Number of pages
The obvious one, and the most over-bought. Most small businesses need four to six pages. Paying for fifteen you'll never update is money lit on fire.
How much does a website cost in Australia?
Nobody wants to publish this, which is exactly why we have. Here are the real ranges you'll be quoted in Australia, what actually pushes the price up, the ongoing costs most people forget, and the warning signs worth walking away from.
Updated July 2026
All figures in AUD
No sales pitch until the end
$1.5k–$8kSmall business site
$5k–$15k+Online store
Plus running costsDomain, hosting, any subscriptions
~$50–$500/yr
What decides where you landPages, e-commerce, who writes the copy
Biggest cost driver
Scope · not the designer
/ Build cost
What you'll be quoted, by who's building it.
These are the ranges we see quoted around the Australian market in 2026. Treat them as a sanity check on a quote in front of you, not as fixed prices — every job is different, and anyone giving you an exact figure before understanding your business is guessing.
| Who builds it | Typical cost | What you usually get |
|---|---|---|
| You, on a builder | $0 + $20–$70/mo | Wix, Squarespace or Shopify. No build fee, but the subscription never stops and you pay in your own time — realistically 20 to 60 hours to get something decent. |
| Freelancer | $800–$2,500 | A small brochure site, usually template-based. Quality swings enormously. Copywriting and photography are rarely included at this price. |
| Small agency | $3,000–$8,000 | Five to eight pages, custom design, copy written for you, basic search setup, a few rounds of revisions. Where most Australian small businesses land. |
| Online store | $5,000–$15,000+ | Shopify or WooCommerce with products, payments, shipping rules and tax. The product catalogue itself is often the biggest hidden cost. |
| Larger agency | $15,000–$50,000+ | Brand work, custom functionality, integrations with your existing systems, formal project management. Sensible for established businesses, overkill for a five-page trade site. |
One thing worth noticing: the gap between a $1,200 site and a $6,000 site is usually not how it looks. It's whether someone wrote the words properly, whether it loads fast on a phone on mobile data, and whether anyone set it up to be found on Google. Those three things are what turn a website into enquiries, and they're the first things cut to hit a low price.
/ Running costs
The bills that keep coming after launch.
Ask about these before you sign anything. A cheap build with expensive mandatory extras can easily cost more over three years than a dearer build that runs on next to nothing.
| What | Typical cost | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|
| Domain name | $15–$40/yr | A .com.au needs an ABN. Register it in your own name, not your developer's — this is the single most common thing businesses lose access to. |
| Hosting | $0–$400/yr | A simple static site can be hosted free. WordPress needs real hosting, usually $100 to $400 a year for something that isn't painfully slow. |
| SSL certificate | $0 | Free and automatic on any decent host. If someone is charging you annually for this, ask why. |
| Booking system | $30–$100/mo | Only if you need real availability and automated reminders. A simple enquiry form costs nothing and suits plenty of businesses better. |
| Maintenance | $50–$300/mo | Reasonable for WordPress, which genuinely needs updating. Largely unnecessary for a static site. Should be optional either way. |
| Advertising | Your budget + fee | Separate from the website entirely. Your ad spend goes to Google or Meta; a management fee goes to whoever runs it. |
/ What moves the number
Six things that decide your quote.
If two quotes are thousands apart, it's almost always one of these — not one agency being greedy.
Who writes the words
The quiet budget-killer. If copywriting isn't included, either you write it — and the project stalls for six weeks — or you pay a copywriter $500 to $2,000 on top.
Photography
Stock photos are free and look it. A local photographer is $400 to $1,500 for a half day. For anything appearance-led, it's the best money in the whole project.
Shop or bookings
Taking money or managing availability is a different class of build — payments, shipping, tax, refunds, reminders. Expect it to roughly double a brochure-site quote.
Search setup
Page titles, descriptions, structured data, Google Business Profile, sitemap. A day's work that decides whether anyone ever finds the thing. Confirm it's in scope.
