How Much Does a Website Cost for a Home Service Business?

What a website costs a home service business depends on who builds it and how you pay. Doing it yourself on Wix or Squarespace starts under $20 a month, billed yearly. Two contractor agencies that post their prices start their builds at $12,000 and $15,000. Others fold the website into a monthly plan. So if one quote says $800 and another says $9,000, both can be fair. The question is what each one pays for, and for how long.

The top cost guides we read were written for software companies and B2B companies, the ones that sell to other businesses, and none says where its price ranges come from. This one uses published prices only: the builders' own pricing pages, agencies that post their packages, and the domain registrars. Every outside price is under Sources, with the date we checked it.

Why the prices you find online are so far apart

Search for what a website redesign costs and you'll find ranges like $2,000 to $15,000, or $50,000 to $150,000. Those pages were written by design agencies and software companies, for clients that sell software or sell to other businesses. One of them calls itself "A comprehensive website cost guide for Mid-sized B2B companies." Their budgets cover strategy workshops and online stores a roofer rarely needs.

"Average" is the wrong number to ask for, too. Clutch, a directory that collects prices from clients' reviews of web design firms, says most projects reviewed there cost less than $10,000, while the average is $38,105.39. That gap usually means a few very big projects pull the average up. Clutch's numbers cover every kind of web design project, but the lesson holds: the useful number is the one on your quote, and what it buys.

Hourly rates are one real reason quotes differ. Upwork puts the median web designer on its marketplace at $15 to $30 an hour, from contracts worldwide. Clutch says the web design companies on its shortlists charge around $100 to $149 an hour.

What you're paying for, whoever builds it

Every website has the same parts. A quote either covers each one or leaves it for you, so it helps to know the list before you read one.

The part	What it is	What it costs to keep
Domain	Your address, yourcompany.com, rented a year at a time	A .com renews at $18.48 a year at Namecheap and $22.99 at GoDaddy
Hosting	The computer your website lives on	Included with Wix and Squarespace. Otherwise a separate bill: our hosting guide has real prices
Updates and security	The software kept patched and safe	Wix and Squarespace run it for you. On a self-hosted WordPress website, one you run on your own hosting, someone has to do it: see Wix vs. WordPress
Edits	Changing a price, your hours, a photo, a service	Your time, an hourly rate, or what a plan includes
Business email	you@yourcompany.com	Google Workspace Business Starter: $7 a user a month on a yearly plan
Getting found	A page for each service, your Google listing, the monthly work	Ask whether anything happens after launch. Here's how to get your website to show up on Google

Your domain is your address. You rent it a year at a time from a registrar, the company that registers it to you, or to whoever buys it. The first year is often a deal: GoDaddy sells a .com for one cent the first year, with a three-year purchase required. The renewal is the price you'll keep paying. Wix and Squarespace include the first year free on their yearly plans, then it renews at their rate.

A quote that looks cheap often leaves some of these out. A quote that looks expensive may include all of them for years. You can't compare the two until you know which.

Three ways to pay: do it yourself, pay once, or pay monthly

Build it yourself on a website builder

Wix runs from $17 to $159 a month and Squarespace from $19 to $99 a month, billed yearly, with hosting included. Wix says plainly: "Displayed prices are for yearly subscriptions, paid in full at the time of purchase." The real cost is your hours, and the work to get found is still yours. If you go this way, here's which Squarespace plan a contractor needs.

Pay once for a build

Paying once makes the website a project with an end. Hook Agency, which builds for home service businesses, lists its standard website at $12,000, split into 12 payments of $1,000, and a custom one at $24,000. It adds that more complex websites can cost up to $50,000. Contractor Growth Network, which works with design-build remodelers, starts its websites at $15,000 and says its average is about $26,000, paid over the first six months alongside its SEO plans.

Neither pricing page mentions hosting. So ask what it costs to keep the website running after the last payment, and who changes your hours when they change.

Three years at each published price

Do it yourself, billed yearly

Wix Light$612

Squarespace Basic$684

Monthly plan, website included

Footbridge Media$8,964

One-time build, 12 payments

Hook Agency Standard$12,000

A monthly plan with the website included

A monthly plan rolls the website into one bill with the hosting and the upkeep, and on some plans the work to get you found. Footbridge Media, which markets contractors, charges $249 a month with no contract required, and says the website "is included at no cost in our monthly fee."

Ours, Foundation, is $349 a month: your website built, hosted and kept up to date, the monthly work to get you found on Google, and your Google listing managed. There's no setup fee, and it's month-to-month, cancel with one email. Your domain and business email are billed by your registrar and email provider, not by us. Here's how we build ours.

With any monthly plan, you pay no big bill up front, and you never finish paying. So before you sign one, ask what you keep when you stop.

Who owns the website and the domain when you stop paying

How you pay	Your domain	Your website
Wix	Can be bought and managed with another provider	Has to stay on Wix: it "needs to be hosted and operated on Wix's servers." Cancel the plan and it goes back to the free Wix address, with Wix ads
Squarespace	Can be transferred to another provider	Shows a "Website expired" message when you cancel. Some content exports to WordPress, but "Not everything will export."
One-time build	Belongs to whoever it's registered to	Depends on the contract. You still pay a host
Monthly plan	Belongs to whoever it's registered to	Depends on the terms. Ask before you sign

Your domain belongs to whoever it's registered to, and the registrar takes orders from them, or from whoever controls the account it sits in. ICANN, which oversees domain names, says "It is your right to transfer your domain name registration between registrars." But the transfer code is "a code created by a registrar to help identify the domain name holder and prevent unauthorized transfers," and your current registrar must confirm the holder wants to move it. If a web designer bought your domain in their own account years ago, every one of those steps goes through them.

So check today. Log in where your domain is registered and look at whose name and email it's under. If it isn't yours, ask to have it put in your name while everyone is on good terms. That's a change of registrant, and ICANN says the registrar confirms it, typically with "an email to the registered name holder." Under ICANN's current rules, a registrar can then lock the domain against moving to another registrar for 60 days, so don't leave it until you're switching.

Moving a domain runs through whoever holds it

Unlock itin the registrar account the domain sits inGet the transfer codeissued to the domain's holderConfirm the movethe current registrar checks with the holderIt movesonly once the holder says yes

Ownership promises are common, so ask to see them in the contract. Hook Agency's pricing page says "You own your website 100%." Footbridge Media's FAQ answers "Do I own the website?" with "Of course." Ours: your domain and your Google listing are in your name from day one. If you leave, you get your website files free once your balance is clear, with a license that never runs out.

Your Google listing works the same way. Google's rules for agencies say businesses must "retain ownership or co-ownership of their Business Profile at all times," so make sure the person who claims your Google Business Profile is you.

How to compare two quotes

Put both quotes into the same eight lines:

1. Build price, and when it's paid
2. Monthly price, and the minimum term
3. Hosting: included, or who and how much
4. Updates and security: who does them
5. Edits: who makes them, how fast, and at what cost
6. The work to get found after launch: what, if anything
7. The domain: registered in whose name
8. If you stop paying: what happens to the website and its files

Then add up three years for each: the build price, plus the monthly price times 36, plus anything the quote leaves out that you'd still have to pay for. For the questions about the platform itself, such as whether you can leave with the website, see what you're really choosing.

So what should a home service website cost?

There isn't one right price. If referrals keep your calendar full and you like doing it yourself, a builder at under $20 a month, billed yearly, is a fair place to start. If you want it built and then found, put a one-time build and a monthly plan side by side over three years, with every bill counted. Whichever you pick, make sure the domain is in your name.