If you've started asking around about what a website costs, you've probably gotten answers ranging from "free" to "fifteen grand." Both are technically true, and neither is helpful.
I build websites for small businesses around Leander, Cedar Park, Georgetown, and Liberty Hill, so I hear this question weekly, usually from a shop owner who got a quote that felt like a mortgage payment or a "free" builder that turned into $600 a year in add-ons. This guide breaks down what things actually cost in 2026, where the hidden fees live, and what a small business site that ranks and brings in calls should run you.
The short answer
For a professionally built 5-page website for a local service business in Central Texas, expect $1,500 to $5,000 as a one-time project, or $100 to $300 per month on a subscription plan. DIY builders look cheaper up front but usually land between $300 and $900 per year once you add the features you actually need, and you're doing all the work yourself.
Now the longer answer, because what's inside those ranges matters more than the numbers themselves.
Option 1: DIY builders (Wix, Squarespace, GoDaddy)
Advertised cost: Free to $20/month
Real cost: $300 to $900+ per year, plus your time
The builders are genuinely good tools, and for some businesses they're the right call. If you have a few free evenings, some patience, and a business where customers mostly find you through referrals anyway, a Squarespace site you built yourself is better than no site.
Here's what the ads don't mention:
- The free plan isn't usable for a business. It puts the builder's ads on your site and gives you a URL like yourbusiness.wixsite.com, which looks about as professional as a Hotmail address. You need a paid plan to connect your own domain.
- The plan you actually need costs more than the plan they advertise. The teaser price is usually the annual-billing rate for the most limited tier. Add a domain ($20/year), business email ($6-7/month per inbox, since it's rarely included), and any upgrade for forms, scheduling, or SEO tools, and you're in the $40-75/month range fast.
- Your time is the biggest line item. Most owners I talk to who tried the DIY route spent 20-40 hours on it. If your hourly rate doing your actual trade is $75, that's $1,500-$3,000 of your time to produce a site that usually still has slow images, a broken mobile menu, and no Google Business Profile connection.
The DIY route makes sense if money is genuinely tighter than time. For a business where the phone ringing is worth $200-$2,000 a call (landscapers, tire shops, contractors, salons), it's usually the expensive option wearing a cheap costume.
Option 2: Freelancers and marketplace sites (Fiverr, Upwork)
Cost range: $500 to $3,000, wildly inconsistent
You can absolutely find talented people on the marketplaces. You can also find someone who will deliver a template with your logo swapped in, built on a page builder you can't edit, hosted on an account you don't control.
The problems I see when local businesses bring me these sites to fix:
- No ownership. The freelancer registered the domain under their account, or the hosting is on their reseller plan. When they disappear (and marketplace freelancers disappear a lot), you're locked out of your own website. I've helped two Cedar Park businesses recover domains this way, and one couldn't be recovered at all.
- No local SEO. The site exists but Google doesn't connect it to "tire shop near me" or "landscaping Leander" searches, because nobody set up the Google Business Profile, local schema, or service-area pages. It's a brochure nobody can find.
- No accountability after delivery. Site breaks in six months? The gig ended in March.
If you go this route, the questions to ask before paying: Who owns the domain registration? Whose name is on the hosting account? What happens when I need a change next year? Vague answers to any of those are your cue to walk.
Option 3: Agencies
Cost range: $5,000 to $15,000+, plus $200-$500/month retainers
Traditional agencies do good work, and for a business with 15 locations and a marketing department, they're the right fit. For a five-person landscaping crew or a two-chair salon in Georgetown, you're paying for account managers, meetings about meetings, and an office lease.
Agency quotes for a basic small business site in the Austin metro commonly start at $5,000 and stretch past $10,000 once "discovery" and "strategy" phases get scoped in. Timelines run 8-16 weeks. The output is often excellent. It's also often more site than a local service business needs, at a price that takes years of new customers to pay back.
Option 4: A local designer with a fixed price
Cost range: $1,500 to $5,000 one-time
This is the middle path, and it's where I think most Central Texas service businesses should be shopping. A local designer (one person or a very small shop) doing this full-time can deliver agency-quality work without agency overhead, and being local means they understand that ranking for "website design cost Leander" and ranking for "affordable website design Cedar Park" are won differently than ranking in downtown Austin.
What should be included at this price, and what to check for:
- A 5-page site built mobile-first. More than 60% of local searches happen on a phone. If the designer shows you desktop mockups first, ask why.
- Local SEO basics done, not promised. Google Business Profile set up or cleaned up, correct name/address/phone everywhere, service pages targeting your actual towns, and the site submitted to Google.
- You own everything from day one. Domain in your name, hosting in your account, logins handed over. This is the single biggest thing separating a good deal from a trap.
- A real timeline. Two to four weeks is reasonable for a 5-page site. "It'll be done when it's done" is not.
- Speed. The site should load in under three seconds on a phone. Slow sites lose visitors and rank worse. Ask to see other sites they've built and load them on your own phone in the parking lot.
The hidden monthly fees, all in one place
Whatever route you pick, know the recurring costs going in:
| Item | Typical cost | Actually required? |
|---|
| Domain | $15-25/year | Yes |
|---|---|---|
| Hosting | $5-30/month | Yes (sometimes bundled) |
| Business email | $6-7/month per inbox | Strongly recommended |
| SSL certificate | Free (should be) | Yes, and if anyone charges you for one, leave |
| "SEO packages" | $100-500/month | Usually not, for a local business |
| Builder plan upgrades | $10-50/month | Only on DIY platforms |
| Maintenance retainers | $50-300/month | Optional; fine if you want hands-off updates |
The pattern to watch for is the low quote that recovers its margin in mandatory monthly fees. A $999 website with a required $150/month "care plan" is a $2,800 first-year website, then $1,800 every year after, forever, and you often don't own the site if you cancel.
What I charge, and why it's a flat number
At Corner Post Web, a complete small business website is $2,400 flat. Five pages, built mobile-first, local SEO and Google setup included, done in three weeks, and you own the domain, hosting, and site from day one. There's no required retainer and nothing extra shows up in month four.
I price it flat because I've watched too many local owners get quoted a friendly number and then bled by the meter. You should know the full cost of your website before you say yes, the same way your customers want to know the full cost of a brake job or a sod install before they say yes to you.
Is $2,400 the cheapest option on this page? No. The DIY builder is cheaper if your time is free and you don't need the site to bring in customers. But if one new customer is worth a few hundred dollars to you, a site that actually shows up in local searches pays for itself in the first handful of calls, and then it just keeps working.
Quick answers
How much does a website cost for a small business in Texas?
For a professionally built local business site: $1,500-$5,000 one-time, or roughly $100-$300/month on subscription models. Agencies run $5,000+.
Can I get a decent website for under $1,000?
On a DIY builder, yes, if you build it yourself and accept the yearly fees. From a professional, under $1,000 usually means a template swap with strings attached. Check who owns the domain.
What's the biggest pricing red flag?
Any arrangement where you don't own your domain and hosting. Everything else is fixable. That one isn't.
What should a website cost per month after it's built?
With full ownership, your real ongoing costs are the domain and hosting, typically under $30/month combined, often less. Anything above that should be for services you chose, not services you're stuck with.
Corey Putney runs Corner Post Web, a one-designer web studio in Central Texas building fast, mobile-first websites for local businesses in Leander, Cedar Park, Georgetown, and Liberty Hill. Questions about your project? Reach out at corey@cornerpostweb.com or 512-285-0332.