How much does a contractor website cost?
Short answer
A contractor website costs anywhere from about $20 a month on a do-it-yourself builder to $10,000 or more from an agency. Most working electricians, plumbers, HVAC companies, and painters end up in the middle: a flat setup fee somewhere between $1,000 and $3,000 for a five to seven page site, plus a monthly fee of roughly $50 to $200 that covers hosting and small changes. The price matters less than two questions: does the site get you calls from a phone, and do you own the domain when you leave.
The four ways contractors pay for a site
Do-it-yourself builders like Wix, Squarespace, and GoDaddy run $15 to $50 a month. The site is cheap and it is yours to build, which is the catch. Most contractors start one, get it half done, and leave it there with a placeholder phone number for two years.
Freelancers usually charge $1,000 to $5,000 for a build, then disappear or bill by the hour for changes. The site is often good. The problem shows up the first time you need the hours changed and nobody answers.
Agencies charge $5,000 to $15,000 and up, and many push a monthly retainer on top for "SEO" and "content." You are paying for account managers, meetings, and a process built for companies with a marketing department.
Flat-fee shops, which is what we are, charge one setup fee for a fixed set of pages and a fixed monthly fee for hosting and upkeep. You know the number before anything starts. The trade-off is that you get a defined site, not an open-ended custom project.
What the monthly fee should actually cover
Hosting, the domain renewal, security updates, and small edits: a new phone number, a new service, a changed price. If a monthly fee is under about $50, one of those is missing and it is usually the edits. If it is over about $300, you are paying for marketing work and should ask exactly what gets delivered each month.
Ask what happens when you stop paying. That one question sorts the market. The honest answer is that hosting stops, the domain stays yours, and you can take the site elsewhere. Any other answer means you are renting.
Where the real cost hides
The expensive website is the one that does not ring. A $500 site that loads slowly on a phone, buries the phone number, and lists no license number costs you every homeowner who opened it, looked for ten seconds, and called the next company. A site that is built for the phone, with click to call on every page and the license number where it can be read, pays for itself on the first job it lands.
Our build is one flat setup fee for a five page site and one monthly fee for hosting and upkeep. The numbers are on the homepage. The domain is registered in your name, in your account, from day one.
Related questions
Is a $500 website worth it?
Sometimes. If it loads fast on a phone, shows your phone number and license number at the top, and someone maintains it, yes. Most $500 sites fail at least two of those. Judge the site by what a homeowner sees on a phone, not by the price.
Why do some shops charge nothing up front and only a monthly fee?
Because the monthly fee is the product. The math usually works out to more than a flat build within two years, and the site is theirs, not yours, so you cannot leave without starting over. Read the exit terms before you sign.
Do I need to pay for SEO on top of the site?
Not at first. A correctly built site with your services, your service area, and a claimed Google Business Profile is the SEO that matters for a local contractor. Paid SEO retainers make sense once the basics are in place and you can see what is already working.
Published 2026-09-02 by Lasting Sites, a Los Angeles shop that builds websites for trade contractors anywhere in the US.
