How Much Does a Website Cost for a Home Service Business?
The honest answer is anywhere from about $120 a year to several thousand dollars up front. Here is what each option really costs over three years, including the fees nobody mentions on the pricing page.
By the CraftLaunch team · Updated November 2026
For a small home-service business in 2026, a website costs roughly $120 to $230 a year in plan fees if you build it yourself on a site builder, plus a domain after the first year and any paid add-ons, a few hundred to a few thousand dollars up front if you hire a freelancer, more than that for a local agency, and a small setup fee plus a monthly payment for a done-for-you service. The cheapest option in cash is not always the cheapest overall, because your own time and the fees that show up in year two count too.
Below is what each option really includes, what it tends to cost over three years, and how to pick the one that fits a 1 to 10 person company.
The four ways to get a website
Almost every plumber, roofer, cleaner or HVAC company ends up in one of four places:
- Do it yourself on a builder like Wix, Squarespace or GoDaddy.
- Hire a freelancer for a one-time build.
- Hire a local agency for a custom project.
- Pay a done-for-you monthly service that builds, hosts and edits the site for you.
None of these is wrong. They just trade money, time and control in different ways.
Option 1: DIY website builders
Here are the entry-level paid plans on three popular builders, as listed on their US pricing pages in late 2026:
- Wix Light: about $17 to $18/month billed annually, so roughly $204 to $216 for the year.
- Squarespace Basic: about $19/month billed annually, or $25 if you pay month to month.
- GoDaddy Website Builder Starter: about $9.99/month billed annually.
Wix and Squarespace both include a free domain name for the first year on annual plans. That's a nice perk, but it's only for year one. After that the domain renews at the normal rate. For a sense of scale, Namecheap lists a standard .com renewal at about $20 a year.
What DIY really costs
The subscription is only part of the bill. A realistic first year looks like this:
- The plan: about $120 to $230 for the year on an entry plan.
- The domain: free in year one on many plans, then roughly $20 a year.
- Add-ons: online booking, review widgets, extra email inboxes and premium templates often cost extra or need a higher plan.
- Your time: this is the big one. Writing service pages, picking photos, setting up the contact form, and fixing the mobile layout can easily take a couple of weekends.
Put a number on that time. If the site takes you 20 hours and an hour of your time on a job is worth $75, that's $1,500 of your time on top of the subscription. If you enjoy this kind of work and have slow evenings in the off-season, DIY can be a great deal. If every hour at the computer is an hour not quoting jobs, it's often the most expensive option on this list.
For a side-by-side look at the builders themselves, see our guide on Wix vs. Squarespace vs. done-for-you.
Option 2: Hiring a freelancer
Freelancers range from a neighbor's kid who knows WordPress to experienced designers with a full portfolio. Upwork's own cost guide puts typical web designer rates at about $15 to $30 an hour, with full custom design work running about $45 to $75 an hour or more. Upwork also says a project can take anywhere from about 10 hours for a very small one to several dozen hours for a large custom design.
Multiply those rates by those hours and a contractor site from a freelancer lands somewhere in the hundreds of dollars on the low end and a few thousand on the high end, depending on who you hire and how many pages you need.
Hidden costs with freelancers
- Hosting and domain: often not included. You may pay for hosting separately every year.
- Edits after launch: usually billed by the hour. Changing your service area or adding a new service is a new invoice.
- Plugins and themes: WordPress sites often rely on paid plugins with yearly renewals.
- Disappearing acts: if your freelancer moves on, you may not have the logins you need. Always get the domain, hosting and admin logins in your name.
Option 3: Local agencies
An agency gives you a team: a designer, a writer, someone to handle the technical side, and usually a project manager. That's why agencies are typically the most expensive way to get a website. Pricing is quoted per project and varies a lot by city and by how custom the work is, so get at least two written quotes before you decide.
An agency makes sense when you have a bigger company, several locations, or you need something unusual, like a custom quote calculator or deep integration with your scheduling software. For a 3-truck operation that mostly needs the phone to ring, it's often more site than you need.
