The honest answer: anywhere from $1,500 to $50,000, depending on what the site has to do. That range isn't a dodge — the work at each end isn't comparable. Four brackets cover almost every brief we see.
$1,500 — the templated build
Squarespace or Wix, 4 to 6 pages, stock photography, one round of changes. The work is mostly in copy, not code. A designer drops content into a theme. If your business sells one thing, your phone rings already, and the site just has to look reputable, this bracket is fine.
Where corners get cut: page speed (themes carry weight the build didn't need), analytics setup (often skipped), and the ability to change anything later without rebuilding.
$2,000 to $5,000 — the Landing Page Sprint bracket
One page, three weeks, designed and built around a single goal — usually a lead or a booking. Custom layout, real photography (yours, taken on a phone is fine), conversion tracking wired up properly. Our Landing Page Sprint sits at $2,000.
This is the highest-ROI bracket for a service business that's already running paid traffic. The page exists to make the ad spend work harder. Anything beyond one page goes into the next bracket.
$5,000 to $15,000 — the proper SMB site
Six to fifteen pages. Custom design that matches your brand. Photography brief and shoot included. Integrations: CRM, booking, payment, depending on the business. Performance budget set and tested. Analytics, tag manager, conversion tracking working before launch.
The Novus Glass case study site sits at the top of this bracket. So does most multi-location services work — the kind of build where the site has to do real lifting, not just look the part.
$15,000+ — when the spend is earning its keep
Hundred-page content sites, e-commerce with custom checkout, multi-site networks, headless builds, anything with proper content strategy attached. If you don't have a content team or a six-figure annual ad budget, this bracket isn't for you yet — and any agency selling it to a one-person business is selling you a problem.
The five-question shortlist
- How many leads do you need a month? Under 20 — bracket two is enough. Above 60 — bracket three minimum.
- Is your photography sorted? If no, add $1,500 to whichever bracket you're in. Stock images on a service-business website kill conversion rate by 20–30%.
- Are you running paid traffic? Yes — the Sprint pays for itself fastest. The single-purpose page outperforms the multi-page site on cold traffic, every time.
- Do you sell or just enquire? Selling moves you up a bracket. Payment integration, inventory and tax compliance aren't $5k features.
- Will you write the copy? If no, factor in $2,000–$5,000 for a writer. The most common cause of a stalled build is missing copy, not missing design.
What we won't quote
We won't quote a $25,000 site to a one-person business with no paid traffic and no content team. The maths doesn't work — the site can't earn back the build cost in 24 months, let alone 12. When the brief and the budget don't match, the honest answer is "the bracket below this one will serve you better right now". That's the conversation we'd rather have early than late.
The takeaway
Pick the bracket where the website has to earn its build cost back in 90 days. If a $10,000 site can't do that for you, you don't need a $10,000 site yet. The published pricing page spells out exactly where we sit at each tier — and the day-one checklist is what any new build has to deliver on the day it goes live.