What is the cheapest way to get a small-business website?

DIY builders like Wix (Light plan around $17/mo billed annually) or Squarespace (Basic around $16/mo) are the cheapest sticker prices - but you build and maintain the site yourself, and a domain and professional email are usually billed separately. Cheapest in dollars is not cheapest in evenings spent fighting a page editor.

What do home-services website companies charge?

Managed providers aimed at contractors commonly run roughly $99 to $350 per month. Watch the fine print: setup fees (Hibu has commonly charged around $449 up front with a 12-month commitment), and terms where you lose the site itself if you cancel. Reviewers and BBB complaints describe both patterns. Always ask: what exactly do I keep if I leave?

What hidden costs should I look for in a website plan?

Five recurring ones: setup fees, long-term contracts with early-termination charges, year-two renewal price jumps on intro offers, domain and email billed separately, and edit costs - either your own hours in a page builder or waiting on a support team for every change.

How much does RunCabin cost?

Starting at $499 one time to build the site, then $39.99 a month for hosting (or $479.88 a year). The build includes setting up your own domain, hosting, a photo gallery, a map, and a quote form that emails you. Optional tools are priced by complexity, and you see the total before you pay. No long contract, cancel the hosting anytime, no lead fees, and your domain stays yours.

RunCabin Blog · Buying guide

How much does a small-business website cost in 2026?

June 12, 2026 · 7 min read

Short answer: anywhere from about $16/mo (you do all the work) to $350/mo and up (someone else does), and the sticker price is rarely the real price. The real price hides in setup fees, 12-month contracts, year-two renewal jumps, domains and email billed separately, and one clause almost nobody reads: whether you keep the website - and the domain - if you cancel.

Here is the honest map of what local business owners actually pay, by category.

Option 1: DIY builders - cheap if your evenings are free

Builder	Typical price	What to watch
Wix	Light ~$17/mo, Core ~$29/mo (billed annually)	Free tier carries Wix branding; domain and email cost extra after year one
Squarespace	Basic ~$16/mo	No free tier; you design and maintain everything
GoDaddy (Airo)	Intro ~$5.99-$11.99/mo, renews ~$11.99-$22.99/mo	Intro pricing jumps at renewal; domain (~$13-20/yr) and email (~$60/yr) billed separately; the AI generates a first draft, then you are back to a page editor

The DIY trade-off is simple: the dollars are low because you are the web designer now. You pick the template, write the copy, wrestle the layout on mobile, and make every future change yourself. For some owners that is fine. For most trades, the site ships late or never, because actual paying work always comes first.

Option 2: Managed home-services website companies

These are the companies that call you after you register an LLC. Someone builds and maintains the site for you - at a very different price point.

Provider	Typical terms	What to watch
Hibu	~$99/mo, commonly with a ~$449 setup fee and a 12-month commitment	Cancel and you lose the site; BBB complaints describe billing continuing after written cancellation requests
Townsquare Interactive	~$129-$350/mo, month-to-month	On cancellation you lose access to the site and its design
ProPainter Websites	Billed quarterly, pricing not published	"Unlimited changes" are made by their team via requests, and they retain the domain

Read those right-hand cells again. The recurring pattern in this category is rented ground: the moment you stop paying, the site - sometimes the domain - is gone. One BBB complaint about Hibu from March 2026 reads: "I submitted written cancellation requests on November 29th, December 29th, and January 28th... additional charges continued to accrue." That is an individual complaint, not a statistic, but it is exactly the clause to check before signing anything: what do I keep if I leave? (Our answer, for the record: your domain. If you bought your domain through RunCabin and you cancel, we release it to you - transfer code and all.)

Option 3: Website bundled into a field-service CRM

Jobber and Housecall Pro both offer website builders - bundled into their field-service platforms. Jobber's site builder requires a Jobber plan (Core starts around $39/mo for a solo operator, scaling to several hundred for teams). Housecall Pro's website add-on runs around $40/mo on top of a base plan that starts around $59-$79/mo.

If you already want the full CRM - scheduling, invoicing, dispatch - the bundled site is a reasonable add. If you just want a website and leads in your inbox, you are buying a whole software suite to get a brochure.

Option 4: A freelancer or agency

Custom work varies too much to put an honest number on - quotes for a simple local-business site range from a few hundred dollars to well into four figures, plus hosting and an hourly rate for changes. The structural issue is not the build price; it is that every future edit (new phone number, new photos, holiday hours) goes through another human, on their timeline, often on their invoice.

The five costs that hide in the fine print

Setup fees - a few hundred dollars before anything goes live, often without saying exactly what they buy.
Contracts - 12-month commitments with early-termination charges.
Renewal jumps - intro pricing that doubles in year two.
A-la-carte essentials - domain, email, and SSL billed as extras.
The cost of changes - your evenings (DIY) or support tickets (managed).

Where RunCabin sits

We built RunCabin's done-for-you websites to make this comparison boring: starting at $499 to build, then $39.99 a month. You answer our questionnaire and we build the site with AI, then a web developer finishes every page (your name, your work, your city). You'll see your first version within 24 hours of sending your answers and photos. The $499 is a known, one-time build price, and you see the total, with any optional tools you pick, before you pay. Hosting, a photo gallery, and a quote form are included, your domain is billed at its yearly price, there is no long contract, you can cancel the hosting anytime, and every inquiry from your quote form lands straight in your inbox with no lead fees.

Whoever you hire, ask the same two questions before you pay anything: what exactly does the up-front fee buy, and what do I keep if I leave? Ours: the fee buys the finished site, and if you ever cancel, the domain is yours - we release it to you free, with the transfer code.

See exactly what you get

Answer our questionnaire and we build your site - your name, your work, your city. It's built with AI and finished by a web developer. Starting at $499 to build, then $39.99 a month.

Start our planner →