How Much Does a
Website Really Cost?
The Honest Answer.

Squarespace costs $192–$780 per year depending on your plan (Personal at $16/mo to Commerce Advanced at $65/mo, billed annually). That's just the platform fee — you build and manage the site yourself. If you hire a Squarespace designer, add $1,500–$5,000 for their time. There's also a transaction fee (0–3%) on sales depending on your plan tier. Over 3 years, a Squarespace Business plan costs roughly $830 in subscription fees — and that doesn't include your time maintaining it.

Wix pricing covers the platform subscription only ($17–$159/mo billed annually). That includes website hosting, SSL, and access to Wix's drag-and-drop builder. It doesn't include professional design, SEO work, copywriting, or ongoing updates. The higher Wix tiers (Business and Business Elite) add e-commerce features and priority customer support. For most small businesses, the Business plan at $36/mo is the relevant tier — but you're still building and maintaining the site yourself at that price.

Wix starts slightly cheaper ($17/mo vs. Squarespace's $16/mo) but the difference is negligible. Squarespace generally produces better-looking results for non-designers because its templates are more opinionated and harder to break. Wix is more flexible but that flexibility means you can also make a mess. For a small business that's going to DIY their site, Squarespace is usually the safer choice. For a small business hiring a professional, neither platform matters much — the designer makes the difference, not the builder.

WordPress software is free, but running a WordPress site costs $60–$600 per year in infrastructure: hosting ($5–$50/month), a domain ($12–$20/year), and usually a premium theme ($50–$200 one-time) or page builder ($50–$300/year). Managed WordPress hosting (WP Engine, Kinsta) runs $25–$100/month but includes better performance and support. A basic WordPress site costs about $120–$400/year to run. A fully managed, professionally built WordPress site from FactoryJet starts at $2,499 — you own it outright and pay only your hosting afterward.

Squarespace is worth it for a small business if: you have the time to build and maintain a site, your business doesn't rely heavily on organic search traffic, and you don't need custom functionality. It's not worth it if: your website is your primary lead generation channel, you want to rank well in Google (Squarespace's SEO ceiling is low), or you need anything beyond what their templates support. For businesses that need a site that actually works — meaning it ranks, converts, and runs fast — a professionally built custom site is worth the extra investment.

US web design agencies charge $8,000–$50,000+ because they carry significant overhead: US salaries, office space in major cities, large teams (account managers, project managers, UX researchers, copywriters, QA testers), and enterprise-level processes for projects that often don't need them. A $20,000 agency project might involve 10 people each billing $150–$250/hour. FactoryJet is structured differently — a senior-only engineering team based in India, no agency overhead, US-facing service. That's how we deliver the same quality at 60–70% lower cost.

Freelance web designers typically charge $50–$150/hour in the US, or $1,000–$10,000 flat for a small business website. Junior freelancers on platforms like Upwork charge $25–$50/hour; experienced US-based freelancers charge $75–$150/hour. Budget freelancers from overseas platforms charge $10–$30/hour but quality is inconsistent. The risk with freelancers is that one person handles everything — and if they get sick, go quiet, or just do poor work, you have limited recourse. Fixed-price projects with an agency carry more accountability.

Hire a web designer if your website is going to generate leads or revenue for your business — the difference between a $0 DIY site and a $2,000 professionally designed site is visible in conversion rates, Google rankings, and how your brand comes across. Use a website builder yourself if your business is purely referral-based, you need something to exist rather than something to convert, and you're happy to spend 30–50 hours building and maintaining it. For any business where the website is a growth channel, professional design pays for itself quickly.

A $500 website typically gets you a template with your content swapped in, minimal SEO setup, no conversion optimization, and no meaningful support after launch. A $5,000 website gets you a custom design built around your brand and audience, technical SEO that actually gives you a shot at ranking, performance optimization (Lighthouse 90+ scores), conversion-focused layouts, proper analytics setup, and 30+ days of post-launch support. The real-world difference in leads generated and customer perception is far larger than the price gap.

Several factors drive website cost up: the number of pages (more pages = more design and development time), custom functionality (booking systems, calculators, member portals, API integrations), e-commerce (product catalogs, payment processing, inventory management), custom photography or video, advanced animations, multilingual support, and the need for ongoing maintenance contracts. The biggest cost driver at agencies is complexity that could be avoided with better scoping. At FactoryJet, we scope carefully upfront so your fixed price includes everything and surprises don't appear mid-project.

Yes, significantly. WordPress and Webflow are the most cost-efficient platforms for professionally built sites — they have mature ecosystems that reduce custom development time. Shopify is the right choice for e-commerce but adds a monthly platform fee. Next.js and custom React builds are the most powerful but also the most time-intensive. DIY builders like Squarespace and Wix are cheapest upfront but the ongoing subscription fees and maintenance time add up over 3–5 years. FactoryJet builds on WordPress, Webflow, Next.js, and Shopify — we'll recommend the right platform for your use case and budget.

