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When it comes to your marketing strategy, nothing trumps your website. It is the online home for your business where you can showcase your work and make an impression. Creating an impressive hub will attract more customers and clients — but at what cost?
Quick answer: In 2026, a DIY website can cost as little as a few dollars a month on a budget builder, or $19 to $99 a month on a builder like Squarespace. Freelancer prices vary widely. At Bend Marketing, custom WordPress websites typically start at $7,500 (with a $5,500 minimum) and include strategy, copywriting, design, build, launch, training and 30 days of support.
What Will Your Website Redesign Cost?
- Designing a website yourself slashes the website design pricing, as you can use a website builder for as little as $1.95 per month. Popular builders like Squarespace run $19 to $99 a month billed yearly (Squarespace pricing, checked Oct 2026).
- Electing an agency to build you a simple but custom website design can range from $8k to $30k. At Bend, custom WordPress sites typically start at $7,500, with a $5,500 minimum.
- For a large and complex site, a web design cost can fall anywhere between $40k and $75k, which is far from a small investment. For example, the Jesuits’ multi-site platform was a 12-month project with an 8-person team.
Is a Website Design Worth the Cost?
Short answer — yes. A hefty sum might be off the cards for small businesses and startups, but a professional-looking website is a must. Choose a website design cost within your budget, and create a site that fulfills your needs and serves your customers without breaking the bank. Investing in a quality design will often be worth the website development costs.
For Legacy Vein Clinic, a new WordPress website plus SEO and Google Ads helped Google search clicks grow 5.5x (2,810 vs. 512 over three months) and website leads rise 55% year over year (87 vs. 56 in Q1). Read the Legacy Vein case study.
3 Things You Can Do Right Now To Grow Your Online Traffic. Get Your Custom Assessment Right Here.
What is the Cost of Designing Your Own Website?
As many features aren’t essential, designing your own website lets you adapt the costs to fit your budget. Cost breakdown, based on what we’ve seen with our clients:
- Website domain ($12 – $60)
- Service subscription or website hosting ($35 – $600)
- Website template or theme ($0 – $200)
- SEO tools ($0 – $90)
- A copywriter to help you fine-tune your content ($0 – $5,000)
Cutting back on some of these costs is possible, but a website people trust needs flawless presentation.
How Much Does a Website Builder Cost?
Quality DIY website builders like Squarespace start at $19 per month billed yearly ($25 month to month), and Wix offers a free plan with paid upgrades. That small fee lets you build an ad-free website to a sufficient standard if you are looking for something basic. Or, stick to WordPress but choose a website builder like Elementor, which seamlessly installs onto WordPress as a plugin. With this web design tool, you can create modules, use widgets, and get creative with your format and styling skills. See what that looks like in our Elementor website examples.
Hiring a Freelancer for Your Website Design
Some people hire a freelancer hoping it will take the pressure off, but the truth is far more complex. When a freelancer is involved, the client becomes the project manager and must provide a sitemap and design ideas, and write the copy (unless you hire a copywriter). This process is deceptively time-consuming and requires the client to be organized, communicative, and on the ball 24/7.
Freelance pricing varies widely with experience, location and scope, so be wary of any single “average” you read online.
Hiring an Agency for Your Website Redesign
With an agency, everything is taken care of for you. Although it is the most expensive option (costing anywhere from $8k-$30k), the agency will work alongside you to devise an overall strategy, not just a flashy website. The agency will help you build your sitemap architecture using data about your customers and conversion rate optimization techniques, spurring your business forward by generating more leads. (Our own custom WordPress sites typically start at $7,500.)
In short, investing in your website is always worth it. The extra leads generated by a professionally produced website will pay for the costs in no time, scaling your business to thrive long-term. Depending on how much you sell your product for, the number of clicks needed for a profit will vary. But overall, a more strategic website will bring in more traffic, leaving you with more conversions.
