Small business3 min read
What should a small business website cost?
Three real price brackets, and how to tell which one your business actually needs.
Ask three questions before anything else: will the domain be registered in my name, what exactly is included, and what happens if your estimate is wrong. The answers separate a professional from someone who will cause you problems, and they matter far more than portfolio quality or price.
That last one is the most revealing. Everyone has had a difficult project. How they describe it — and whether they will let you speak to that client — tells you more than any portfolio.
| Compare | Not |
|---|---|
| Number of pages included | The headline price |
| Who writes the content | How nice the portfolio looks |
| Rounds of revisions | How quickly they replied |
| What happens after launch | Whether they seem friendly |
| Domain and account ownership | Their own website's design |
| What is explicitly excluded | Vague promises about SEO |
It can help for photography and in-person meetings, but it is not essential. Good written communication matters far more than proximity. Judge on the answers to the questions above, not the postcode.
A freelancer is usually cheaper and fine for a straightforward site. An agency costs more and gives you continuity if someone is unavailable. For a project under about $5,000, a good freelancer is often better value.
Get three quotes with the same written brief. If one is dramatically lower, ask what is excluded rather than assuming it is a bargain.
First check who owns the domain and whether you can get access. Once you have control, a refresh is often cheaper than a rebuild — get someone to look before assuming you need to start over.
Harshal Patel
Founder & Lead Engineer, ROVQIX
Harshal leads engineering at ROVQIX, where he has shipped production Next.js, Node.js and PostgreSQL systems for startups, SaaS teams and ecommerce brands. He writes about the trade-offs behind architecture decisions rather than the framework of the week.
ROVQIXdesigns and builds production web platforms — Next.js front ends, Node.js APIs and the infrastructure behind them. Tell us what you're building and we'll scope it with you.
Three real price brackets, and how to tell which one your business actually needs.
Scope creep rarely arrives as one big change. It arrives as twenty small ones nobody priced.
They do different jobs. The risk is building only on land you do not own.
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