How Much Does a Small-Business Website Cost in Houston?

Website pricing is deliberately murky in this industry, and that is the first thing worth naming. Most web designers will not publish a number because the number varies by what they think you can pay. This page does the opposite: general market ranges first, then exactly what Graphcast charges, with the reasoning for both.

Two things to hold onto while reading. First, “how much does a website cost” is really “how many pages, who writes them, and what has to connect to what” — those three answers set the price far more than the design does. Second, no price on this page or anyone else’s buys a Google ranking or a number of leads. Be suspicious of any quote that says otherwise.

Typical Houston website price ranges

These are general market ranges across the Houston metro, not Graphcast’s prices. They are what a small business realistically encounters when calling around.

What you are buying	Typical range	Who it suits
DIY builder (Wix, Squarespace, GoDaddy)	$16–$50/month, your own labour	A business with time and a strong eye, doing it themselves
Template filled in by a freelancer	$300–$1,200	A business that needs to exist online and nothing more
Custom one-page site	$500–$2,000	One service, one area, one clear call to action
Custom 5–10 page business site	$1,500–$8,000	Several services or service areas to target separately
Small-agency build	$5,000–$25,000	Multiple stakeholders, brand work, larger scope
Ecommerce store	$2,500–$25,000+	Selling online; scales with catalogue and complexity

The spread inside each row is real, not padding. A five-page site can be $1,500 or $8,000 depending on whether the copy is written for you, whether photography is included, and how many integrations are involved.

One-page website pricing

A one-page site is the whole business on a single scrolling page: what you do, proof, service area, and one way to get in touch. In Houston, expect $500 to $2,000 for a custom one — under $500 you are almost certainly getting a template.

It is the right product more often than people expect. A single-service trade, a food truck, a salon, a new business that needs to exist online before opening day: all of them get most of the value of a full site from one well-built page. Where it runs out of room is when you have five distinct services that each deserve their own page, because a single page can only target one search intent well.

Five-to-ten-page business website pricing

This is the common shape: home, about, two to five service pages, service area, contact. Roughly $1,500 to $8,000 in this market.

What justifies the top of that range is usually copywriting and photography, not extra design. Ten pages of well-written service copy is a real body of work. If a quote is at the top of the range and copy is “client-provided”, ask what you are paying for.

Ecommerce website pricing

Selling online starts around $2,500 and climbs quickly. The variables are catalogue size, whether products have variants, shipping rules, tax handling, and whether inventory has to sync with something you already use.

A 20-product catalogue with flat shipping is a different job from 500 products with variants and live carrier rates. Get the catalogue size and the shipping rules straight before asking anyone for a number — it is the single biggest cause of ecommerce quotes that later “grow”.

Website redesign pricing

A redesign usually costs the same as a new site of the same size, sometimes slightly more. That surprises people, and the reason is that a redesign carries work a new build does not: auditing the existing pages, keeping the URLs that already rank, setting up redirects for the ones that change, and migrating content. The design is the easy part.

Where a redesign genuinely costs less is when the content is already good and only the presentation is dated.

What actually moves the price

In rough order of impact:

1. Number of pages. The clearest driver. Each page is design, copy, structure and testing.
2. Who writes the copy. Written for you, or supplied by you? This can swing a quote by a third. “Client-provided content” quotes look cheaper and then stall for six weeks.
3. Photography. Real photos of your work, your team, your storefront. Stock is cheaper and looks like stock, which matters more for a local business than for a national brand.
4. Ecommerce and integrations. Payments, booking systems, CRM connections, inventory sync. Each one is its own build-and-test job.
5. Custom functionality. Quote calculators, portals, member areas, anything unique to you.
6. Design from scratch versus a theme. A custom design costs more than customising a theme. Both can be good; they are just not the same product.
7. How fast you need it. A compressed timeline costs more anywhere it is honestly quoted.

Domain and hosting costs

These are separate from the build, and any quote that hides them is hiding something small but telling.

• Domain: roughly $12 to $20 a year, paid to a registrar. It should be registered in your name. If your web designer owns your domain, you have a problem waiting to happen.
• Hosting: anywhere from free to $30 a month. A static site — pre-rendered HTML, no database — can run on very cheap or free hosting. A WordPress site needs managed hosting to stay fast and secure, which is where the higher numbers come from.
• SSL certificate: free. If anyone charges you separately for one, ask why.
• Business email: roughly $6 to $7 per user per month if you want [email protected].

Maintenance and support costs

Two honest models exist, and both are fine.

On demand. You pay for edits when you need them. Cheapest if you rarely change anything. The risk is response time — you are in a queue, not on a plan.

Monthly plan. Typically $30 to $200 a month for a small-business site, covering hosting, SSL, backups, updates, monitoring and a batch of small edits. The right question is not the price but the exit: if I cancel, what do I keep? For a site you already own, the answer should be everything. If the monthly fee also paid for the build, read the next section.

Website subscriptions: $0 upfront, monthly fee, minimum term

A newer model folds the build into the monthly fee. You pay nothing, or very little, to start; the designer builds, hosts and maintains the site; you pay a fixed amount every month under an agreement with a minimum term, usually a year. It is the same idea as leasing equipment instead of buying it, and it has the same trade-offs.

What it gets right:

• No large bill on day one. For a new or cash-tight business, that is often the difference between a professional site this month and a half-finished builder site next year.
• Upkeep is somebody’s job. Hosting, security updates, backups and small edits are included, so the site does not quietly decay.
• One predictable number. Easier to budget than a build fee plus hosting plus hourly edits.