At FactoryJet, on-page SEO is included in every website project — meta titles, descriptions, schema markup, sitemap generation, image alt text, header structure, Core Web Vitals optimization, and Google Search Console submission. What's not included in a standard build is ongoing SEO (content strategy, link building, monthly rankings work) — that's a separate service. Many agencies charge extra for even basic on-page SEO setup. We think that's wrong — a website that isn't set up for search from day one is a website that doesn't perform.

Professional website copywriting typically costs $75–$200 per page from a freelance copywriter, or $500–$2,000 for a full 5-page website. Many web design projects don't include copy — you're expected to provide your own text. FactoryJet includes basic copywriting guidance and can connect you with copywriting partners, but most projects rely on client-provided content. If writing isn't your strength, budgeting $500–$1,500 for a copywriter alongside your website design spend is worth it — the words on your site matter as much as the design.

FactoryJet's website pricing starts at $1,999 for a custom 5-page website, delivered in 7 days. E-commerce stores start at $2,999. Larger sites with 10–15 pages start at $3,499. Web application development starts at $7,999. All projects are fixed price — you know the number before we start, and it doesn't change. Compared to US agencies charging $8,000–$40,000 for equivalent work, FactoryJet delivers the same professional quality at 60–70% lower cost because our engineering team is based in India while we serve US clients directly.

FactoryJet's engineering team is based in India, where senior developer salaries are 70–80% lower than US equivalents. We don't carry US office overhead, large account management teams, or enterprise-level process bureaucracy. We're a lean, senior-only team that has built 500+ websites since 1999 — we're fast and accurate because we've solved most problems before. The savings go directly to you. The work quality is the same: the same Next.js, the same WordPress, the same Lighthouse 100 scores your US agency would deliver.

Yes — for 5-page websites, 7 business days from the moment we receive your content (text, logo, images). The clock starts when your content is in, not when you sign the contract. Most projects hit the 7-day target. Larger projects (10+ pages, e-commerce, web apps) take 2–4 weeks depending on scope. The 7-day guarantee is backed by our track record — we've delivered 500+ websites since 1999 and our processes are built around moving fast without sacrificing quality.

FactoryJet builds on WordPress, Webflow, Next.js, and Shopify — whichever is the right fit for your use case. For most small business sites, we recommend WordPress (widest ecosystem, easiest for you to manage) or Webflow (cleaner CMS, no plugin maintenance). For e-commerce, we build on Shopify or WooCommerce. For high-performance custom applications, we use Next.js on Cloudflare. We don't build on Squarespace or Wix for client projects — those platforms cap what we can achieve for you technically.

A fair web design quote should be itemized enough that you know what you're paying for. Red flags: vague "discovery" fees with no defined deliverable, hourly billing with no cap, "design" and "development" billed separately at $150+/hour each, and maintenance retainers required to keep your site working. A fair quote includes a clear scope, a fixed price or hard estimate, defined deliverables, and a payment schedule tied to milestones. FactoryJet quotes are fully fixed — scope, price, and timeline agreed before work starts.

Own it outright wherever possible. Monthly "website as a service" arrangements from agencies (typically $200–$500/month) sound affordable but add up to $2,400–$6,000/year — and if you stop paying, the website disappears because you never owned the code. A $2,000–$5,000 website you own outright pays for itself in under two years vs. a monthly arrangement, and you're never dependent on a single vendor. FactoryJet delivers full code ownership on launch day — your site, your GitHub repo, your hosting account.

Ask these before signing anything: Is the price fixed or hourly? Who owns the code when the project ends? What platform are you building on and can I take it elsewhere? Do you include SEO setup or is that extra? What does the post-launch support cover and for how long? Who is my point of contact and how quickly do you respond? Can I see 5 recent websites you've built that are live? A good agency answers these clearly and confidently. Vague answers to pricing and ownership questions are a red flag.

Budget $50–$150/month for self-managed website maintenance (hosting, domain, plugin updates, backups). If you want someone else to handle it, managed maintenance services run $100–$500/month depending on scope. FactoryJet includes 30 days of post-launch support in every project at no extra charge. After that, simple maintenance (WordPress updates, plugin management, minor content changes) can be handled by most non-technical business owners with a tool like ManageWP, or by a VA for $100–$200/month.

Yes — and the reason is AI search. Google's AI Overviews, ChatGPT, and Perplexity are now the first stop for many business searches. Websites that are technically sound, fast, and structured with proper schema markup are the ones getting cited in AI answers. Websites built on outdated platforms, loading slowly, or missing structured data are becoming invisible. The businesses investing in quality websites now — not templates, not website builders — are the ones who'll dominate local and category search in the next 3–5 years.