When people ask what a website costs, they mean the build. But a website is a thing you run, not a thing you buy once — and the running costs are where budgets get caught out. Here's a realistic picture.
The unavoidable costs
Domain name — roughly $10–$20 a year for a standard .com. More for premium extensions. This one's small but non-negotiable, and letting it lapse takes your whole site and email down.
Hosting — depends heavily on the type of site:
- A site on a builder (Wix, Squarespace): bundled into the subscription, roughly $200–$500/year all in.
- A small custom or WordPress site on good hosting: $100–$600/year.
- A larger site or web app with real traffic: $500–$3,000+/year.
- Modern platforms (Vercel, Netlify) have free tiers that cover small business sites, then scale with usage.
SSL certificate — the padlock. Usually free now (Let's Encrypt, or included by your host). If someone's charging you $100/year for this, question it.
Email — if you use you@yourbusiness.com, that's a separate service: roughly $6–$12 per user per month for Google Workspace or Microsoft 365.
That's a floor of maybe $400–$1,500 a year for a small business site once you count everything honestly.
The costs people skip — and shouldn't
Software updates. WordPress core, themes and plugins need regular updating or the site becomes a security hole. Either you pay someone a few hours a quarter, or you're on a retainer, or you're taking a risk.
Backups and monitoring. Knowing the site is up, and being able to restore it if something breaks. Often bundled with good hosting; worth confirming you have it.
Security. For anything running on a CMS, plugins and a public login: keeping it patched, and ideally a firewall or a service like Cloudflare in front. Neglect this and "cheap to run" becomes "hacked and rebuilt."
Content. The site needs new pages, updated copy, fresh images, a blog if you're doing SEO. This is the cost that actually determines whether the site earns its keep, and it's almost never budgeted.
Analytics and tools. Most start free (Google Analytics, Search Console). Add-ons — a better analytics tool, a form service, a scheduling widget — each carry a monthly fee that adds up.
What a retainer covers
If you don't have someone technical in-house, a monthly retainer with the studio that built the site typically covers: updates and security patching, performance monitoring, small content and design changes, and a set number of hours for new features or fixes. Prices vary widely, but for a small business site think in the range of a few hundred a month, scaling with how active the site is.
The alternative — call someone only when something breaks — usually costs more per incident and means problems compound between visits.
The honest annual number
For a typical small business:
- Bare minimum, DIY maintenance: ~$500–$1,500/year (domain, hosting, email, and you doing updates)
- Sensible, with light support: ~$2,000–$5,000/year (the above plus a small retainer or quarterly maintenance)
- Site is a real channel, actively grown: $6,000+/year (support plus ongoing content and iteration)
Budget for the running costs when you budget for the build. A great site that's left to rot for two years isn't a saving — it's a slow write-off.
For a straight answer on what your specific site would cost to build and run, tell us what you need. See also what a website costs to build and how we approach web development.