What it costs you:

• More over a long horizon. Multiply the monthly fee by 36 and compare it with a one-time build plus three years of hosting. Past the first couple of years, the subscription is almost always the more expensive route. You are paying for the convenience and the upkeep.
• A contract. The minimum term is what pays for the build you did not pay for upfront, so leaving early usually means the remaining months are still due.
• You do not own the code. You should own your domain, your content and your customer data outright. The design and code typically stay with the provider while you subscribe, with a buyout price if you want to take them. Get that price, and the notice period after the minimum term, in writing before you sign.

If a subscription vendor cannot tell you plainly what you keep when you leave, and what a buyout costs, treat it as a warning sign rather than a detail.

Freelancer vs. agency vs. DIY

	DIY builder	Freelancer	Small studio	Agency
Typical cost	$16–50/mo	$300–2,500	$650–5,000	$5,000–25,000
Your time required	High	Low	Low	Low
Custom design	Limited	Varies	Yes	Yes
Copywriting	You	Sometimes	Usually	Yes
Ongoing support	Vendor help desk	Depends on availability	Direct	Account manager
Biggest risk	It never gets finished	They become unreachable	Limited capacity	Cost and pace

The most common failure we see is not choosing wrong — it is a half-finished builder site that has sat at 60% for eight months because running a business is a full-time job already.

Warning signs in an unusually cheap quote

A low number is not automatically bad. These specific things are:

• No written scope. A price with no page list is not a quote, it is a number.
• “Content provided by client” buried in the terms. That is where the missing hours went.
• The designer registers the domain in their own name.
• Nobody can say what you keep if you leave. Ask directly. On a one-time purchase the answer should be the files; on a subscription, at minimum your domain, content and data, with any buyout priced in writing.
• A ranking guarantee. Nobody controls Google’s results. This is the clearest single tell.
• No phone number or address on their own site. If they will not be reachable now, they will not be reachable when your site breaks.
• A price that only exists for 24 hours. Real pricing does not expire.

What a professional quote should include

Before you sign anything, the quote should tell you:

• Every page, listed by name
• Who writes the copy, and who supplies photos
• How many revision rounds are included, and what a “round” means
• The timeline, and what it depends on from your side
• Who registers and owns the domain
• What hosting costs after launch, and whether it is required
• For a monthly plan: the minimum term, what leaving early costs, and the notice period after
• Whether the Google Business Profile is included or extra
• What happens after launch — support window, then what
• The payment schedule
• In writing, who owns what: the domain, the content, and the design and code

If a quote is missing more than two of those, ask for them in writing before agreeing. The answers cost nothing and they are exactly the things that cause disputes later.

What Graphcast charges

Published, and the same for everyone. Full detail on the pricing page.

Our main offer is a free website with a monthly care plan: we design and build it at no charge, and the plan (with a 12-month minimum agreement) covers hosting, security, support, edits, maintenance and updates.

Plan	Monthly	What it is
Starter	$119/month (launch price for 12 months, then $199)	Up to 5 pages, hosting, maintenance, monthly content updates, email support
Growth	$179/month (launch price for 12 months, then $299)	Up to 10 pages, service-area pages, reviews on the site, conversion tracking, monthly report
Lead Engine	$299/month (launch price for 12 months, then $499)	Growth plus call tracking, lead dashboard, CRM or email integrations, automated follow-ups

All three carry $0 upfront and a 12-month minimum. After that the plan runs month to month and you can leave with 30 days’ notice, with no termination or domain-transfer fee. You own your domain, your branding, the content you supply, the copy we write and every lead; we own the design and code while you subscribe, and we quote a buyout in writing before you sign if you want the option to take it. Third-party costs — domain registration, ad spend, paid software, call-tracking minutes — sit outside the plan and are listed on the pricing page.

If you would rather pay once and own the whole thing outright, the one-time packages are still available:

Package	One-time price	What it is
Launch Page	$650	One page · About a week
Business Site	$1,950	Up to 6 pages · 2 to 3 weeks
Grand Opening Kit	$1,650	One-page site, Google Business Profile setup, and storefront signage
Logo and brand package	$395	Three concepts, two revision rounds, every file format
Google Business Profile setup	$350	Claim, verify, categories, services, photos, review link
Care Plan (optional, for sites you own)	$49/mo	Hosting, SSL, backups, updates, monitoring, small edits

Copywriting is included either way. Photography is not — we use your photos or licensed stock. The domain stays in your name at roughly $12 to $20 a year. On a one-time purchase, the design and code are yours on final payment, and hosting after launch is free if you host it yourself — we help you set that up.

Which is better depends on how long you expect to keep the site and how you prefer to pay. Over three or more years, a one-time build plus cheap hosting costs less. A subscription costs nothing to start and keeps the upkeep off your plate. We will tell you which one fits on the call.

Why the numbers are lower than the agency range above: there is no account management layer, no project manager, and no offshore build team. You talk to the developer, and the sites ship as pre-rendered static HTML rather than a plugin stack that needs constant maintenance.

What no package includes, at any price: a promise about your Google ranking, your position in the map pack, or how many leads you will get. Those depend on your market, your reviews, and your competitors.

Getting a number for your business

The quickest way to see what you would get is the free homepage preview: tell us about your business and we send a personalized concept of your homepage, with no obligation. It is a design concept, not a finished site. From there, a twenty-minute conversation settles which plan fits, or whether a one-time build makes more sense, and you get the terms in writing before anything starts. If a builder or a freelancer is a better fit for your situation, we will say so on that call rather than sell you something you do not need.