You ask five web companies what a contractor website costs, you'll get five wildly different answers. $500. $10,000. "Free" with a catch. It's like getting bids on a roof with no scope of work.
Here's the straight talk on what you should actually expect to pay.
The Three Tiers
Tier 1: DIY Drag-and-Drop ($0–$600/year)
Wix, Squarespace, GoDaddy — pick a template, drop in your logo, add your phone number. You're live in a weekend for $16–$50/month.
The upside: You exist online. Homeowners can find your number and see a few job photos.
The problem: These sites don't rank in Google. No service area pages, no SEO, slow load times. They're a digital business card, not a lead machine. Fine for getting started, but don't expect the phone to ring from it.
Tier 2: Freelancer or Local Agency ($2,500–$7,500)
A designer builds you a custom WordPress site — 5 to 15 pages, mobile-friendly, decent looking. Some basic SEO baked in.
The upside: Professional appearance, your brand looks legit.
Watch out: WordPress has baggage. Hosting runs $20–$100/month. Then there's plugin updates, security patches, and backups. Most agencies tack on $100–$300/month for maintenance. Ask about all of that before you sign.
Tier 3: SEO-Built Performance Sites ($5,000–$15,000+)
This is the jump from "I have a website" to "my website books me jobs." You get keyword research, service pages for every trade you offer, location pages for every city you cover, schema markup that AI tools can read, and conversion-focused layouts.
The upside: Built to rank in Google, get cited by ChatGPT and Perplexity, and turn visitors into booked estimates.
Why it costs more: It's not just design. It's research, strategy, technical SEO, and a 30-page site with real content — not a 5-page template with stock photos.
Hidden Costs Nobody Mentions
Hosting: $10–$100/month on most platforms. Static sites like the ones we build at PageOneLocal host for practically nothing on Netlify.
Domain: $12–$20/year. If someone quotes you $50+ for a domain, walk away.
SSL certificate: Free. Everywhere. If anyone charges for this in 2026, that's a red flag.
Photos: Skip the stock images. Take real photos of your crew and your work. Homeowners spot fakes immediately.
Content updates: Can't edit your own site? You're paying $50–$150 every time you need a change. Make sure updates are included or you have access to make edits yourself.
Ongoing SEO: $500–$2,000/month for content, backlinks, and technical improvements. Separate from the build.
What We Charge (and Why)
At PageOneLocal, a full contractor website is $997 one-time with $50/month hosting. That gets you an SEO-optimized, fast-loading site with service pages, location pages, schema markup, and mobile-first design. No WordPress maintenance headaches, no surprise fees.
We keep it affordable because we use a modern static site architecture that's faster, more secure, and cheaper to host than WordPress. You're paying for the strategy and content — not bloated infrastructure.
The Real Cost of a Cheap Website
A $500 site that generates zero leads is the most expensive website you'll ever buy. One roofing job, one HVAC install, one remodel — that single project probably covers the cost of a site that actually works.
The right question isn't "how much does a website cost?" It's "how much is it costing me right now to NOT have one that generates leads?"