The short answer: a professional website for a small or mid-size business runs $4,500 to $15,000 in 2026, depending on what the business type actually requires. The wide range is not padding. A restaurant with a menu and hours page is a different project from a law firm with practice area landing pages and intake forms, which is a different project from an e-commerce store with 200 SKUs and a checkout flow.
What follows is a breakdown by business type: typical cost ranges, what drives them, and what tends to get added on.
The real cost driver: functionality, not industry
Before the breakdowns: the biggest variable is not what industry you are in. It is what your site needs to do.
An informational site with five pages, a contact form, and solid local search structure is a certain scope. Add online booking, it grows. Add e-commerce, it grows more. Add content infrastructure, service area pages, or a client portal, and you are in a different project category entirely.
Scope, not vertical, sets the floor. But business type predicts scope reasonably well, which is why the breakdowns below hold up as estimates.
Restaurant: $4,500 to $9,000
A restaurant site at minimum needs a menu (that loads correctly on mobile), hours, location, a high-quality photo presence, and a way to handle reservations. That scope sits comfortably in the $4,500 to $6,500 range for a professional build.
Online ordering changes the number. A site integrated with a third-party ordering system adds complexity. A site with native checkout runs significantly higher. Most restaurants using Toast, Square, or a similar POS integrate that system's ordering widget rather than building custom, which keeps the web design cost lower but adds platform fees.
What tends to be underestimated: photography. A restaurant site without strong food and atmosphere photography does not perform. If you are hiring a designer, budget separately for a photographer.
Contractor and trades: $4,500 to $8,500
Contractor sites are primarily lead-generation tools. The structure that performs: a clear service list, a project gallery, a service area page (or pages, for multi-area businesses), a contact form or click-to-call, and local search basics done correctly.
Five to eight pages, competently built, starts at $4,500. Add schema markup for service areas, additional location pages, or a before-and-after gallery system, and the scope grows toward $7,000 to $8,500.
The mistake trades businesses make is underbuilding and wondering why the site does not generate leads. A site with one page, a phone number, and no structured content is not a lead-generation tool. It is a business card that lives online. The difference in results between those two is significant.
Law firm: $6,000 to $14,000
Law firm websites have more requirements than most service business sites. Attorney advertising rules vary by state and impose constraints on claims and disclaimers. Practice area pages need to be structured for search, not just listed on a drop-down menu. Intake forms and consultation scheduling are expected infrastructure for firms that want organic leads, not just referrals.
A solo practitioner or small firm site done well typically runs $6,000 to $9,000. A multi-attorney firm with separate practice area landing pages, a blog infrastructure, and intake flow integration sits in the $10,000 to $14,000 range.
Clio, the legal practice management platform, documents that 96 percent of potential clients use search engines to find legal services. A law firm site that is not structured for search is leaving a significant portion of that volume on the table.
Service businesses (consultants, coaches, agencies): $4,500 to $10,000
This is the widest category. A single-service consultant with a clear offer and five pages is a $4,500 to $6,500 project. A coaching practice with multiple programs, a booking system, and a lead magnet funnel is a $7,000 to $10,000 project.
What drives the number up: intake flows, scheduling integrations, email list capture infrastructure, sales page copy for individual offers, and any kind of member or client portal. Each one adds scope.
The Growth package at joel.design ($8,500 to $15,000) is designed for service businesses adding depth: more pages, refined brand integration, and conversion-focused structure beyond a simple five-page site.
E-commerce: $6,500 to $20,000+
E-commerce is its own category. Shopify's own cost guide notes that a basic e-commerce site can start at $29 per month on a hosted platform, but that describes a DIY self-serve build. A professional e-commerce site with real design, product photography integration, and a functional checkout experience starts considerably higher.
A small-catalog e-commerce build done professionally starts around $6,500 to $8,000. A store with 50 or more products, filtered search, collections, and shipping integrations typically runs $12,000 to $20,000. Anything with custom development on top of that climbs further.
The ongoing cost difference is also significant. E-commerce sites require active management: inventory updates, app subscriptions, payment processor fees, and platform costs. Budget $150 to $2,500 per month in platform and maintenance costs depending on scale, separate from what you paid to build the site.
