Most businesses do not spend a fortune keeping their website running. According to WebFX’s survey of 250 US marketing professionals, published January 2026, 57% of businesses spend $501 to $10,000 a year on their website, and a basic small-business build costs $6,500 to $15,000 up front. Above that, price climbs fast with company size and feature scope.
How much do businesses spend on their website every year?
Annual web design spend clusters well below what a lot of agency marketing implies. WebFX’s survey found 57% of respondents spend $501 to $10,000 a year total, with the single most common bracket being $5,001 to $10,000 at 18.35% of respondents. Spend above $50,000 a year is rare outside large companies, reported by only about 15% of the full sample.
That figure covers every kind of ongoing web design cost respondents reported, not just hosting: redesigns, new pages, style updates, and maintenance work all fall inside the same yearly number. It is the total, not a hosting bill.
Figure 1: Distribution of yearly web design spend across 250 surveyed US marketing professionals. Source: WebFX, “Web Design Pricing,” published January 2026.
A plain-language terms and conditions agreement costs nothing extra to add at any of these budget levels, but it is one of the few line items on this list that does not scale with company size or design complexity.
How much does it cost to build a website from scratch?
A one-time build is priced differently than the yearly maintenance figure above. WebFX puts a basic small-business build at $6,500 to $15,000, an intermediate mid-sized build at $15,000 to $50,000, and an advanced enterprise build at $50,000 to $100,000, based on its own 2026 pricing guidance for clients.
Figure 2: Midpoint of each pricing tier’s stated range. Source: WebFX, “Web Design Pricing,” published January 2026. Treat these as WebFX’s own quoted price bands, not an independently audited market average.
Individual features move the number further. WebFX lists ecommerce functionality at $5,000 to $25,000 depending on tier, database integration at $2,000 to $25,000, and SEO services separately at $2,000 to $10,000, all layered on top of the base build rather than included in it. That distinction matters most for stores: the more than 18 million online stores that exist worldwide in 2026 are, by definition, carrying the ecommerce line item, not just the base site.
Does website cost scale with business size?
Loosely, and with one clear outlier. WebFX’s data shows the smallest companies spend the least: 31% of micro businesses with 1-10 employees report yearly spend of just $501 to $1,000. Small businesses (11-50 employees) and mid-sized businesses (51-250 employees) both cluster around $2,501 to $5,000, at 21% and 29% of respondents respectively.
| Business size (employees) | Most common yearly spend | Share of respondents |
|---|---|---|
| Startup / micro (1-10) | $501-$1,000 | 31% |
| Small business (11-50) | $2,501-$5,000 | 21% |
| Mid-sized business (51-250) | $2,501-$5,000 | 29% |
| Large business (251-500) | $100,000-$150,000 | 19% |
| Enterprise (501+) | $2,501-$5,000 | 25% |
Source: WebFX, “Web Design Pricing,” published January 2026.
The large-business row is the outlier: companies with 251-500 employees report a modal spend more than twenty times higher than mid-sized or enterprise companies in the same survey. That jump likely reflects a subset of large companies mid-way through a full platform replatform in the survey window, not a stable norm for that size tier, and it is worth treating as an anomaly rather than a rule of thumb.
Who actually builds the website: in-house, agency, or freelancer?
Nearly as many businesses build their own website as hire it out entirely. 42% of WebFX’s respondents said their company builds its website in-house, 33% use an agency, and 26% use a freelancer.
Figure 3: Share of respondents reporting who does the web design work. Source: WebFX, “Web Design Pricing,” published January 2026.
The three paths carry different yearly cost profiles too: agency clients most commonly report $501 to $1,000 a year (22% of that group), while freelancer clients most commonly report $1,001 to $5,000 a year (37% of that group), a wider and somewhat higher-spending band.
DIY, freelancer, or agency: how do the options compare?
Cost and customization trade off against each other fairly predictably across the four common build routes. A do-it-yourself builder is cheapest and least customizable; an agency build costs the most but hands back the most control over design and functionality; freelancers and in-house teams sit between the two, in different ways.
Figure 4: Approximate positioning by typical cost and customization tradeoffs, synthesized from WebFX’s 2026 pricing tiers and yearly-spend brackets by build route above. Not a precision measurement of any single business.
