How Much Does a Website Cost? (2026 Guide)

“How much does a website cost?” is the question I hear most often, and the honest answer is: it depends on what the site has to do. The gap between a simple one-page site and an online store with a cart and payments is about as wide as the gap between a bicycle and a car. In this guide I show my real starting prices, what moves the price up or down, and the running costs a good quote should spell out. If you are not yet sure you need a site at all, start with why a business needs a website.

How much does a website cost in 2026?

With my packages, a landing page starts from $500, a business website from $1000 and an online store from $2000. These are one-time development prices; the exact figure depends on the scope and is confirmed after a short brief.

Type of site	Best for	Typical timeline	Starting price
Landing page	one product, service or ad campaign	5–7 days	$500
Business website	a company with several services that needs a blog and an admin panel	2–3 weeks	$1000
Online store	selling online with a cart, payments and order management	3–6 weeks	$2000

A client portal or a web app with user accounts does not fit a package; it is quoted as a custom project once we agree on the features.

What drives the price of a website?

Five things set the price: the type of site, its pages and features, the design, the content and the work on speed and SEO.

• Type of site: a single landing page, a multi-page business website or an online store.
• Pages and features: payments, customer accounts, an admin panel, booking, several languages, connections to your CRM or other systems.
• Design: a custom layout built around your brand and your visitors’ goals takes longer than a ready-made template, but it leads people to the action you want.
• Content: whether you supply the texts and photos or they still need to be written and produced.
• Speed and SEO: a site tuned for Core Web Vitals, with structured data and a clean page hierarchy, takes a little longer to build, but it is the kind of site that can actually be found.

Why do website quotes vary so much?

Because two quotes for “a website” rarely describe the same work. One may be a theme dropped into a website builder; another includes a custom design, a page structure planned around real search queries, an admin panel, analytics and launch support. Before you compare prices, compare the scope:

• Is the design made for you or taken from a template?
• Is an admin panel included, so you can edit content yourself?
• Are technical SEO, speed optimisation and analytics part of the job?
• Who owns the code, the domain and the accounts after launch?
• What is billed separately, so that nothing turns up later as a hidden cost?

The cheapest quote often turns out to be the most expensive. A slow template site that barely shows up on Google brings few enquiries, and sooner or later the money is spent a second time on a rebuild. Rebuilds are a regular part of my work: rekrovli.kz, a roofing company’s site, was rebuilt from scratch on Astro and now gets ongoing technical SEO.

What is included in the price?

Each package covers the full build and launch, not just the design:

• Landing: mobile-first responsive design, up to five sections, WhatsApp and contact integration, and basic on-page SEO.
• Business: everything in Landing, plus a multi-page site, an admin panel (CMS), a blog and content structure, advanced SEO with analytics, and performance tuning for Core Web Vitals.
• E-commerce: everything in Business, plus a store, catalogue or booking system, a cart and payments, and an admin panel for orders and stock.

For a real example at the E-commerce level, look at aktobe-lighting.kz, an online store for a lighting retailer in Aktobe with a cart and its own admin panel.

How much does a website cost per month to run?

Once the site is built, the only running costs you cannot avoid are the domain and hosting. SEO, advertising and extra content work are optional, and you add them only when you need them:

• Domain: renewed regularly, usually once a year. The price depends on the extension (.com, .az, .kz and so on) and the registrar.
• Hosting: a static site built with Astro needs very little server capacity, while an online store with a database needs a server or a managed database. Hosting is billed separately, and I set it up for you at launch.
• SEO (optional): every site ships with technical SEO, but growing rankings for competitive queries is ongoing work. Regular optimisation in my SEO service starts from $250 per month.
• Advertising (optional): the ad budget is paid directly to Meta, Google or another platform, and campaign management is a separate service.
• Content updates: with an admin panel you edit texts, photos and products yourself, so routine changes do not need a developer.

Is a website builder cheaper than a custom website?

At the start, usually yes; over the years, not necessarily. A builder charges a subscription for as long as the site exists, and you rent the platform instead of owning the code. For testing an idea, that can be a sensible first step. For a business that wants to rank, load fast on mobile and grow, a custom site you fully own tends to be the better investment. I also work with WordPress and Tilda, so if a builder is enough for your goal, I will tell you.

How do you choose the right option for your budget?

Start from the goal, not the price:

1. Define what the site must do: sell online, collect enquiries or present the company.
2. Pick one or two numbers that show whether it works, such as orders, calls or WhatsApp messages.
3. Choose the smallest package that covers that goal and plan the next step. A landing page can later grow into a multi-page site on the same domain.

Everything about the website packages is on the website development page. For an exact price and a project plan, fill in the short brief: I reply within 24 hours with the page list, timeline and price.