How to price your first local business website

By 67Leads Team · Published 7 Nov 2026 · Updated 7 Nov 2026 (US Central) · 6 min read

To price your first local business website, cost your own time first (hours to build a one-page site times the hourly rate you need), add the real costs you pass through (domain, hosting, tools), then check that the total is something one or two jobs from the new site would pay back for the owner; quote one setup price and one monthly price, and say both out loud without apologising. There is no single right number, and anyone quoting you one without knowing your market is guessing. What you can know is your market: as of 7 Nov 2026, 67Leads lists 6,138 US local businesses with no website and 20 or more reviews, the group most likely to pay.

Start from your time, not from someone else's price list

Prices you see online range from almost nothing to tens of thousands of dollars, because they describe different products for different buyers. A template site for a hobby, an agency build for a chain, and a one-page site for a roofer are not the same thing. Copying a number from any of them tells you little.

Your own costs tell you more. Work it out once:

1. Hours to build. Time yourself on your first two or three one-page sites, including the back-and-forth with the owner, photos, copy, setting up the domain and the listing link. Most new designers underestimate this by half.
2. The hourly rate you need. What you want to earn in a month, divided by the hours you can actually bill. Not every working hour is billable; prospecting, admin and learning take a large share. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes pay data for web developers if you want a reference point for your area (BLS).
3. Pass-through costs. Domain registration, hosting, any paid theme or form tool, and your own software.

Hours times rate, plus pass-through, is your floor. Below it you are paying to work.

Check the price against what a job is worth to the owner

The owner does not care about your hours. They care whether the site brings work. So test your number from their side: how many extra jobs would the site need to bring in to pay for itself?

For a trade where one job is worth hundreds or thousands of dollars, a site that brings one or two extra jobs has paid for itself, and that is a reasonable thing to say on a call, as long as you frame it as a question rather than a promise. "If this brought you one extra job, would it have paid for itself?" is honest. "This will bring you ten jobs a month" is not something you can know.

This is also why trade choice matters. Tree work, roofing, HVAC and concrete have large average jobs. Our guide on finding web design clients who have no website covers picking a trade with that in mind.

Setup plus monthly is the model that lasts

Most designers who sell to local trades settle on two numbers:

• A setup price for building the site and getting it live.
• A monthly price for hosting, the domain renewal, backups, updates, small edits and keeping the listing link correct.

The monthly part matters more than it looks. It turns one sale into a client relationship, it pays you to prevent the failures that take small business sites down, and it adds up. 7,827 businesses in 67Leads list a website that no longer loads, many of them sites that someone built and nobody looked after. A care plan is how yours avoids becoming one of them.

Some designers offer a third option: little or nothing upfront and a higher monthly price for a minimum term. It lowers the first yes for cautious owners. If you do it, put the term and what happens at the end of it in writing.

Decide exactly what the first package includes

A clear, small package is easier to sell and easier to deliver than a vague one. A common starting point for a trade business with no site:

• One page, built for phones first
• Business name, phone with tap-to-call, service area, opening hours
• Three to six services with a sentence each
• Their best reviews, quoted with permission or linked to the listing
• Their own photos, or clearly licensed stock
• A contact form that emails the owner
• The website added to their Google listing

Write down what is not included: extra pages, a logo, online booking, copywriting beyond the basics, paid ads. Those are upgrades, priced separately. A small package with one clear price also answers the question most owners ask first, which is what this will cost them, before they have decided whether they want it.

How to say the price on a call

New designers lose more deals by hesitating over the number than by the number itself. Practise saying it.

"A one-page site with your services, photos, reviews and a tap-to-call button is [setup price], live in [turnaround]. After that it's [monthly price] a month for hosting, your domain, backups and any small changes you need."

Then stop. Do not fill the silence with a discount. If they push back, offer less, not cheaper: "If that's more than you want to spend now, I can do the page without the contact form and add it later." A smaller scope at the same rate keeps your price honest.

The cold-call script for web designers puts this line in context, with the objections that usually come before it.

Deposits, payment and paperwork

• Take a deposit before you start. Half upfront is common. It filters out owners who are not serious.
• Put it in writing. One page: what you will build, the price, the monthly fee, what the monthly fee covers, how either side ends it, and who owns the domain. The owner should own their domain.
• Invoice the monthly fee automatically. Chasing small invoices by hand eats the margin.

Raise your price as the proof builds

Your first three or four clients are partly paying for your learning, and that is fine. Once you have live sites you can show, a sentence from a happy owner, and a clear process, raise your setup price for new clients. Keep early clients on their original monthly fee; they took the chance on you.

Questions

How much should I charge for my first website?

Enough to cover your hours at the rate you need plus your real costs. Check that one or two jobs from the site would pay it back for the owner. Your market sets the ceiling; your time sets the floor.

Should I build the first site for free?

A free homepage mockup is a good way to open a conversation; our free-mockup email sequence is built on it. Building the whole site for free usually attracts owners who will not pay for the next one.

Who is most likely to pay?

Busy businesses with no site: 2,069 businesses in 67Leads have no website, 4.5 stars or more and 50 or more reviews. The web designers page opens those filters as searches.

When your price is set, find the businesses to offer it to in the no-website finder: pick a trade and a town and it shows how many have no website, with the first rows by name.

No card. Search is free with contacts masked.

Sources

1. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/web-developers.htm