Businesses picking a route are really picking a point on that cost-versus-control curve, and WebFX’s data suggests most land closer to the DIY and freelancer end than the agency end: only 33% report using an agency at all.
How much should a business actually budget for its website?
The right budget tier depends mostly on two questions: does the site need to process transactions, and how large is the company doing the building. Mapping WebFX’s pricing tiers onto those two questions gives a rough starting point.
Figure 5: A rough budgeting starting point, synthesized from WebFX’s 2026 build-cost tiers above. Source: WebFX, “Web Design Pricing,” published January 2026.
Whatever the answer, 42% of businesses in WebFX’s survey put 6% to 20% of their total marketing budget toward web design, and 83.73% said they were happy with the return once the site was live. Web design is rarely the single biggest marketing line item, but it is consistently a well-regarded one.
Is cost still stopping businesses from having a website at all?
Less than it used to. Among small businesses that still have no website, only 16% cite cost as the main reason today, down sharply from 26% in 2018, according to Clutch’s August 2025 survey of 406 US small business owners. The top reason has shifted to relevance: 34% say a website simply is not relevant to their industry.
Figure 6: Share of website-less small businesses citing cost as the main reason, two survey years. Source: Clutch, “The State of Small Business Websites in 2025,” August 2025.
With more than 36.2 million small businesses in the US as of February 2026, per the SBA Office of Advocacy, and 83% of them already online, the remaining holdouts are increasingly staying offline by choice rather than by budget. For the full breakdown of who has a website and who does not, see our small business website adoption data. A dedicated look at how platform choice, including WordPress specifically, changes that budget picture is not yet published on this site.
Website cost, at a glance
| Metric | Figure |
|---|---|
| Businesses spending $501-$10,000/year on their website | 57% |
| Micro businesses (1-10 employees) spending $501-$1,000/year | 31% |
| Basic small-business website build cost (one-time) | $6,500-$15,000 |
| Businesses building the site in-house rather than hiring out | 42% |
| Businesses satisfied with their web design ROI | 83.73% |
Source: WebFX, “Web Design Pricing,” published January 2026.
The Bottom Line
There is no single “average” website cost, because build cost and yearly running cost are two different numbers answering two different questions. Building a basic small-business site from scratch runs $6,500 to $15,000, while keeping it running afterward costs most businesses $501 to $10,000 a year, a gap that trips up a lot of budget planning. Company size moves the number more than anything else, business route (DIY, freelancer, agency, or in-house) moves it a second amount, and cost itself is no longer the main reason businesses skip having a website at all. Whatever the final number, the legal groundwork does not scale with the design bill: a plain-language terms and conditions agreement that sets out payment, liability, and dispute terms belongs in the budget at every tier on this page.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does a website cost per year? 57% of businesses spend $501 to $10,000 a year on their website, according to WebFX’s survey of 250 US marketing professionals, published January 2026. The most common single bracket is $5,001 to $10,000, reported by 18.35% of respondents.
How much does it cost to build a small business website from scratch? A basic small-business website costs $6,500 to $15,000 to build, rising to $15,000 to $50,000 for a mid-sized business and $50,000 to $100,000 for an enterprise-grade build, according to WebFX’s 2026 pricing data.
Do most businesses build their website in-house or hire someone? 42% build their website in-house, 33% hire an agency, and 26% hire a freelancer, according to WebFX’s survey of 250 US marketing professionals.
Is cost still the main reason businesses skip having a website? No. Only 16% of website-less small businesses cite cost as the reason, down from 26% in 2018, according to Clutch’s August 2025 survey of 406 US small business owners.
Sources and References
- WebFX. (2026). “Web Design Pricing: How Much Does a Website Cost?” Survey of 250 US-based marketing professionals, published January 2026.
- Clutch. (2025). “The State of Small Business Websites in 2025.” Survey of 406 US small business owners, conducted August 5, 2025, published August 21, 2025.
- SBA Office of Advocacy. (2026). “Frequently Asked Questions About Small Business, 2026.” Released February 2026.
Note: All figures verified as of September 2026. WebFX’s pricing data is a rolling, self-published page rather than a fixed-date report; the January 2026 publication timestamp is the most specific dating available for the underlying 250-respondent survey. Web design pricing shifts with platform and labor costs, so headline figures here are refreshed at least twice a year.
