The quick answer
There’s no single price because there’s no single product: a five-page barbershop site and an online store with hundreds of products are both “a website.” For a typical local business site, here’s where published prices sat when we checked in September 2026:
| Who builds it | What it costs |
|---|---|
| You, on a builder like Squarespace | Your time, plus $19–$25 a month for Squarespace’s Basic plan |
| A freelancer | Usually hourly: $15–$75 an hour in Thumbtack’s published averages |
| A Minnesota studio | Starting prices of $2,500–$3,500 for a small site, plus hosting (from $240 a year at one studio) |
| Gramberg Media | From $500 for the build, plus a care plan from $75/mo with hosting and 2 edits a month |
Each figure is sourced below. The build is only half the bill: hosting, the domain, email and edits keep charging long after launch, and that’s where quotes get hardest to compare.
Compare three-year totals, not build prices
For every quote you get, add the build price to 36 months of hosting, domain, email and edits. It’s the only fair way to line up a DIY builder, a freelancer and a studio.
What drives small business website cost
Quotes that look nothing alike are built from the same few ingredients. Once you can see them, a $500 quote and a $5,000 quote become comparable.
- Pages. Home, services, about, contact, and hours and location make up the classic small site. Every extra service page, location or city page means more writing and more building.
- Words. Some quotes assume you’ll write every page yourself. Having the copy written for you is real work and a real line item, so check which one you’re being quoted.
- Photos. Phone photos of your real work cost nothing. A hired photographer or purchased images cost extra.
- What the site has to do. Pages that inform are the cheapest kind. Online booking, ordering, payments and anything wired into your other software add build time. Linking to the booking tool you already pay for, as Phantom Fades does with Booksy on each service page, costs far less than building booking from scratch.
- Template or custom-coded. Filling in a theme takes the builder fewer hours. Custom-coded work is shaped around how your customers buy, which takes more skill, though not necessarily more of your money.
- Local search pages. Page titles, structured data and a sitemap are the basics. Separate pages for each city you serve are extra pages with their own writing; V the Barber’s site has 7 of them under a service-area hub.
- Replacing an old site. A redesign should redirect every old page address to its new home so you keep what Google already knows about you. Our guide to redesigning without losing rankings covers the details.
- How many people touch it. An account manager, a designer, a developer and a project manager all bill hours. When the person you talk to is the person who builds the site, there are fewer hours to bill.
What DIY builders, freelancers and Minnesota studios charge
We checked these prices in September 2026. Prices change, so follow the links before you set a budget.
Build it yourself on a website builder
Builders like Squarespace and Wix rent you templates and an editor for a monthly fee. Squarespace’s pricing page (opens in a new tab) listed its Basic plan at $25 a month, or $19 a month billed annually. The software is inexpensive. The real cost is your time: choosing a template, writing every page, sizing photos and relearning the editor each time your hours change.
DIY is a reasonable start when money is tight and the business is simple. It’s the wrong call if the site will sit untouched for a year, because old prices and old hours send customers to the next listing. If you’re weighing a builder against a free social page, read do you need a website if you have a Facebook page.
Hire a freelancer
A freelancer might be a student or a senior developer, so this option has the widest spread in both price and quality. Thumbtack’s guide to hiring a web designer, on its Minneapolis page, gives these typical hourly rates:
Basic layout and user interface: $15-$40 per hour. Content management system design: $20-$50 per hour. Custom website design with custom code: $45-$75 per hour.
The same page says to count on at least 10 hours for a very basic site. Hourly billing puts the risk on you: if the project drags, the bill grows. Before you hire, ask who will host the site, who holds the logins, and who makes changes next year if the freelancer moves on.
Hire a Minnesota studio or agency
A studio brings a team and a track record, and prices to match. Three Minnesota studios that publish prices put their small-site starting points between $2,500 and $3,500:
| Studio | What it publishes |
|---|---|
| Gasman Design (opens in a new tab), Minneapolis | “Professional website (5–8 pages): $2,500 – $4,500” |
| Mankato Web Design (opens in a new tab) (based in Minneapolis) | “Template-Based WordPress Website: $3,500 – $5,500” for 5–10 pages |
| Watermark Design (opens in a new tab), Elk River | “Our smallest package starts at $2,500.” |
Most established businesses fall into the $4,500–$10,000 range, depending on the level of customization, content, and strategy involved.
For larger or more complex sites, the same studios publish prices of $10,000 and up. Higher tiers generally add pages, custom features and written content.
