Pricing
How much does a website cost in Australia?
Almost every agency has a page answering this, and almost all of them dodge it — “it depends”, a $2,000–$15,000 range, and a “request a quote” button. Here are the real numbers for 2026, what actually drives them, and where a lean build fits.
The honest short answer
A website in Australia in 2026 can cost anywhere from nothing upfront (a DIY builder you pay monthly, forever) to $50,000+ for a brand agency’s custom build. For a normal small business, published pricing guides put a professional site somewhere between $3,000 and $10,000 — and surveys show owners expect to pay around $3,000, then get quoted far more once strategy, content, and SEO are added on.
That enormous spread is exactly why the question feels impossible to answer. So instead of one number, here’s the whole landscape laid out — and the number most quotes leave out entirely.
What the options actually cost
| Option | Build cost | Ongoing | You own it? |
|---|---|---|---|
| DIY builder (Wix / Squarespace) | $0 upfront | $17–$45 / mo, forever | No — you rent it |
| Freelancer | $1,500–$5,000 | $0–$2,000 / yr | Usually yes |
| WordPress agency | $3,000–$10,000 | $500–$2,000 / yr | Yes, with upkeep |
| Creative / brand agency | $10,000–$50,000+ | Ongoing retainer | Yes |
| Static site (our approach) | $300 flat | ~$0 hosting + ~$20/yr domain | Yes — fully |
Ranges reflect published 2026 Australian web-design and hosting pricing guides. Freelancers typically bill $50–$150/hr, agencies $80–$200/hr.
The number quotes leave out: total cost of ownership
A build price is a one-day snapshot. What you actually spend is the three-year total — and that’s where the “cheap” DIY builders quietly become the expensive option:
Squarespace at ~$33/mo
About $1,200 over three years — and at the end you still don't own the site or the platform. Stop paying and it goes dark.
Wix at ~$42/mo
Roughly $1,500 over three years, plus transaction fees and paid apps for anything beyond the basics.
A static site
A one-off build, then hosting on a free tier at ~$0/mo; the only recurring cost is the domain at ~$20/yr. Three-year total lands around $360 — and you own every file.
The subscription builders feel cheap because the cost is spread thin and never ends. A one-time build with near-zero hosting is the opposite trade: you pay once, then owe almost nothing.
Why a static site can cost a fraction of the rest
Most of the price gap isn’t design — it’s plumbing. A WordPress or Wix site is a live application: a database, a page-builder, plugins, logins, and updates that all need hosting and maintenance. A static site is just fast, pre-built pages served from a global network. No database to hack, no plugins to break, nothing to patch monthly.
Near-zero hosting
Static pages run on free-tier hosting (Netlify, Vercel, Cloudflare). No monthly platform tax.
Fast and secure by default
Fewer moving parts means faster load times and a far smaller attack surface — good for both users and Google.
You own the code
The whole site is yours to keep, move, or hand to anyone. No lock-in to a builder you have to keep paying.
Perfect for the common case
For a service business that needs to look sharp, load fast, and take enquiries, a static site does everything that matters.
What a static site actually looks like
“Static” doesn’t mean plain. Below is a static site for a Parramatta acupuncture and Chinese-medicine clinic — custom design, online booking, service pages and trust signals, all served from free-tier hosting with no monthly platform fee behind it.
What changes the price: integrations
A brochure site — pages, design, contact form — is the base. Costs go up when the site needs to do something. The prices below are for wiring in established drop-in tools — a booking system, or a lightweight CMS so you can edit content yourself — embedded and styled to match your site. It’s integration, not custom software:
Online booking
from $60
Appointments, calendars, reminders — embedded and styled to match the site.
Editable blog or content
from $200
A lightweight CMS so you can add posts or update pages yourself, no developer needed.
Figures are indicative starting points for standard drop-in integrations. Anything custom-built — a bespoke booking flow, payments, or an integration with your own systems — is billed at our $70/hr rate, with an estimate up front.
Updating an old site vs building a new one
If you already have a Wix, Squarespace or WordPress site, the instinct is to patch it rather than start over. Sometimes that’s right — and sometimes it costs more than a clean rebuild. It comes down to the job:
Update the existing site when…
- It's a content change — new copy, images, prices, a page or two
- The design still works and loads reasonably fast
- You're happy to keep paying the current platform's monthly fee
Updates are billed hourly. Most edits are quick — the trap is paying $100–$200/hr to keep fighting a platform’s limits.
Rebuild instead when…
- The site is slow, dated, or a pain to edit
- You're locked into a builder and paying monthly for it
- The 'update' quote is creeping toward the cost of a new build
On a locked platform, a fresh static build often lands below the cost of reworking the old one — and you walk away owning it, with no monthly fee.
We’ll tell you honestly which way is cheaper for your situation, rather than defaulting to whichever bills more. If a twenty-minute edit fixes it, that’s the answer.
Our pricing, in plain numbers
No “from $X,XXX, request a quote”. Here’s where we start:
- New website (basic build, from scratch)$300 flat
- Hosting~$0 / mo (free tier)
- Domain~$20 / yr, at cost
- Drop-in integrations (booking, blog)from $60
- Updates, integrations & automations$70 / hr
Figures are starting points; a fixed quote comes after a quick conversation about scope.
“$300 — what’s the catch?”
Fair question. It’s that low because a static site cuts out the expensive parts — no database, no page-builder licence, no monthly platform to host and maintain — and because a well-built site is a front door, not the whole house. The deeper work we do is automation and AI systems; a fast, honest website is how that relationship starts. We’d rather price the site fairly and earn the next piece of work than mark up the front door.
The bottom line
There is no single price for a website in Australia — but there is a right way to think about it. Look past the build quote to the three-year total, ask whether you’ll actually own what you’re paying for, and match the tool to the job: most small businesses need a fast, sharp, ownable site far more than they need a $10,000 platform. When the extra features genuinely earn their keep, add them — deliberately, with the price in front of you.
Want a straight number for your site?
Tell us what you need — new build, or a look at whether your current site is worth updating — and we’ll give you an honest, itemised quote with no pressure attached.