Free tool
Website cost calculator: see what your site should cost
Answer six questions and get a build estimate plus a three-year total for four routes — freelancer, agency, hosted builder and PolyDraft. It runs entirely in your browser, needs no email, and every assumption is yours to adjust.
Your project
Freelancer, agency and hosted-builder figures are adjustable market assumptions, not quotes. PolyDraft figures use published plan prices exactly.
Your estimate
| Route | Build | Per year | 3-year total |
|---|
Cost drivers
Seven variables explain almost every quote
When two proposals for the same site differ by a factor of five, the gap is nearly always in this list. Each one maps to an input in the calculator above.
Page count and scope
Every page needs structure, copy and review. A five-page brochure site and a forty-page catalogue are different projects, not different sizes of the same one.
Design customization
A themed template is cheap; a bespoke design system with custom motion is where agency quotes climb fastest.
Functionality
E-commerce, booking, gated content and third-party integrations each add build time and ongoing maintenance surface.
Content and copywriting
The line item clients forget. Professional copy for a modest site is routinely quoted separately from design and build.
Languages and localization
Each additional language multiplies copy, hreflang wiring and upkeep — the single biggest hidden multiplier in global projects.
SEO and AI-search setup
Keyword planning, metadata, schema, sitemaps, internal linking and now llms.txt. Often billed as a separate retainer.
Ongoing maintenance
Hosting, domain renewal, security updates, plugin upkeep and content changes recur every year for the life of the site.
The alternative
PolyDraft removes the three biggest line items
Design, copywriting and hosting are where website budgets go — and PolyDraft absorbs all three.
Design directions are generated for you. Copy is written from live search demand data, so there is no separate copywriter invoice and no separate SEO retainer to fund the keyword plan. Hosting is your own cloud account rather than a platform markup. Building and previewing the whole site costs nothing; you pay only when you publish. For global projects, the multilingual website builder capability removes the per-language translation plugin bill entirely.
This very website was built with PolyDraft — the whole thing, in one session.
- 01
Describe the site
Set page count, site type, design ambition and how many languages you need.
- 02
Add functionality
Toggle the features that apply: blog and CMS, lead forms, booking, e-commerce.
- 03
Compare the routes
See freelancer, agency, hosted builder and PolyDraft side by side, first year and three-year totals.
Website cost questions
How much does a website cost in 2026?
It depends on who builds it: a freelancer typically quotes roughly $1,000–5,000 for a small business site, agencies commonly start around $10,000 for custom work, and DIY builders cost little upfront but charge a subscription indefinitely. With PolyDraft, building and previewing a complete site is free and you pay only to publish.
How much does it cost to build a website?
Build cost is driven by page count, design complexity, functionality and how much content someone has to write. Use the calculator above to see a range for your specific spec instead of a generic average.
How much does a website cost per month?
Recurring cost is hosting plus domain plus maintenance plus any platform subscription. Traditional setups typically run from tens to hundreds of dollars a month. PolyDraft plans start at $39 per month, and because the site deploys to your own cloud account there are no platform hosting fees on top.
How much does a website domain cost?
A standard .com or country domain generally renews for about $10–20 per year. Premium or short domains are priced individually and can cost far more.
How much does it cost to host a website?
Shared hosting starts at a few dollars a month; managed and high-traffic hosting runs much higher. Sites deployed to your own cloud account are billed at your provider’s own rates rather than a platform markup.
How much does it cost to maintain a website?
Maintenance covers updates, backups, security and content changes. Agencies commonly bill it as a monthly retainer; doing it yourself costs time instead of money. A site with a built-in admin panel keeps content edits in-house.
How much does an e-commerce website cost?
E-commerce carries the highest build and ongoing cost of any common site type because of catalogue setup, payment and shipping integration, plus transaction fees that continue for the life of the store.
Do the estimates on this page come from real quotes?
The ranges are user-adjustable assumptions based on widely published market norms, not a proprietary dataset — change them to match quotes you have actually received. The PolyDraft figures are exact published plan prices.
Stop estimating. Build the thing and see it.
Building a complete website with PolyDraft is free — research, design directions, every page and a live preview. You only pay when you decide to publish it.