What a website costs with us
We’re a Lakeville studio, and we publish our floor too. Websites start at $500 for a typical local business site, usually 5 pages. Larger sites, online stores and multi-location builds are priced on a short call. Care plans start at $75/mo and cover hosting, security, updates, monitoring and 2 content edits a month, with extra edits at $30 each. Care is month-to-month, with no long-term contract.
Why the gap between our floor and the studio range? Every site is custom-coded by the person you talk to, with no committee and no hand-offs, and we’ve built enough local sites that the process is tight. V the Barber went from first build to live on his own domain, booking included, in 5 days. After launch, the care plan is the relationship, and since it’s month-to-month, we keep it only by keeping your site working.
You also don’t pay to find out whether you like it:
Tell us about your business
Four quick questions on our start page. It takes about two minutes.
We build a preview of your homepage
On your real business, with your services, hours and photos. The preview is free.
You review it on your phone
Love it: half to finish, half at launch (websites from $500). Not for you: you owe nothing.
Care plan from $75/mo
Hosting, security, monitoring and monthly edits, month-to-month.
If the website is the start of something bigger, monthly marketing packages start at $300/mo (Starter), and custom software starts at $5,000. If you run ads, that spend is separate and paid directly to Google or Meta. The full breakdown lives on our pricing page.
The monthly costs owners forget
The build is paid once. These bills keep coming every month or year, whoever builds the site, and together they’re the honest answer to what website maintenance costs.
| Recurring cost | What it runs |
|---|---|
| Domain name (.com) | $11.08 a year at Porkbun (opens in a new tab) to $20 a year at Squarespace (opens in a new tab) |
| Hosting on its own | From $240 a year at Watermark Design (opens in a new tab) |
| Builder plan with hosting | $19–$25 a month for Squarespace Basic (opens in a new tab), billed annually or monthly |
| Email at your own domain | $7 per user per month for Google Workspace Business Starter (opens in a new tab), before tax |
| Maintenance plan | $50–$200 a month (opens in a new tab) for basic and standard plans in one Minneapolis studio’s guide |
| Edits after launch | Included hours, hourly billing or a price per change; ours are $30 each past the 2 included every month |
That studio’s maintenance guide (opens in a new tab) also lists what the money buys. Its basic tier covers updates, backups, security scanning and uptime monitoring, and its standard tier adds performance work, monthly reporting and 1–2 hours of content changes.
- The free first year. Builder plans often include a free domain for the first year. Read the renewal line before you count on it.
- Email is a separate bill. Your website and your email share a domain but are usually billed separately. Each person who needs an address is another seat, and a careless website move can break email that was working fine.
Domains registered through this promotion will renew at our standard rate, plus applicable taxes, after the first year.
Questions to ask before you sign
Ask every builder, including us
- What’s in the build: how many pages, who writes the words, and how many rounds of changes?
- What does hosting cost after the first year, and what does it include?
- Whose name is the domain registered in? It should be yours.
- How do I request an edit, and what does one cost?
- What happens to my email when the new site goes live?
- Will I see the finished site before I pay in full?
- Is there a contract, and how do I cancel?
- How long will it take, and what do you need from me? Our website timeline guide shows what to expect.
With us, your domain name, your content and your photos are always yours, and you see a preview of your homepage before paying anything. Already have a site and want a second opinion first? Run our free website audit.
Get a real number for your business
Tell us about your business in four quick questions and we’ll build a free preview of your homepage to show you. Websites start at $500 and care at $75/mo, and if it’s not for you, you owe nothing.
You see your site before you pay.
Questions
How much does a small business website cost in Minnesota?
Minnesota studios that publish prices start between $2,500 and $3,500 for a small site, and larger builds run $10,000 and up. Doing it yourself on a builder runs about $19–$25 a month plus your time. Our websites start at $500 and care plans at $75/mo.
How much does website maintenance cost?
One Minneapolis studio’s guide puts basic plans at $50–$100 a month and standard plans at $100–$200. Our care plans start at $75/mo with hosting, security, monitoring and 2 content edits included, and extra edits are $30 each. See what a care plan covers.
Is a $500 website any good?
Judge the site, not the price tag. Ours are custom-coded, and you review a preview of your homepage on your phone before paying anything. Wishi Co., Phantom Fades, V the Barber and Farmington Steak House are all live if you want to click through real ones.
Who should own the domain name?
You, whoever builds the site. Register it in your name or your business’s name, and keep the login somewhere you can find it. With us, your domain name and your content are always yours.
Written by Gramberg Media in Lakeville, Minnesota. More guides.