Prices below are typical US ranges in 2026, before tax. They change, so treat them as "about this much" rather than a quote. What doesn't change is the shape of the answer: the cheap end is genuinely usable, and the expensive end is mostly for businesses that need something specific.

The four realistic options

Option	Typical cost	What you get
Free hosted page	$0	One page on someone else's address, e.g. fastpages.online/your-business. No domain of your own, no extra pages.
Do-it-yourself builder	$10–$30 a month, plus $10–$20 a year for a domain	Your own domain, several pages, photos, a template you fill in. You do the work.
WordPress on cheap hosting	$5–$15 a month hosting, plus domain	Maximum flexibility, maximum fiddling. You maintain the software, the backups and the security updates.
Someone builds it for you	$1,000–$5,000 up front, sometimes a monthly fee	A finished site and no work for you. Sensible for a business with a real budget and a reason.

What the money actually buys

Two things, and only two: an address, and a place for the page to live.

The address is a domain name — the yourbusiness.com part. That's $10–$20 a year for a .com. It's a rental, not a purchase, and it renews every year. See what a domain should cost.

The place to live is hosting — a computer somewhere that serves your page when someone asks for it. That's $0 if you use a free service, or $5–$25 a month if you're paying. See what hosting is.

Everything else — the design, the template, the editor you type into — is bundled into one of those two in most modern products. A website builder charges you a monthly fee that covers both. A free service covers both and asks for neither.

What it costs in time

This is the part people underestimate, and it's the real cost of the DIY options.

• Free one-page service: about ten minutes answering questions, then wait for the page to go up.
• Website builder: an afternoon for the first version, and a couple of hours each time you change something until you know the tool.
• WordPress: a weekend to get it right, plus an hour a month on updates, and an afternoon a year when something breaks.

If your hourly rate is $85 and you spend six hours learning a builder, you've spent $500 of your own time. That's fine if you enjoy it. It's a bad deal if you don't.

The costs nobody mentions

• Renewal prices jump. A domain advertised at $1.99 for the first year often renews at $18–$25. Read the renewal price, not the signup price.
• SSL certificates used to cost money. They're free now, from Let's Encrypt, and any decent host or builder includes one. If someone quotes you $100 a year for an SSL certificate, that's a warning sign about the rest of their pricing.
• Email is separate. A business address at your domain ([email protected]) usually costs $6–$8 a month per mailbox. Forwarding is free at many registrars.
• "Premium" templates and plugins. WordPress plugins that look free often have a paid tier you'll want two months in.
• Being found. Nobody buys their way to the top of local search for $20. Anyone promising that is selling something else.

What's sensible for a one-person trade

Start free or near-free. One page, your name, your trade, your towns, your number. If you later need your own domain and more pages, you'll know — because a customer will ask for something the free page can't do, or you'll get tired of saying "fastpages.online/daves-plowing" out loud.

Spending $2,000 on a website in your first year, before you know whether the website brings you any work, is the wrong order. Spend nothing, see if the phone rings more, then spend.

If you want to compare the free and paid routes properly, read free website vs paid website.