Hidden costs with agencies
- Monthly retainers for hosting, "maintenance" or SEO that start after launch.
- Change requests billed at agency hourly rates.
- Rebuilds: a custom site that isn't kept up can look dated in a few years, and the fix is often another full project.
Option 4: Done-for-you monthly services
These services build the site for you and then keep it running for a monthly fee. You don't touch the technical side. When you want a change, you ask and they make it. Pricing is usually a setup fee plus a monthly subscription.
The trade-off is ownership. With most monthly services, the design stays with the provider if you cancel, though you should keep your domain and your own photos and text. Read the cancellation terms before you sign, and make sure the domain is registered in your name.
Side-by-side: cost, what's included and hidden costs
| Option | Typical cost | What's usually included | Hidden costs to watch |
|---|---|---|---|
| DIY builder | About $120 to $230 a year on an entry plan (late 2026) | Templates, hosting, SSL, a free domain for year one on many annual plans | Domain renewals, paid add-ons, your own time, redesigning later yourself |
| Freelancer | Hourly or flat project fee; often hundreds to a few thousand dollars | Design and build of the pages you agree on | Hosting, plugin renewals, edits billed hourly, losing access if they move on |
| Local agency | Quoted per project; usually the highest of these options | Strategy, custom design, copywriting, launch | Monthly retainers, change requests, full rebuilds every few years |
| Done-for-you monthly | Setup fee plus a monthly payment | Build, hosting, security, ongoing edits | Design stays with the provider if you cancel; check what the monthly price covers |
Look at three years, not one
A website isn't a one-time purchase. It needs hosting, a domain, and changes every time your prices, services or service area change. Comparing three-year totals is the fairest way to see what you'll actually spend.
Two quick examples using prices verified in late 2026:
- Squarespace Basic, annual: about $228 a year, so about $684 over three years, plus roughly $40 for two domain renewals. Call it about $725 in cash, plus all the hours you spend building and editing it.
- A freelancer build: the project fee, plus hosting every year, plus every edit at their hourly rate. Ask for those three numbers in writing before you compare.
When you collect quotes, ask every provider the same question: "What will I pay in total in year two, if I ask for five small changes?" The answers tell you a lot.
What a fair price looks like for a 1 to 10 person company
Most small home-service businesses don't need a big custom website. They need a site that does a few things well:
- Shows clearly what you do and which towns you serve.
- Has a phone number and click-to-call button that works on a phone.
- Shows real reviews and real photos of your work.
- Loads fast and looks trustworthy.
- Gets updated when your services or prices change.
Our contractor website checklist covers each of these in detail. If a quote includes a lot more than this list, ask what each extra piece will do to bring in calls. If you can't get a straight answer, you're probably paying for things you won't use.
A fair price is one where you can name what you're getting every month, edits don't turn into surprise invoices, and you keep your domain if you leave. For most small crews, that means spending a few hundred dollars a year, not thousands, unless you have a specific need a simple site can't handle.
How to decide
- Pick DIY if you have time, like doing this yourself, and are comfortable updating the site on your own.
- Pick a freelancer if you want a one-time custom build and you're fine paying for edits as they come up.
- Pick an agency if you're a larger company or need custom features.
- Pick a done-for-you monthly service if you want a professional site without doing the work, and want edits handled for you.
One more thing: a website and your Google Business Profile do different jobs, and most local companies need both. Our guide on website vs. Google Business Profile explains how they work together. And if you already have a site that isn't bringing in work, read why your website isn't getting calls before you pay to replace it.
Where CraftLaunch fits
CraftLaunch is a done-for-you monthly service for home-service businesses. It's $69 one time for design, writing and launch, then $35 a month for hosting, SSL, security updates, SEO upkeep and edits by our team, and most edits go live within 2 to 3 business days. Sites are typically live 1 to 3 business days after an onboarding call. It's month to month, you can cancel any time, and you keep your domain. Over three years that's about $1,329, which is more cash than a DIY builder but with no building or editing on your end. We don't guarantee rankings, and social media isn't included. You can see full details on our pricing, or see the page for your trade, like HVAC websites.