“How much does a website cost?” is the first question almost every owner asks us, and the honest answer, “it depends,” is also the least helpful. So this post does the homework instead. We pulled published prices and 2026 industry surveys, sorted them by the way you’d actually buy a site, and added what we see working with businesses around Statesville, Mooresville, Lake Norman, Hickory and Salisbury.
Where a number comes from a survey or a price page, it’s linked. Where we’re giving our own read of the local market, we say so.
The short answer
For most small service businesses in our area, a professionally built site lands somewhere between about $1,500 and $10,000 up front, plus ongoing costs for hosting, updates and care. A do-it-yourself site can run a couple hundred dollars a year. A store or a site with custom booking or integrations can run well past $10,000.
That’s a wide range on purpose. The price follows who does the work and how much responsibility they keep after launch, not just how many pages you have. A [2026 benchmark of 50 public price pages] by Teqri, another web design company,(https://teqri.com/research/small-business-website-pricing-benchmark-2026) found prices clustered by delivery model (DIY, fixed-price build, or managed plan) more than by anything else.
What North Carolina designers actually publish
The most useful 2026 data point for us is a survey by Leavsy, a small web studio (so, like us, it sells websites), which checked about 20 web design sellers in every state in early October 2026 and recorded the cheapest website price each one published on its own site. Across the U.S., the median lowest one-time price was $1,500, with the middle half of sellers starting between $625 and $3,000.
North Carolina came in higher than most. Of 20 NC sellers checked, 17 showed a price, and their median starting price was $2,497, the highest of the 10 states the survey broke out. The NC range ran from $160 to $4,500, and monthly website plans ran $99 to $199.
Two cautions. That NC figure rests on 17 prices, so it’s a snapshot, not a state average. And these are starting prices, usually for a one-page or starter site. Most businesses end up buying more than the cheapest package.
Prices by type of seller
The same survey split sellers by type, and this is where the range starts to make sense. Median lowest one-time prices, nationally, as of October 2026 (Leavsy):
- Solo freelancers: $1,000 median
- Small studios: $1,500 median
- Agencies: $4,500 median (middle half $2,875 to $5,000)
Across all sellers, 34% didn’t publish a price at all.
A separate survey of 300+ web development firms across 31 countries by GoodFirms gives a sense of what happens as projects grow. About 60% of firms put a basic website at $1,000 to $3,000, and 54% put a mid-sized business site at $5,000 to $20,000. GoodFirms puts typical U.S. hourly rates at $50 to $100.
The four ways to buy a website
1. Do it yourself
Builders like Squarespace and Wix sell software and hosting, and you do the work. Squarespace’s pricing page, as of early November 2026, lists its Basic plan at $19 a month billed annually or $25 month to month, Core at $29 a month billed annually ($39 monthly), and Plus at $49 a month billed annually ($65 monthly). Basic also takes a 2% fee on store sales. The Teqri benchmark found a median of $123 a year across 20 DIY platforms, though many of those are entry or promotional rates.
DIY is a fine choice for a brand-new business testing an idea. The real cost is your time, and the risk is a site that looks finished but doesn’t bring in calls.
2. A one-time build
You pay once for the build, then handle hosting and updates separately. This is the classic freelancer or studio model, and it’s what most of the survey prices above describe. In Teqri’s sample, the fixed-price offers had a median of $1,950, though only four offers fell in that group, so treat it loosely.
3. A monthly website plan
Some designers build the site for little or nothing down and charge monthly for hosting, edits and support. Leavsy found a median of $149 a month nationally. At that rate a plan costs $1,788 in year one and $3,576 over two years, so it passes the median one-time price after about 10 months. That isn’t automatically worse, since the plan may include hosting and updates you’d otherwise pay for. But always check the minimum term and what happens to the site if you cancel. Teqri also found promotional rates that hide long commitments, such as a $2.99 hosting rate that requires paying $143.52 up front for 48 months.
4. An agency project
Agencies bring strategy, copywriting, photography and more people to the project, and they price accordingly. They also tend not to publish prices. If your site needs online booking tied to your scheduling software, a store, or a connection to your CRM, expect to be in this conversation.
Rough ranges for our area (our estimate)
The table below is our own estimate for small businesses in the Statesville, Mooresville and Lake Norman area, built from the sources above and our experience. It is not survey data. Treat it as a starting point for a budget conversation.
| What you need | Typical up-front range (estimate) | Ongoing |
|---|---|---|
| DIY site you build yourself | Your time, plus roughly $200 to $500 a year in platform fees | Platform fee |
| Starter site from a local freelancer or studio | About $1,500 to $3,500 | Hosting and care, often $50 to $200 a month |
| Custom service-business site, local SEO setup, written copy | About $3,500 to $10,000 | Care plan or hourly updates |
| Store, custom booking, or integrations | $10,000 and up | Higher, depends on the systems involved |
The costs people forget
The build invoice is rarely the whole bill. GoodFirms’ survey respondents named the same hidden costs again and again: scope that grows mid-project, third-party integrations, content that arrives late, and maintenance. GoodFirms estimates the two-year cost of a professional site often runs 150 to 200% of the initial build once hosting, maintenance and updates are counted.
A few specific items to ask about:
- Copywriting. In Teqri’s sample, only five of the offers clearly included copy. If you’re expected to write every page yourself, that’s a real cost in time.
- Hosting and domain renewals. Promotional first-year rates often go up at renewal.
- Ownership. Only 9 of 50 price pages published any ownership terms, and just 3 were clear. Ask who owns the domain, the content and the design files, and what happens if you leave.
- Accessibility and search setup. These are cheaper to do during the build than to bolt on later.
Why a cheap site can cost more
A $500 site that never ranks and never gets a call is more expensive than a $4,000 site that brings in two jobs a month. For a roofer in Mooresville or a dentist in Hickory, one new customer can pay for a lot of website. Judge a quote by what it’s built to do (get found, earn trust, make it easy to call or book), not only by the number at the bottom.
Checklist: before you sign a website quote
- Is the price one-time, monthly, or both? What’s the minimum term?
- Does it include hosting, and what does hosting cost after year one?
- Who writes the copy? Is photography included?
- How many pages, and what does an extra page cost?
- Is basic local SEO included (titles, descriptions, Google Business Profile link, service-area pages)?
- Is the site built to meet accessibility basics?
- Who owns the domain, content and design files? Can you take the site with you?
- What do updates cost after launch?
- Is there a written scope, so you know what counts as a change?
FAQ
How much does a website cost in Statesville, NC? There’s no Statesville-only survey, but North Carolina designers in a 2026 survey published a median starting price of about $2,500, and our own estimate for most small-business projects in the area is about $1,500 to $10,000, depending on scope. The local range in the table above is our estimate, not survey data.
Is a monthly website plan a good deal? It can be, especially if you’d rather not manage hosting and updates. Do the math over two or three years, check the minimum term, and ask what happens to the site if you stop paying.
Can I just use Wix or Squarespace? Yes, and for some businesses that’s the right call. You’ll trade money for time, and you’ll be responsible for making the site work for search and for customers.
Why won’t some agencies list prices? The data shows who hides prices, not why. In practice, larger projects vary enough that agencies prefer to quote after a conversation.
Talk it through with us
If you’re in Statesville, Mooresville, Lake Norman or nearby and want a straight answer about what your site should cost, systemsevendesigns is happy to talk through it, even if the answer is “a DIY builder is fine for now.” No pressure, just a clear scope and a real number.