What a business website costs depends on scope: a landing page, a bilingual corporate site, and an online store are different projects. On top of the build, you pay every year for a domain, hosting, email, and maintenance. And with AI, anyone can produce a good-looking site in an afternoon. What makes it cheap or expensive over time is the architecture you can't see.
The problem? Most people compare quotes on how the design looks, and the cost that really hurts shows up later: the site that goes down, that nobody knows how to update, or that you can't take with you.
How is AI changing the website market?
It has never been easier to get a site that looks good. AI builders generate layouts, copy, and images in minutes, and that's pushing down the price of the visible part.
But a website is more than what you see. Behind it are architecture and infrastructure decisions nobody shows you in the demo: where it's hosted, whose name it's in, how forms and customer data are protected, how it loads on a phone, how it ranks on Google, and who maintains it when something breaks. If whoever builds it doesn't understand that layer, the upfront savings turn into:
- High costs: monthly platform fees you can't cancel without losing the site, licensed plugins, and emergency rescues.
- Headaches: slow pages, forms that break after an update, or a hacked site.
- Long-term dependencies: a site locked into a tool or a vendor that nobody else can understand or move.
AI makes a site look good; engineering makes it work, keeps it secure, and keeps it yours. We use AI too: our own site was designed with AI support and reviewed by hand, module by module, and a Central Texas home builder's team updates its site with AI on top of documentation and brand rules versioned in its own repository. The difference is who makes the architecture decisions. So now more than ever, be sure who you're working with.
What should I ask whoever builds my site?
| Question | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Where is the site hosted, and whose name is it in? | If the account isn't yours, neither is the site. |
| What happens if I stop paying the tool or the vendor? | Some platforms won't let you take the site with you. |
| Can I take the code and content with me? | It's your exit if you ever switch providers. |
| How are forms and customer data protected? | A poorly secured form exposes your customers and your business. |
| How fast does it load on a phone? | That's how most visitors will see it. |
| Who updates it, and what does maintenance cost each year? | It's the cost most quotes leave out. |
| If you're replacing my current site, how do I keep my rankings? | Without redirects, you lose what you've already earned on Google. |
If you're handed an AI-built site and nobody can explain how it works under the hood, that's your answer.
What drives the price of a website?
| Type of site | What it's for | What pushes the price up |
|---|---|---|
| Landing page | One campaign or service, one action | Conversion tracking and CRM integration |
| Corporate site | Presenting your company, services, and work | Custom design, multiple languages, copywriting |
| Online store | Selling with a catalog, cart, and payments | Payment gateway, inventory, integrations |
| Custom system | Processes, user accounts, integrations | Security, roles, reporting, and support |
What slows a project down is rarely development. It's waiting for copy and photos. With content ready, timelines can be short: for a Central Texas home builder, we built the service landing pages on day one and the full site in two weeks.
Is hiring a local Austin web designer worth it?
Local matters when you need someone in the room: workshops, photo shoots, or a team that knows the Central Texas market. It matters less for the build itself, which happens on a screen wherever the engineers sit.
That's how we work: we have a sister operation in Austin, and our engineering team in Tegucigalpa works at most one hour off Austin time. See the home builder case.
How much does it cost to maintain a website each year?
This is the line most quotes leave out. Public prices from infrastructure providers:
| Recurring cost | Reference | Source |
|---|---|---|
| .com domain | From about $11 a year | Verisign's wholesale price: $10.97 from November 1, 2026 |
| Business email | $7 per user per month | Google Workspace Business Starter, annual plan |
| Static site hosting | A few dollars a month at small business traffic | AWS Amplify: $0.023 per GB stored, $0.15 per GB served |
| Managed WordPress hosting | From $11 a month, plus plugins and licenses | Cloudways entry plan |
| Maintenance and updates | Depends on integrations and how critical the site is | Get it in writing in the quote |
To put numbers on it: a 200 MB static site serving 10 GB a month pays about $1.50 in AWS Amplify hosting. Meanwhile, that home builder was paying about $60 a month in hosting and plugins just to keep a WordPress and Divi site alive, money that added nothing to the business.
What is a static site, and when does it save money?
A static site builds every page before it goes live. There's no database and no plugins to patch every month, so it loads faster, exposes less to attackers, and costs very little to host. It's how we build by default:
- Home builder in Central Texas: more than 60 pages moved off WordPress in two weeks, with a 301 redirect for every old URL. Mobile performance went from 35 to 99 in PageSpeed Insights, and the site runs in the client's own AWS account.
- Retina specialist: phase one live in two days in English, Spanish, and Portuguese, with WhatsApp as the main contact channel, a 99 mobile score, and no forms collecting health data. See the case.
- Our own site: fully static and launched in two weeks, with no monthly SaaS platform fees. See the case.
One honest caveat: static isn't right for everything. If you need user accounts, live inventory, or a store with thousands of products changing every hour, you need a server and a database, and those cost more to run.
Can a small business get sued over website accessibility?
Yes. The US Department of Justice says Title III of the ADA applies to the goods and services that businesses open to the public offer online. DOJ points to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) as a helpful reference, but it has not issued a detailed technical rule for private businesses.
Lawsuits are rising. More than 2,000 website accessibility suits were filed in the first half of 2025, up 37% from the same period in 2024, according to a Clym analysis reported by Stacker. Most targeted e-commerce sites.
What to ask any web provider: which WCAG level they design to, how they test it (keyboard navigation, screen readers, color contrast), and who fixes issues after launch. A perfect Lighthouse accessibility score is a good sign, but it's an automated check, not proof of compliance. This is general information, not legal advice.
Red flags when you hire a web designer
- The domain or hosting is registered in the provider's name, not yours.
- You can't edit your own text.
- A template or an AI-generated site is sold as custom design, and nobody can explain how it works.
- They're replacing your current site and nobody mentions redirects or protecting your search rankings.
- Nobody tells you what hosting, the domain, and licenses cost after year one.
If your current site already has some of these problems, our cloud, security and operations team can review it and tell you what can be stabilized. If your project is more than a website, read how much custom software costs. To make the site bring in customers, see how much SEO and Google Ads cost.
Want a site that's fast on phones and in your name?
We build fast, secure static sites ready for search engines and AI assistants, in your own cloud account with the code in your name, so you can switch providers if you choose. Explore custom development.
Sources
- Domain Name Wire, Verisign raising wholesale .com prices (April 2026): https://domainnamewire.com/2026/04/23/breaking-verisign-raising-wholesale-com-prices/
- Google Workspace pricing: https://workspace.google.com/pricing
- AWS Amplify hosting pricing: https://aws.amazon.com/amplify/pricing/
- Cloudways managed hosting pricing: https://www.cloudways.com/en/pricing.php
- US Department of Justice, Guidance on web accessibility and the ADA: https://www.ada.gov/resources/web-guidance/
- Stacker, Accessibility lawsuits rose 37% in 2025: https://stacker.com/stories/technology/accessibility-lawsuits-rose-37-2025-why-small-businesses-can-no-longer-ignore