The short answer: a custom website for a Duluth small business costs $3,500 with us, or $5,000 for an online store, plus $100 a month to host. Those are our published prices, the same for every client. Other options cost more or less, depending on who does the work and what the site has to do.
Below: what’s in each price, what moves the number, and how to compare quotes.
By Matt Lambert, SEO & Co-Owner of Building the Dream Duluth. We’ve built websites for Twin Ports businesses since 2018.
What our websites cost
| Option | Price | Billed |
|---|---|---|
| Informational site | $3,500 | Half up front, half on completion |
| Ecommerce site | $5,000 | Half up front, half on completion |
| Hosting, management & security | $100 a month | Monthly, after launch |
| Growth plan with website and SEO | From $1,800 a month | Monthly |
Full details are on our pricing page.
What $3,500 gets you
An informational site is the right fit for most service businesses: contractors, clinics, shops that don’t sell online, professional offices. Ours include:
- Custom design and development, not a theme with your logo on it
- Pages for your business, your services and the area you serve
- Contact and call-to-action options on every page
- A layout built for phones first, because that’s where most local customers find you
You own the site when it’s finished. It’s built on WordPress, so you can move it, edit it or hire someone else later without starting over.
When it’s $5,000
If you sell products online, you need an ecommerce site. On top of everything above, it includes full shopping cart integration and product setup. The extra cost is the work of building category and product pages, setting up shipping, pickup and checkout, and testing that an order goes through on a phone.
What changes the price of a website
When two quotes for “a website” are thousands of dollars apart, it’s usually one of these:
- How many pages it needs. A business with six services in four towns needs a page for each service, or Google has nothing to match to those searches. A three-page site is cheaper and ranks for less.
- Who writes the words. Copy written around what your customers search for takes time. A quote that expects you to supply all the text will look lower.
- Selling online. A store has to handle products, stock, shipping and payments, which is why ecommerce costs more almost everywhere.
- What it connects to. Booking calendars, a CRM, review requests and call tracking all add setup work.
- What happens after launch. Some prices include hosting and updates. Others hand you the site and leave the rest to you.
The monthly cost after launch
A website keeps costing money after it goes live: hosting, security, plugin updates and the small changes every business needs. Ours is $100 a month and covers website hosting, daily off-site backups, security monitoring and unlimited minor edits with a four-day turnaround.
When you compare quotes, ask each one what happens when something breaks on a Friday night, and who updates the site when your hours or prices change. A cheap build with no plan for that often costs more by the end of the first year.
A website on its own, or a growth plan?
A one-time website makes sense when you mostly need a professional place to send people who already know you. If you need the site to bring in new customers from Google, the website is only half the job: it needs ongoing local SEO, a Google Business Profile that’s kept up, and someone watching what turns into calls.
That’s what our growth plans are for. The Element plan is $1,800 a month and includes custom website development, local SEO, Business Profile work, our LeadLifter CRM, and hosting, maintenance and security. Larger plans add link building, blog posts and ads management.
Do it yourself, freelancer or agency?
- A website builder you set up yourself costs the least up front and the most of your time. It can work for a brand-new business; it’s hard to grow into a site that ranks across several services and towns.
- A freelancer can be a good middle ground for a small site. Ask who hosts it, who fixes it, and what happens if they’re no longer available.
- An agency costs more than doing it yourself and should give you more in return: research into what your customers search for, pages built to rank, and someone accountable after launch.
How to compare website quotes
Put these questions to everyone who quotes your site:
- Do I own the website when it’s done, and can I move it?
- What does hosting and maintenance cost after launch, and what does it include?
- Will each of my services get its own page?
- Is the site built for phones first?
- Who writes the words, and are they written around what customers search for?
- Will you set up my titles, headings and Google Business Profile link, or is that extra?
- How fast do edits happen once the site is live?
Find out what your site needs
If you already have a website, the best way to price the next one is to measure the one you have. Our free SEO audit checks your site, your Google Business Profile and your local rankings, and shows what’s worth fixing before you spend anything. Or see how we design websites for Twin Ports businesses.
Planning ads to fill the new site? Our marketing budget calculator estimates a monthly ad budget for your trade from the jobs you want.
