Photo: Karola G on Pexels
A website budget goes wrong in a predictable way: the owner plans for the build and forgets the bills that arrive every month after launch. Splitting the costs into 3 groups before the first quote fixes that. This guide walks through each group, gives sourced price points where vendors publish them and shows how to compare quotes that are written in different ways.
What goes into a small business website budget?
A small business website budget is a plan that splits costs into 3 groups: one-time costs to build the site, recurring costs to keep it online and optional extras that add features. Each group has its own billing cycle and its own line in the books.
The U.S. Small Business Administration lists “making a website” among typical startup expenses in its guide to calculating startup costs. The same guide separates one-time costs, such as hiring a logo designer, from monthly expenses, such as rent and utilities. A website belongs in both columns, which is why a single “website” line in a spreadsheet hides the recurring part of the cost.
Treat the 3 groups as separate budgets. One-time costs come from savings or a loan at launch. Recurring costs come from monthly cash flow for as long as the site exists. Optional extras wait until the business case for each one is clear.
The largest single figures sit in the first group, so it comes first.
What are the one-time costs of a new website?
A new website carries 4 one-time costs: design and build, written content, photography, and a logo with brand files. Each one is a project fee quoted once, and none of them repeats until you redesign the site or reshoot the photos.
· Design and build covers page layouts, development, mobile testing and setup of forms and analytics.
· Content writing covers the words on each page, from the home page to every service description.
· Photography covers a session for your team, location and finished work.
· Logo and brand files cover the mark itself, color codes and font choices.
Read each quote for what it leaves out. Some quotes price design and build only and assume the owner supplies the words and photos. Writing it yourself costs time instead of money, and that time belongs in the plan as well. Ask whether the quote includes a set number of pages and revision rounds, because extra pages and extra rounds are where one-time costs grow.
Once the site is live, a second set of bills starts.
What does a website cost every month or year?
About $12 a year covers a .com domain, $7 per user per month covers business email and $4 to $45 a month covers hosting on yearly plans, based on November 2026 vendor price pages. Licenses, maintenance and SEO add separate lines.
Here is where those figures come from. Porkbun, a domain registrar, listed .com registration at $11.81 a year in November 2026 and states that the same price applies at renewal. Let’s Encrypt, a free, automated and open certificate authority, issues TLS certificates at no charge, so the SSL line costs $0 on any host that supports it. Google lists Workspace Business Starter at $7 per user per month on an annual commitment, before tax.
Hosting shows how much the billing cycle matters. WordPress.com lists its plans from $4 a month (Personal) to $45 a month (Commerce) when billed yearly, and from $9 to $70 a month when billed month to month. The same plan costs more than twice as much on monthly billing at the entry level.
Three more recurring lines depend on your setup:
· Theme and plugin licenses renew once a year, each on its own date.
· Maintenance covers updates, backups and security checks, billed monthly.
· SEO covers ongoing search work, billed as a monthly retainer.
Reading a published breakdown of website design pricing in Kansas City beside your own list shows whether a provider counts hosting and monthly search work inside the build price or bills them as separate lines.
Recurring costs keep the site running. The next group makes it do more.
Which website extras are optional?
Optional extras are features a site runs without on launch day: online booking, an online store, a second language, video production and live chat. List them separately and price each one only when it has a clear business case.
Each extra carries 2 kinds of cost. Setup is a one-time fee to build the feature. Running cost is a monthly subscription or a per-transaction fee charged by the booking or payment platform. A salon that takes 200 bookings a month has a clear case for online scheduling. A contractor who quotes every job on site does not.
Phasing works well for extras. Launch the core site first, track the calls and forms it produces, and add 1 extra at a time once the numbers justify it.
With all 3 groups defined, the budget fits in one table.
What does a complete website budget table look like?
A complete budget table lists every line once, labels it one-time, recurring or optional, and shows the billing cycle beside the price. The table below uses November 2026 list prices where a vendor publishes one and marks the rest as quotes.
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Budget year 2 separately from year 1. WordPress.com includes a free domain for the first year on its paid plans, and Google offers an introductory Workspace price to new customers only. Both lines rise in year 2, so the renewal price is the one to plan around.
A filled-in table also makes competing quotes easier to read.
How do you compare website quotes line by line?
Compare quotes by moving every line from every quote into one table and comparing 3-year totals. Six steps keep the comparison fair: copy, label, annualize, ask about ownership, check inclusions and total the figures.
Photo: Karola G on Pexels
1. Copy every quote into the same table, one row per line item.
2. Label each line as one-time, recurring or optional.
3. Annualize every monthly fee, so each quote shows a 12-month figure.
4. Ask who holds the domain, hosting account and licenses after launch.
5. Check what each “included” line actually covers, in writing.
6. Total the 3-year cost, not only the launch price.
The 3-year view exposes gaps that a launch price hides. A low build fee paired with a high monthly plan costs more over 36 months than a higher build fee with modest upkeep, and only the full table shows it.
Once a quote is chosen, the bookkeeper needs to know how to record it.
How do bookkeepers record website costs?
Bookkeepers separate website costs into current operating costs and start-up costs. IRS Publication 583 lets a new business elect to deduct up to $5,000 of start-up costs, and any remaining start-up costs are amortized over time.
IRS Publication 583, revised December 2024, states that a deductible business expense must be both ordinary and necessary. It describes current expenses as the operating costs of running the business and describes start-up costs as expenses incurred before operations begin, which it classifies as capital expenses in most cases. The $5,000 start-up deduction shrinks by the amount that total start-up costs exceed $50,000.
The 3-group budget table maps neatly onto those categories, but the classification of each line is a decision for your tax preparer. Hand them the table with dates and invoices attached.
Build your own table this week: list the 4 one-time lines, the recurring lines with their billing cycles and the extras you want later. Fill in vendor prices from their own price pages, and leave the quoted lines blank until the quotes arrive.
About the author
Fredrick Francises is a co-founder of Kansas City Web Design Pros (KC Web Design Pros) and runs client projects from the first call to launch day.
Sources
· U.S. Small Business Administration: Calculate your startup costs
· Google Workspace: Plans and pricing
· Porkbun: .com domain pricing
· Let’s Encrypt: Free TLS certificates
· IRS Publication 583 (December 2024): Starting a Business and Keeping Records
