Pricing
How Much Does a Small-Business Website Cost in Houston?
Most Houston small-business websites land somewhere between a few hundred dollars for a tightly scoped one-page site and several thousand for a custom multi-page build. Where you land depends on page count, who writes the copy, and whether you need ecommerce or integrations — not on how good the design looks.
By Ali B., Founder and developer at Graphcast Web Design ·
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:
- Number of pages. The clearest driver. Each page is design, copy, structure and testing.
- 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.
- 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.
- Ecommerce and integrations. Payments, booking systems, CRM connections, inventory sync. Each one is its own build-and-test job.
- Custom functionality. Quote calculators, portals, member areas, anything unique to you.
- 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.
- 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, do I keep the site? If the answer is no, you were renting.
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.
- You do not get the files. Ask directly: if I leave, what do I take with me?
- 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
- Whether the Google Business Profile is included or extra
- What happens after launch — support window, then what
- The payment schedule
- Confirmation in writing that you own the finished site
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
Flat, published, and the same for everyone. Full detail on the pricing page.
| Package | Price | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Launch Page | $650 flat | One page · About a week |
| Business Site | $1,950 flat | Up to 6 pages · 2 to 3 weeks |
| Grand Opening Kit | $1,650 flat | One-page site, Google Business Profile setup, and storefront signage |
| Logo and brand package | $395 flat | Three concepts, two revision rounds, every file format |
| Google Business Profile setup | $350 flat | Claim, verify, categories, services, photos, review link |
| Care Plan (optional) | $49/mo | Hosting, SSL, backups, updates, monitoring, small edits |
Copywriting is included in every package. Photography is not — we use your photos or licensed stock. The domain stays in your name at roughly $12 to $20 a year. Hosting after launch is free if you host it yourself, and we help you set that up.
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 route to an accurate figure is a twenty-minute conversation about what you do, who you serve, and how many services need their own page. You get a flat quote in writing, usually the same day. If a builder or a freelancer is a better fit for your situation, we will say so on that call rather than quote you for something you do not need.
Frequently asked questions
What is the cheapest a real website can cost in Houston?
A genuinely custom one-page site starts in the several-hundred-dollar range. Below that you are buying either a DIY builder subscription you operate yourself, or a template someone filled in for you in an afternoon. Both are legitimate choices for the right business — they are just not the same product as a custom site, and a quote should be honest about which one it is.
Why do Houston agency quotes start at $5,000?
Because a traditional agency has account managers, project managers, designers and developers, and their hourly rates have to cover all of them. That structure earns its cost on a large project with many stakeholders. On a five-page site for a fence company it mostly funds coordination, which is why the same site is much cheaper from a studio with fewer people between you and the code.
Is a monthly website plan cheaper than paying up front?
It is cheaper this month and usually more expensive within two years. The bigger question is what happens when you stop paying: with many monthly-website vendors, the site goes away, because you were renting it. Before signing, ask directly whether you own the files and the domain, and what you keep if you cancel.
Does a more expensive website rank better on Google?
Not by itself. Price buys pages, copy, speed and structure — all of which help — but ranking also depends on your competitors, your reviews, your Google Business Profile, and how long your site has existed. Any quote that attaches a ranking promise to a price is selling something the seller does not control.
How much should I budget for the first year, all in?
Take the build price, add the domain (roughly $12 to $20), add hosting for twelve months (free if you host it yourself on a static host, or a modest monthly plan), and add any one-off extras like a logo or Google Business Profile setup. For most Houston small businesses the realistic first-year total is the build price plus a few hundred dollars.
Get a flat quote, not a range
Call and talk to the person who will actually build your site. Or send the form and we'll call you back with a flat quote within one business day.
Serving Houston and the Greater Houston Area
Get a quote in one business day
Tell us what you need. We reply with a flat price, not a sales call.