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How much does a website cost in Australia?
Real ranges, what actually moves the price, and the costs that only turn up after you have signed. We build websites, so we have an interest here. The numbers below are the market, not just ours.
The honest short answer is that a small business website in Australia in 2026 costs anywhere from about twenty dollars a month to fifty thousand dollars, and both of those are real prices for real websites. That is not evasion. It is that the word website covers a one-page shopfront and a booking platform with payments in it, and nobody asking the question means both.
So here is the range broken into the four things people actually buy, what separates them, and what to ask before you pay for any of them.
The market
What a small business site costs, by who builds it
| Who builds it | Typical cost | What you get, and what you do |
|---|---|---|
| You, on Wix or Squarespace | $20–$50 a month, forever | A decent-looking site if you have the patience. You write everything, take the photos, and do the fiddling. The subscription never stops, and the site usually stops working if it does. |
| A freelancer or small operator | A few hundred to about $3,000 | Somebody builds it for you. Whether copy, photos and your Google listing are included varies enormously at this level, which is why quotes look so different. |
| A small studio | About $3,000–$10,000 | Custom design, copy usually written for you, a proper process and someone to ring. Timelines run to weeks rather than days. |
| A full agency | $10,000 and well up | Strategy, research, custom design, professional copywriting, sometimes photography and video. Worth it when a website is a major channel. Overkill when you need to be findable. |
Ranges, not quotes. Prices move by state, by industry and by how much of the work you can do yourself. Anyone who gives you a single number without asking what your business does is guessing.
The real answer
Six things that actually move the price
Who writes the words
The single biggest hidden cost. If you write them, a build is much cheaper and usually much later, because most people never get around to it. If they write them, you are paying for a copywriter's time whether the quote says so or not.
How many pages
One page is one page. Five pages, one per service, is roughly five times the writing and the reason a business turns up on Google for five different searches instead of one.
Photos
Your phone in decent light is genuinely fine for most small businesses. A photographer is a real cost on top, often $500 to $2,000, and it is sometimes worth it and often not.
Anything that connects
Online booking, payments, a shop, a customer login. Each one is a system to wire in and test, and each adds cost and ongoing responsibility. A page that sends people to the booking system you already use costs far less.
Custom versus a layout
A proven layout rebuilt with your content is quick and predictable. Designed from scratch takes longer, costs more, and is worth it when looking different is the point.
What happens afterwards
Changes, hosting, security, someone answering the phone when it breaks. Some quotes include a year of it. Some include none of it. This is where two identical-looking prices stop being identical.
Read this bit
What a cheap quote often leaves out
Cheap is not the problem. Cheap with something missing is. Before you accept any quote, at any price, ask these five, and get the answers in writing.
Whose name is the domain in?
It should be yours. If the builder registers it in their name, you do not own your own address, and getting it back later ranges from awkward to impossible. This is the one that catches people.
What happens if I leave?
Some arrangements are a monthly fee where the site switches off the day you stop paying, and you leave with nothing after three years of payments. Others hand you the files. Both are legitimate. Know which you are signing.
Is the writing included?
"Website build" often means the structure and design only, with the words left as your homework. Sites sit unfinished for months over exactly this.
Is my Google listing connected?
For most local businesses the Google Business Profile brings in more than the website does. A build that ignores it has skipped the part that makes the phone ring.
What do changes cost?
Ask the price of changing your prices, because you will. If a one-line edit is a callout fee, the cheap quote was not cheap.
Do I get a tax invoice?
From a registered Australian business with an ABN on it. A business website is generally a deductible business expense, though how it is claimed depends on your circumstances, so check with your accountant or the current ATO guidance.
The ongoing bit
What it costs to keep a website running
Separate from the build, and often left out of the conversation entirely.
| Item | Typical cost | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Domain name | About $20 a year | A .com.au. This should be in your name. It is the one thing you cannot afford to lose. |
| Hosting | Free to about $30 a month | A small business site of a few pages can genuinely be hosted for nothing on modern platforms. Paying $30 a month for five pages is worth questioning. |
| Maintenance or care | $0 to $200+ a month | Enormous variation. Ask exactly what is included and whether cancelling costs you the site. |
| Platform subscription | $20–$50 a month | Only if it is built on Wix, Squarespace or similar. It never ends, and it is the reason a "cheap" site can cost more over five years than a custom one. |
Being straight with you
Where we sit in that range
We are the freelancer end of the table. A fix is $250, a site from one of our layouts is $500, and a full custom build is $1,000. One payment, no monthly fee, the domain in your name, and you see a free mockup of your own site before you spend anything.
That is cheap for the market, and it is worth saying why rather than letting you wonder. We are new, we work fast from layouts we have already built, and we would rather have the work than the margin. If you want strategy sessions, a photographer and a copywriter, an agency at ten thousand will serve you better and we will say so.
Fair questions
The things people ask about cost
Why are two quotes so far apart?
Because they are not quoting the same work. Copy, photos, page count and anything that connects to a booking or payment system are most of the cost, and they vary between quotes far more than the building does.
What is fair for one page?
A few hundred to about $1,500 done properly, with your own words, a mobile layout and your Google listing connected. Below a couple of hundred you are usually buying a template with a logo dropped in.
Is cheap always worse?
No. Cheap with a monthly fee you cannot escape and a domain in somebody else's name is worse. Cheap where you own everything is just cheap.
Can I claim it on tax?
A business website is generally a business expense, and how it is claimed can depend on the amount and your circumstances. Ask your accountant or check the current ATO guidance. Either way, insist on a proper tax invoice.
Free mockup
Or just see what yours would look like
Tell us the business name and what you do. We build a mockup of your own site and send it over. If you do not like it, that is the end of it and it has cost you nothing, whatever you end up deciding about price.
0468 053 175 · [email protected]