Most small-business sites land somewhere between a few thousand and low five figures. That range is uselessly wide until you know what moves it, so here is what actually drives the number.
The four things that set the price
Page count. Not linearly — the first page is expensive because it establishes the design, and the tenth is cheap because it reuses it. Going from five pages to fifteen rarely triples the cost.
Custom functionality. A brochure site is one price. A site with a booking system, a customer login, or anything that talks to software you already run is a different project with a different number.
Content. Copy and photography are the most commonly underestimated line on any quote. If you supply them, you save real money. If you do not, someone has to write and shoot them, and that someone has to be paid.
Integrations. Every system your site has to talk to — a CRM, an accounting package, a scheduling tool — adds work, and adds a thing that can break later.
What you can usually skip
A custom animation library. A blog you will not write. A photo shoot when decent phone photos of your actual work would do better. An “SEO package” sold separately from the build, when the basics should be in the build already.
We would rather talk you out of these before you pay for them than have you notice a year later.
What you should never skip
Fast hosting, working analytics, and a real contact path. A site that loads slowly, cannot be measured, or makes it hard to call you is cheap in the same way a car with no brakes is cheap.
The question worth asking a quote
Ask what happens after launch. A lot of quotes end at go-live, and the first month is when everything you did not anticipate turns up. Find out who fixes that and whether it costs extra.
We include thirty days, because the alternative is being paid to fix our own loose ends, which is a bad incentive.
The honest summary
If someone quotes you a very low number, look for what has been removed — usually content, testing, or support. If someone quotes a very high number, ask which line items you could drop. A good quote survives that question. A bad one gets defensive.