The short answer
At SquidInk USA, design and UX starts from $2.5k, a custom-built site from $4k and an online store from $6k. Hosting, care and ongoing SEO are monthly plans. Most redesigns go from kickoff to live in about five weeks.
Those are starting points. The rest of this guide explains what moves a project up or down, so you can budget before you talk to anyone.
What actually drives the price
- Number of unique page layouts — ten pages that share two layouts cost less than five pages that are all different.
- Content — whether you have the words and photos ready, or need help writing and shooting them.
- Features — booking, quote calculators, product builders, member areas, integrations with your CRM or point of sale.
- E-commerce — product count, variants and options, shipping and tax rules, and moving an existing store.
- Moving an old site — keeping your Google rankings means redirecting every old address, which takes care.
Template, freelancer or studio?
A do-it-yourself builder is the cheapest way to get online, and for some businesses it's enough. The trade-offs are time — yours — and a site that looks like many others and is often slower than it should be.
A freelancer can be a great fit for a small, well-defined site. Ask who handles hosting, security and updates after launch, and what happens if they're unavailable.
A studio costs more up front because design, development, SEO and hosting come from one team with a process. You should get a fixed price, a timeline you can hold them to, and a site that's built to be fast and found.
Costs people forget
- Hosting and security — a fast, protected host is a monthly cost, not a one-off.
- Updates and fixes — software needs updating, and something will eventually need changing.
- Your time — content, feedback and approvals take real hours.
- Search visibility — a beautiful site nobody finds is an expensive brochure.
How much does a website cost per month?
After launch, a business website has a few ongoing costs: hosting (where the site lives), security and backups, software updates, and someone to fix things when they break. We bundle those into one monthly care plan, priced by the size of the site, and host on Cloudflare's network.
If you want to keep growing traffic, ongoing SEO is a separate monthly plan. Neither is required to own your site — they're what keeps it fast, safe and found.
How much does a website cost per year?
Add up the monthly care plan, a domain name (usually a small yearly fee from your registrar) and any paid tools your site relies on, like a booking system or online store subscription. Spread a build over three to five years and the yearly cost of a professional site is often less than a single month of print or radio ads.
How to get an accurate quote
Come with three things: what the site needs to do (calls, bookings, sales), the pages you think you need, and two or three sites you like. With that, any good studio can give you a fixed price instead of a range.
For a quick ballpark first, ask us for a quote. If you're in Glendora or nearby, we're happy to meet in person — and we reply to every enquiry within one business day.
Written by the SquidInk USA team · Glendora, CA