Medical, dental, and wellness: $5,500 to $12,000
Healthcare and wellness sites share some of law's compliance considerations. Patient privacy rules affect how contact forms and intake flows can be structured. Online appointment booking is standard now and adds scope. A practice with multiple providers and multiple service types needs more page structure than a solo provider.
A solo practitioner site with booking integration runs $5,500 to $7,500. A multi-provider practice with service area pages and patient intake infrastructure runs $9,000 to $12,000.
Nonprofit: $4,500 to $9,000
Nonprofits need donation infrastructure above everything else. A clean site with a clear mission statement, donation capability (typically through a third-party processor like Stripe or PayPal), and program pages does the job. That scope runs $4,500 to $6,500 professionally built.
A nonprofit with event management, volunteer sign-up, and a content-heavy resource library runs $7,000 to $9,000. Some nonprofits qualify for discounted platform licensing through programs like Shopify Nonprofit or WordPress's charitable tiers, which can reduce ongoing costs.
What "professional build" means in these ranges
The ranges above assume a competent professional doing the work: structured for local or organic search from the start, mobile-first, with a clear page hierarchy, a defined content strategy, and post-launch support. They do not assume the cheapest option available.
Published benchmarks from markbrinker.com put the professional range for a modern five-to-ten-page small-business site at $5,000 to $10,000. JIM's 2026 cost guide puts freelancer ranges at $1,500 to $8,000 and boutique agency ranges at $6,000 to $12,000. The joel.design packages are priced within those market ranges and published openly at /packages.
Starter from $4,500 is for businesses that need a clear, functional web presence built correctly. Growth from $8,500 is for businesses adding content depth, conversion structure, or multiple service areas. Brand+Site from $8,000 packages identity and web design together for businesses that need both done cohesively.
What a site does not cost money on
The ranges above are for design and build. They do not include:
- Domain registration ($10 to $30 per year)
- Hosting ($15 to $100 per month for most small business sites)
- Photography and copywriting (billed separately or excluded from most packages, ask explicitly)
- Ongoing care and maintenance ($95 to $1,200 per month depending on scope)
Those costs are real and should be in your budget before you sign a contract. A designer who does not tell you about them upfront is not saving you money. They are deferring a conversation.
If you want a read on what your site currently does and does not do before deciding on a budget, a free audit is a straightforward starting point.
Frequently asked questions
- Does a restaurant website cost more than a contractor website?
- Not necessarily. Both are typically in the same range for a professional build, $4,500 to $8,000, depending on what features they need. A restaurant with online ordering costs more than one that just shows the menu and hours. A contractor who wants a lead-capture system and project gallery costs more than one who needs five pages and a contact form.
- Why does an e-commerce site cost so much more?
- E-commerce sites require product management, checkout, payment processing, inventory tracking, and often integrations with shipping or fulfillment tools. That scope is substantially larger than an informational site, even if the page count looks similar. A basic e-commerce build starts around $6,500; anything with real product depth runs $10,000 and up.
- Can't I just use Squarespace or Wix to save money?
- You can. The platform costs $150 to $600 per year. The real cost is your time to build it and the ceiling you hit when you need something it cannot do, like custom local search structure, schema markup, or integrations with your CRM. For a business relying on local search to generate leads, a template site often underperforms a professional build within a year.
- What's included in the joel.design Starter package?
- Starter covers a clean, functional site for businesses that need a clear web presence, solid structure, and local search basics done correctly. It starts at $4,500, typically landing $4,500 to $6,500 depending on page count and complexity. Full scope detail is at /packages.
- Does a law firm need a more expensive website than other service businesses?
- Usually, yes. Law firm sites carry compliance considerations around attorney advertising rules, require clear practice area structure for search, and often need intake forms or consultation scheduling. The scope pushes most law firm professional builds into the $6,000 to $12,000 range.
- What drives the cost difference between a $4,500 site and a $15,000 site?
- Page count is one factor. Functionality is the bigger one. A five-page informational site with a contact form is a different scope than a site with service area pages, blog infrastructure, booking integrations, schema markup, and conversion-focused layouts. Copywriting and photography sourcing, if included, add cost. So does brand identity work done simultaneously.