VectorUX
Resources · 6 min

What a custom website costs in 2026 (real numbers)

In 2026 a professionally built small-business website costs $2,000–$10,000 for a 5–8 page site, with maintenance at $95–$300 a month. AI website builders cost $50–$500 a year but stop at the basics. Vector UX builds custom sites from $3,500, with most 6-page local-service sites landing between $3,500 and $5,500 and live in 3–5 weeks.

The market in one table

OptionTypical 2026 costGood forWhere it stops
AI website builder$50–$500 / yearA first site in an afternoonLocal SEO, integrations, speed with media, ownership
Template + freelancer$800–$2,500A clean brochure siteStrategy, schema, performance tuning
Studio (us)$3,500–$15,000A site that has a job: rank, convert, integrateEnterprise-scale content operations
Traditional agency$10,000–$40,000Large brands with many stakeholdersSpeed and price for a small company

What we actually quote

We publish three scenarios because they cover most requests. A 6-page local-service site (home, services, projects, about, contact, request a bid) runs $3,500–$5,500 and takes 3–4 weeks. A 12–15 page professional site with service pages and articles runs $5,500–$8,500. A site with an interactive tool, such as an estimator or a configurator, runs $8,000–$15,000.

What moves the number

  • Integrations. Booking, a CRM, or payments each add $400–$1,500 and a few days.
  • A login. A customer or team area adds about $4,000 because it adds accounts, roles, and security.
  • Copy. Writing every page from interviews adds $1,200 and a week; it is usually worth it.
  • Photography. Real photos of real work are the single biggest quality lever and cost us nothing to use.
  • Pages. Pages matter less than people expect. Ten pages that say the same thing cost more than five that each do a job.

What does not cost extra

Schema markup, a sitemap, an llms.txt file, submissions to Google and Bing, a Lighthouse 100 target, and 30 days of post-launch support. Those are the foundation, not add-ons.

The maintenance question

Our Care plan is $95 a month: hosting, updates, backups, monitoring, and small changes in 2–3 business days. The market range is $150–$300; ours is lower because the sites are static-first and do not need patching every week.

If you want a number for your project before a call, the estimator on this site uses the same table we quote from.

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