger job, and it is worth being clear about that up front.
Whether customers need to log in. The moment people have accounts, you are running software rather than a brochure. That is where the $1,500 line sits.
What $500 gets you
When people ask how much does a website cost, this is usually the number they
mean. It buys a working marketing site: a handful of pages, written and laid out
properly, quick to load, readable on a phone, and built so Google can make sense
of it. It is the site most owners have in mind when they decide it is finally
time to do something about theirs. What goes into one, and how we build it, is on our web design in Port St. Lucie page.
Speed is worth singling out, because it is the one part of this you can check for yourself in about a minute. Google publishes a free tool called PageSpeed Insights. Put your current address into it and you will get a score and a list of what is slowing the page down. Bring us the result if you like. It is a straight answer from a source with no stake in what we quote you.
It is also an honest floor rather than a teaser. We would rather tell you the starting number and then talk about what your particular job needs than quote you a range so wide it tells you nothing. If you are comparing web design pricing around the Treasure Coast, ask every shop what their number includes. The gaps are usually in the words, the photos, and who owns the result.
When a website turns into a web app
Plenty of businesses on the Treasure Coast need more than a set of pages. A clinic wants patients to book their own appointments. A shop wants to sell online. A nonprofit wants members to sign in and renew. A contractor wants quotes to land in the same place every time.
That is software, and it starts at $1,500. The number moves with what the
software has to do, and the honest way to find out is to describe the job to us
and let us tell you.
The screenshot here is a resident portal and bookkeeping dashboard from a property-management app we built. It is a fair picture of where the $1,500 line leads once a business needs real software behind the pages. More of what we have built, for local businesses and organizations alike, is on our work page, and it is worth a look before you decide which of these two numbers is yours.
What you pay after the site is live
Your domain name is the one thing that always sits outside this. It is billed once a year by whoever you register it with, it is small, and it is yours. Hosting is included in every care plan below, so it is not a separate line on your bill.
Then there is looking after the site, and this is the part that can pay for your build. Once a site is live, a small team of AI agents watches it, tests it, and keeps it patched, with a person on our team accountable for anything that changes. That runs on a hosting and care plan:
- Essential, $49 a month. Hosting, security and software updates, weekly backups, uptime monitoring, and email support. Enough to keep a brochure site safe and online.
- Standard, $99 a month. Everything in Essential, plus monthly content edits, a 24-hour response, form and plugin upkeep, and a check-in every quarter. It suits a local business that wants upkeep and the occasional small change.
- Premium, $199 a month. Everything in Standard, plus same-day priority changes, performance tuning, a phone support line, and a named person who owns your account. This is for a site that changes often and cannot go down.
Take any of those and the $500 marketing site is free. You are paying for the upkeep, and we build the site as part of it. On the bigger jobs, the web apps at $1,500 and up, a plan earns a discount that varies with the size of the work, so it is worth asking before you decide.
If you run several sites or brands and want a custom arrangement, that is a conversation rather than a price. The full detail on every plan is on our services page.
You own what you paid for
When the work is finished, every file is yours: the code, the content, the images, the domain, the accounts. If you ever want to take it to somebody else, you can, and you will not need our permission or a payment to do it.
This matters more than it sounds. If your current site was built on somebody else's platform, you may only find that out at the worst possible moment, when you want to change something and discover you cannot. That is a bad afternoon, and it is an avoidable one.
Questions we get asked
Can I pay in stages? Ask us. We would rather set that out at the start than have it become awkward halfway through.
How long does it take? It depends on the same four things that drive the price, and mostly on how quickly the words and photos come together. That part is usually the bottleneck, and it is usually on your side.
How much does a website cost to run each year? Your domain, plus a care plan if you want one. That comes to $588 a year at the Essential rate and $1,188 at Standard. Hosting and the $500 build are both included in either one.
Can I see something you have built? Yes, and you should ask that of anyone you are considering. Ours is on the work page.
Do I need a new site, or can mine be fixed? Sometimes the existing site is sound and only needs work. We will tell you when that is true, even though it is the smaller job.
What if I only need one page? Then you should pay for one page. Tell us that is what you want.
Where to start
How much does a website cost is the question most owners want settled first, and now you have our numbers: $500 for a marketing site, nothing up front if you take a care plan from $49 a month, and $1,500 once it becomes real software. If you have a figure in your head and you want to know what it buys in Port St. Lucie, say so and we will tell you straight. If you are still working out whether you need a new site at all, that is a fine conversation to have too. You can see what we have built on the work page, read the plans in full on our services page, or just get in touch.