Rounds of revisions
"Two rounds included" then $150 an hour is where friendly quotes turn ugly. Ask what happens on round three before you're emotionally committed.
/ Red flags
Five things worth walking away from.
None of these are hypothetical. We've picked up clients from all five.
You don't own the website
Rent-a-website deals where leaving means starting again. Three years of $99 a month is $3,564 and you own nothing. Ask directly: if I leave, what do I take with me?
The domain is in their name
Your domain is your business address. It should be registered to you, with you holding the login. Developers going quiet while holding a domain is depressingly common.
No fixed price before work starts
"We'll see how it goes" means the invoice is a surprise. Get scope and price in writing. Hourly billing is fine for ongoing work, not for a defined build.
Guaranteed number-one on Google
Nobody can promise this, because nobody controls Google's ranking. Anyone offering it is either inexperienced or counting on you not knowing. Walk.
You can't see anything until you pay
A deposit for a mock-up you might hate is the industry norm, and it's backwards. You should be able to judge the work before you're financially committed.
/ Before you pay anyone
Seven questions to ask, including us.
Copy these into an email and send them to everyone quoting. The answers will separate the quotes faster than the prices will.
Is the price fixed, in writing, before work starts? And what specifically triggers extra cost?
Who writes the copy? If it's me, what happens to the timeline while I'm writing it?
Whose name is the domain registered in, and will I have the login?
What are the ongoing costs, which are compulsory, and what's the three-year total?
Is search setup included? Titles, descriptions, sitemap and Google Business Profile.
Can I see three sites you've built that are still live today?
If I walk away in a year, what do I take with me?
/ And here's our pitch
We'd rather show you the website than quote you for one.
We don't publish a price list, because a five-page trade site and a full online store aren't the same job and pretending otherwise helps nobody. What we do instead is build your website first, free, within 24 hours — and only then talk money.
You see the real thing on your screen. If you like it, we agree a fixed price in writing and build the official version with your edits. If you don't, you walk away and it has cost you nothing. Your domain, your site, no lock-in, nothing held hostage.
Nothing to pay to see it
A real, working sample of your website within 24 hours. No deposit, no commitment, no obligation afterwards.
On advertising we go further: no enquiries in your first week and we refund our fee completely.
/ Straight answers
Cost questions people actually ask.
For a straightforward five to eight page business site, most Australian small businesses are quoted between $1,500 and $8,000 — freelancer at the lower end, small agency in the middle, larger agency above. Online stores and custom functionality push it higher.
A domain at roughly $15 to $40 a year, hosting from free (static sites) up to about $400 a year (WordPress), and optional extras like a booking system at $30 to $100 a month. Maintenance runs $50 to $300 a month if you want someone on call. SSL should cost you nothing.
Because they're not quoting the same job. Page count, who writes the copy, whether photography is included, e-commerce, integrations, revision limits and whether search setup is in scope all move the number. Two quotes $5,000 apart usually differ in scope, not margin — which is why the questions above are more useful than comparing figures.
Sometimes — but check what you're getting. At that price it's usually a stock template with your logo dropped in, no copywriting, no search setup, no revisions. The real risk isn't the design; it's a site that loads slowly, doesn't work properly on a phone, or that you don't own and can't move.
Be careful with arrangements where you rent the site forever and never own it. After three years at $99 a month you've paid more than a build and own nothing, and leaving means starting over. Paying monthly for genuine hosting, maintenance or ad management is perfectly reasonable — the distinction is whether you own the website itself.
Two to six weeks is the usual quote for a small business site, and most of that is spent waiting on content rather than building. Delays almost always come from photos and copy. Having those ready is the single biggest thing you can do to speed it up — it's also why our free sample lands in 24 hours: we write the first draft ourselves rather than waiting on you.
/ Next step
Or skip the quotes entirely.
Fifteen minutes on the phone and we'll build your website free within 24 hours. Then you'll know exactly what you're deciding about.