The guide

Most small-business owners get one website quote in their life and assume the price is the price. It isn't. Here's what actually goes into a website in 2026, what each component reasonably costs, and where the markup hides.

1. The four real cost components

Every website is some combination of these four things. The quote you're looking at is the sum of them, plus whatever markup the agency adds for overhead and margin.

Component	Reasonable range	Notes
Design (custom, not template)	$500–$2,500	Single page → multi-page brand site
Development & integrations	$500–$5,000	Forms, CMS, integrations, AI
Content (copy + photos)	$0–$2,000	$0 if sourced from reviews/existing
Project management	$0–$2,000	$0 for solo studios; $$ for big agencies

2. What ongoing actually costs

Most agencies bury this. The truth is that a small-business website has real recurring costs — but they're smaller than you think.

Hosting: $0–$25/mo (Vercel hobby is free, Pro is $20). Most businesses don't need more.
SSL: free via Let's Encrypt. Anyone charging for SSL is overcharging.
Domain: $12–$20/year for a .com.
Maintenance: $30–$100/mo if you want managed hosting + light updates. Pure self-hosting is $0 but you're responsible for the headaches.
CMS license (if applicable): $0 for headless CMS or static; $99–$300/year for premium WordPress themes.

Total realistic ongoing for a small-business site: $30–$100/month. Not $500. Not $1,500.

3. Where the markup hides

When you see a $10,000 quote for a six-page WordPress site, the actual labor cost is closer to $1,500. The other $8,500 pays for:

Account managers, project managers, and meeting overhead at bigger agencies (often 30–50% of the bill).
Subcontractor margin — many regional firms outsource the build at 3–5x markup.
"Strategy" deliverables that mostly recycle the same questionnaire across clients.
Theme licensing and hosting bundled at 5–10x markup, locked into multi-year contracts.

None of those are bad in principle. They're bad when nobody tells you the breakdown.

4. AI workflows have a different cost shape

If your project includes AI (chatbots, agents, automation), the cost structure splits in three:

Build: one-time. $5K–$15K typical for a production AI workflow.
Care/maintenance: monthly, covers your provider's time. $200–$900/mo depending on complexity.
API costs: monthly, pass-through. $0–$500/mo for most workflows; $500+ for voice agents and high-volume pipelines.

Any agency quoting AI work without breaking these three apart is hiding the ongoing cost. Demand the breakdown before you sign.

5. What we actually charge

We're Stratus Creative. We publish our prices because most agencies don't.

Starter (productized website): $1,495 flat, ships in 5–7 days. Includes design, mobile-responsive build, Google Business Profile setup, click-to-call, basic SEO.
Custom (multi-page, brand systems, automation, AI): from $5,000, scoped per project.
Hosting: $49/mo (basic) or $99/mo (with monthly content updates).
AI Care: $199 / $399 / $899 per month depending on workflow complexity.
API costs: always pass-through, never bundled into our fees.

You can run our free AI workflow cost estimator to model your specific project before talking to anyone.

6. The questions to ask any agency

What's the line-item breakdown of this quote?
What does it cost monthly to host and maintain after launch?
Who actually does the work? In-house, freelance, or offshore?
Do I own the code, the design, the content, the domain — all of it — once I've paid?
What's the delivery timeline in business days, with milestones?
If I leave you tomorrow, what do I keep and what do I lose?
For AI work: what are the build, Care, and API costs as separate line items?

A serious agency answers all seven without flinching.

Have questions about your project? Talk to us — reply within one business day.