# How much does a small business website cost per month?

By Humfrid · Websites by text · Published 2026-11-03 · https://humfrid.com/blog/small-business-website-cost-per-month/

> More than any plan's price: the real monthly cost is the plan, plus the add-ons you need (your web address, booking, payments), plus every hour you spend building it and every change after launch. At the median U.S. wage of $24.51 an hour, ten hours of building is about $245 of your time. Humfrid rolls the building, every change and your .com into one plan you run by text, with no setup fee, no contract and 14 days free; its plans are below.

Text Humfrid your business name. Your website is built and kept up by text, your own .com is included, there's no setup fee and no contract, and you see it free for 14 days before you pay. Start at https://humfrid.com/.

## What goes into the monthly cost of a website?

The plan is only the first line. The real monthly cost is the plan, plus every add-on you need, plus your own hours, plus every change after launch. The rest arrives over the year, one evening and one extra account at a time. Humfrid rolls most of these lines into one plan you run by text, and this post shows what each one costs you when you carry it yourself.

Here is every line, and what each one takes from you if you run it yourself.

| Cost line | What it takes from you |
| --- | --- |
| The website plan | Picking a template, writing every page, sizing photos, learning an editor |
| Your web address (.com) | Registering it in your name, renewing it, connecting it to the site |
| Email | Another account to set up and keep track of |
| Online booking | Another tool to set up: your services, times and rules, linked from every page |
| A shop | Every product, photo and price entered by hand, and kept right |
| Payments | Another account to connect, and checks that it works |
| Changes after launch | Your evenings, every time your hours, prices or services change |
| The login | One more password to keep, for a dashboard you open twice a year |

None of these is hard on its own. Together they're a second job, and that job never ends, because a business keeps changing.

## What does doing it yourself really cost?

Your hours, more than anything on a price page. You pick the template, write the pages, crop the photos, and come back each time something changes. The Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the [median wage for all U.S. workers at $24.51 an hour](https://www.bls.gov/news.release/ocwage.t01.htm) (May 2025). If building your site takes 10 hours, that's about $245 of your time before it's live.

Then the changes start. A new price, a holiday closure, a service you added, a photo of your best work. If that's three hours a month at the same wage, it's about $74 of your time, every month, for as long as you have the site. Those hours usually come out of your evenings.

The bigger cost is what happens when the hours run out. A site nobody has time to update shows last season's prices and last year's hours. Customers read it and believe it. They show up when you're closed, or expect a price you no longer charge, and the site that was meant to bring them in sends them away.

## How Humfrid does this for you

Humfrid takes the building, the changes and the web address off your hands, in one plan. You don't learn an editor, you don't pay by the hour, and you don't keep a list of logins. That removes most of the lines in the table at once: no evenings at the editor, no separate domain to renew, no hourly bill for a holiday closure.

You text your business name and answer a few quick questions. You see the site, text back anything you'd change, and nothing goes live without your OK. Your new website is up within a day.

After that, a change is one text:

- "We're closed the Friday after Thanksgiving."
- "Haircuts go up next month, color stays the same."
- A photo from today's work with "put this on the front page."

Photos and voice notes work too. There's no app, no computer, no login and no dashboard to learn, and changes are unlimited on every plan.

Here's what rolls into the plan. Your own .com web address, in your name, is included and stays yours if you ever leave. Every plan includes online booking you manage by text, online payments and deposits, a contact form, a blog made from the photos you text, and a weekly report with your visitors and bookings. Every site is set up to be found on Google, Google Maps, ChatGPT and other AI answers, and Humfrid writes posts and review replies for your Google Business Profile for you to post. Humfrid's top plan adds a monthly plan with check-ins, and a reminder when to follow up with each client.

There's no setup fee, no contract and no charge per lead. You see your website free for 14 days, and pay only when you want it live on your own .com. You keep your phone number, and calls come straight to you. You cancel by text, with no fee to leave. Humfrid's plans are below, and the plans page lists every cost, including the fee on payments made through your site.

## What does it cost to pay someone to make the changes?

More per hour than your own time, and every change is a new bill. The Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the [median pay of web developers and digital designers at $47.85 an hour](https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/web-developers.htm) (May 2025). That's what employees earn. A freelancer's rate also has to cover what an employer would normally pay for, so expect to be quoted more.

At that kind of rate, a few small changes a month add up fast. And the cost isn't only money. Each change waits until they have time. When they get busy or move on, your holiday hours wait with them, and if the login is in their name, you're left with a site you can't change. With Humfrid, a holiday closure is a text, not an invoice.

An agency charges for a team's hours instead of one person's, often under a contract. That's a lot of meetings for a new price on your services page.

## Why do add-ons cost more than they look?

Because each one is another account, another setup and another thing to keep in step with your site. Each one also changes when your business does. Raise a price and you change it in the shop, on the services page and in the booking tool. Miss one and a customer sees two different prices. The more pieces you stack, the more places a fact can go wrong, and the more of your time it takes to keep them all right. Humfrid's booking and payments are part of your own website, so there's no separate tool to keep in step.

## What should I check before I pay for any website?

Add up every line, your own hours included, and ask what the second year costs, not only the first. Then check what you own. The domain should be registered in your name, because that's what you keep if you leave; our post on [whether you own your website](/blog/do-i-own-my-website/) covers the questions to ask. Check what leaving looks like: notice, fees, and whether you get your files and keep your address, which we cover in [canceling a website and keeping your domain](/blog/cancel-website-keep-domain/). If you're weighing paying someone to build it, our post on [what it costs to have a website built](/blog/cost-to-have-a-website-built/) goes through the hours line by line.

Text Humfrid your business name, and you'll see your website within a day.

## Sources

- [Table 1. National employment and wage data from the Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey by occupation, May 2025](https://www.bls.gov/news.release/ocwage.t01.htm), U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
- [Web Developers and Digital Designers: Occupational Outlook Handbook](https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/web-developers.htm), U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics