How much does a website cost in Australia? (Real prices for a small business)
A do-it-yourself site costs from about A$200 a year. A professionally built small business site is usually quoted at about A$3,000 to A$10,000, plus a few hundred dollars a year for hosting and a domain, and more if you pay someone to make changes. The build price is only part of it: compare what you'll pay over three years, and what's included when something needs changing.
By the Word of Mouth editorial team · Updated November 2026
What we found: we checked the websites of 2,951 Australian businesses on Word of Mouth. 3.7% had no website at all, 1.5% were down or parked, 1.0% were marked "Not secure" and 0.6% weren't built for phones. Another 9% of working sites looked dated. A site that's built and then left alone is how most of those happen.
The three ways to get a website
| Option | Typical price in Australia | Good for | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Do it yourself (website builder) | About A$200–A$1,500 a year | Very small budgets, simple one-page sites | Your time, and sites that never get updated |
| Freelancer | About A$1,000–A$8,000 to build | A straightforward site with a clear brief | Who looks after it if they move on |
| Web design agency | About A$3,000–A$10,000 to build, more for bigger sites | Custom design, many pages | Ongoing fees for hosting, updates and changes on top |
These are ranges published by Australian web designers in 2026 (WP Creative, Kagan Powell, Strong Digital). They sell websites too, so treat them as a guide.
The costs after it's built
- Domain name: usually about A$20 to A$50 a year.
- Hosting: roughly A$36 to A$96 a year for basic shared hosting, A$120 to A$360 for managed WordPress hosting.
- Email: if you want [email protected], a yearly fee on top, which varies a lot by provider.
- Updates and changes: the one people forget. Agencies commonly charge A$100 to A$500 a month for a care plan, or by the hour for each change.
Add the domain and hosting together and that part is usually under about A$410 a year (our own sum of the ranges above), before email or any changes (Uptime Web Hosting, WP Creative).
Compare three years, not the build price
A A$5,000 site with a A$1,000-a-year running cost is A$8,000 over three years. A A$300-a-year DIY site is A$900, plus your time. A monthly plan that includes the build, hosting and changes is its monthly fee times 36. Work out all three before you decide.
What a small business site needs (and what it doesn't)
- Needs: a page for each main service, the suburbs you work in, a tap-to-call phone number, your reviews, fast loading on a phone, and https so Chrome doesn't call it "Not secure".
- Usually doesn't need: animations, a blog you won't keep up, or 30 pages of filler.
Not sure if yours does all that? See "5 signs your website is losing you jobs".
Questions to ask before you pay anyone
- What's the total over three years, including hosting, domain and changes?
- Who owns the site and the domain if I leave?
- How much is a change, like new prices or a new photo, and how fast is it done?
- Will it load quickly on a phone? Ask them to run it through Google's free PageSpeed Insights.
- Is there a lock-in contract?
Our price, for comparison
Word of Mouth builds websites for A$99 a month plus GST, with no build fee. That includes design, the build, hosting, SSL, backups, updates and changes to up to 20 pages, with a 12-month minimum from launch, then month to month. Over three years that's A$3,564 plus GST. It isn't the cheapest option: a DIY site costs less if you have the time to build and keep it up.
Not sure your current site needs replacing? Book a free website check. We'll show you what customers see on your site and what we'd change, and tell you straight if it's fine as it is. Book my free website check
Disclosure: Word of Mouth sells review tools, Google Ads management, SEO and websites, and this article includes our own website price. The other prices are published by other Australian businesses.
How we got our numbers: from the website checks in owners' audits on Word of Mouth, counted 3 November 2026. Sites our checker couldn't load (126) are left out. These are businesses that ran our audit, mostly small owner-run businesses, not a sample of every Australian business.
Sources: WP Creative; Kagan Powell; Strong Digital; Uptime Web Hosting; Google PageSpeed Insights.