What Bend charges in 2026
| Service | Bend price (Oct 2026) |
| Custom WordPress website | Typically from $7,500 ($5,500 minimum) |
| Landing page | From $2,000 |
| Website copywriting (up to 5 pages) | $1,000 |
| Logo and brand identity | $2,000–$3,500 |
| Web development (hourly) | $150/hour |
| WordPress care | $350, $500, $1,000 or $3,000/month |
| Paid ads management (Google or Meta) | $2,000/month plus ad spend |
A typical website project takes 8 to 12 weeks. See everything in our rate card.
3 Things You Can Do Right Now To Grow Your Online Traffic. Get Your Custom Assessment Right Here.
What Affects the Cost of Hiring a Website Designer or Agency?
Naturally, the bigger the website, the greater the cost — but size isn’t everything. A complex site with interactive features, innovative design, and impressive programming will send you up a price bracket. And choosing between managed or unmanaged hosting and basic or top-notch security will make a difference, too. Lastly, if your website requires ongoing maintenance (and the best ones do), you must factor this into your budget.
Other common cost drivers: copywriting, online stores, memberships, donations or event registration, multiple languages, integrations and migrating years of existing content.
How to Reduce the Cost of Hiring a Website Designer
On average, the cost to build a website with a website designer is almost $7k. For many, this hefty sum is simply not an option, but don’t fall into the trap of choosing a suspiciously cheap designer — it’s probably too good to be true. Instead, head to WordPress to start building your site yourself, but hire a designer to customize and manage it for you. This is the cost-effective middle ground between DIY and fancy design, costing anywhere from $350 per month, depending on your requirements.
More ways to keep costs down: list your must-haves and save nice-to-haves for phase two; gather photos and copy early; launch focused and grow; plan for care so you’re not paying for emergency fixes.
Building a Website Yourself Without an Agency: The Risks
For agencies, designing and building websites is their skill set. We need these agencies in today’s world as they offer essential skills, helping businesses promote themselves and grow. A credible website will be mobile-responsive, quick to load, and easy to update. As this makes visitors to your site trust what you are saying, it increases their likelihood of converting on your page. You may save in the short term when you DIY, but what will you lose in lost opportunities and wasted time?
The Benefits of Growth-Driven Design
Growth-driven design (GDD) is a process that continuously improves your website by tracking user data. It usually begins with a smaller minimum viable product (MVP) website and grows as time goes on, built on the premise that the website will quickly understand what the user wants and adapt to meet those needs. Think of your website like a living organism: it needs attention and care to grow and evolve. By updating your website frequently, you can be sure that it consistently meets the ever-changing requirements of your clients.
Our WordPress maintenance plans all include daily backups, security scans, malware removal and page-speed improvements, plus: Bronze, $350/month (2 hours of edits); Silver, $500/month (5 hours); Gold, $1,000/month (unlimited edits); Platinum, $3,000/month (unlimited edits and design). Stores, membership sites, multilingual sites and sites that take payments need Silver or above. New care clients get their first month free.
3 Things You Can Do Right Now To Grow Your Online Traffic. Get Your Custom Assessment Right Here.
How Content and Copywriting Can Affect a Website Redesign
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Clear, specific copy helps search engines understand what each page is about and match it to the right searches.
Compelling and engaging copy
Visitors decide in seconds whether you can help. Copy that leads with their problem, not your history, keeps them reading.
Boosted conversion rates
A clear call to action on every page turns more of your existing traffic into calls, sign-ups and gifts. Our 5-page website copywriting package is $1,000.
What about church and nonprofit website costs?
The same factors apply, plus a few that matter to ministries: online giving, event and sacrament information, volunteer sign-ups and often more than one language. Our nonprofit WordPress design page explains our approach. For examples, see our Catholic website examples and the Jesuits website case study, where dashboard load times dropped from 12 seconds to 1.5 seconds. We’re based in South Bend, Indiana, and work with organizations across the country.
A New Perspective on the Price of a Website Design
Think of your website as a new addition to your team. It is your No. 1 marketing strategy and will generate more leads and attract more interest than any other member of staff (or human) could. A quality website is your top sales rep — investing in it is essential.
Download our rate card for current pricing, or book a strategy call and we’ll scope your site together.
