Year-one and 3-year total cost of building and running a website

Why Website Quotes Miss the Real Cost

A developer quotes 8,000 to build a website. The client pays, launches, and three years later has spent 18,000 on the site. Where did the extra 10,000 come from? Hosting at 50/month is 1,800 over 3 years. Domain renewal, SSL, security monitoring: 100-300/year. Premium plugins and themes: 200-800/year. Occasional maintenance and updates: 500-2,000/year. Minor redesigns and content changes: 500-3,000/year. Add all of these and a 8,000 build becomes an 18,000 property. This calculator shows both the build cost and the multi-year total so you can plan cash flow honestly.

Build-Cost Ranges by Website Type

Marketing landing page (1-3 pages, minor customisation): 500-3,000. Small business brochure site (5-15 pages, contact form, basic CMS): 3,000-10,000. Professional services site with content marketing: 8,000-25,000. Ecommerce site (Shopify template-based): 3,000-8,000. Ecommerce site (Shopify custom theme): 10,000-30,000. Ecommerce site (WooCommerce or custom): 20,000-80,000. SaaS marketing site with heavy interactivity: 15,000-60,000. Custom web app (not just marketing): 50,000-500,000+.

Ongoing Cost Components

Domain: 12-25/year.com, more for premium TLDs. Hosting: 5-20/month for shared, 30-100/month for managed WordPress, 100-500/month for VPS or cloud hosting, 500+/month for serious traffic. SSL: usually free (Let's Encrypt) or bundled with hosting. Email hosting if not Google Workspace: 5-15/month. Premium plugins and themes: 200-800/year depending on stack. Maintenance retainer if outsourced: 100-500/month. Content updates: variable, often 500-2,000/month for active blogs.

What Usually Gets Left Out of Budgets

Content writing. A professional copywriter charges 0.10-1.00/word depending on subject matter. A 10-page site easily needs 5,000-10,000 words — 500-10,000 in content alone. Photography and imagery. Stock photos (10-200/image) or custom shoot (2,000-15,000). Logo and brand assets if not already created. Accessibility compliance (WCAG 2.1 AA) adds 10-20% to design and dev budgets. SEO setup, search console configuration, analytics implementation. Legal pages (privacy policy, terms, cookies) if using a template costs 50-200; custom legal costs 500-3,000.

Worked Example

Small business site. Design: 40 hours at 90/hour = 3,600. Development: 80 hours at 110/hour = 8,800. Content: 20 hours at 80/hour = 1,600. One-time cost: 14,000. Domain: 15/year. Hosting: 35/month = 420/year. Plugins: 300/year. Year-one recurring: 735. Year-one total: 14,735. 3-year recurring: 2,205. 3-year total: 16,205. Monthly ongoing cost: 61.25. Read: the build dominates year one, but recurring costs add 15% to 3-year total. Budget separately for content updates, redesigns, and major feature additions that are not captured here.

When to DIY Versus Hire

DIY on a Wix, Squarespace, or Webflow template: 20-50/month all-in, 20-40 hours of your own time for a decent small-business site. Hire for a Webflow or Shopify custom build: 8,000-30,000 depending on complexity. Hire for a fully-custom WordPress or headless stack: 20,000+. The calculator models the hire scenario. For DIY, you are trading cash for time — roughly 200-300/hour of saved agency cost versus your hourly value.

Migrating Platforms Later

Website rebuilds after the first 3 years often carry migration costs not in the original budget. Moving from WordPress to Webflow, or from Shopify to a headless stack, typically costs 40-70% of a fresh build because content and SEO redirects need careful handling. Before committing to a platform, check how portable content is and whether URL structure can be preserved. Losing SEO authority during a migration can cost more than the migration itself in lost traffic and sales.