How much does a website really cost in 2026?

The honest answer is a range with a trap in the middle of it. A website in 2026 costs anywhere from about $15 a year to about $280 a year for a normal site without a store, and the number you'll actually pay depends less on which tool you pick than on whether you read the renewal terms. Here's the whole picture, verified prices, traps included. If you'd rather push buttons than read, the calculator does this arithmetic for your exact case.

The three real price tiers

About $15 a year: the do-it-yourself floor

A domain (roughly $15 a year at any honest registrar) plus free static hosting. This is what every site I run costs, and it's the true floor. The payment isn't money, it's that you or your AI assistant edit files, and a non-technical partner can't. Free builder tiers live at this floor too, with their own tax: Framer's parks you on a framer.website subdomain and caps you at 30 pages, Wix's puts their branding on your page, and Squarespace doesn't offer one at all.

$120 to $280 a year: a paid builder on your own domain

This is where most people should expect to land. Framer Basic is $120 a year with the custom domain included. Wix Light runs $204 a year. Squarespace Basic is $228. Durable's Launch plan is $264. All annual billing; monthly billing costs more everywhere. What you're buying over the floor tier: your own domain, no platform branding, and an editor a normal human can use.

The teaser tier that becomes the expensive tier

Hostinger advertises $2.99 a month, which is real only as $143.52 paid upfront for 48 months, and it renews at $10.99 a month afterward, about 3.7 times the teaser. That's not a scam, four years of everything for under $150 is genuinely cheap, but the advertised number and the long-run number are different numbers, and every hosting company plays some version of this game. Worth knowing: that teaser was $1.99 as recently as this summer, so even the promotional price is not a fixed thing. Decide on the renewal price or don't decide at all.

The line items people forget

Domain renewal after the free first year, $15 to $20 at normal registrars. Email at your domain, often free the first year and $10 to $30 a year after. Extra editor seats if a partner needs access, $20 a month on Framer specifically, included on Wix and Hostinger, and two contributors come with Squarespace Basic. Transaction fees if you sell anything, which on Squarespace's entry plan run 2 percent on store sales and 7 percent on digital content, on top of the payment processor. And the biggest one isn't a fee: it's rebuilding, which is what you pay when a cheap choice locks you in and you leave anyway. No builder gives you a real export; pick like the relationship is long.

The cap that turns a cheap plan into an expensive one

Worth its own heading because it catches people a year in, long after the decision feels settled. Framer Basic allows 30 pages, the same number as its free tier, and the next step is Pro at $30 a month. If your site is a brochure, a portfolio, or a restaurant, 30 is plenty and the $10 plan is the bargain of the field. If you intend to publish regularly, you will cross 30 pages and your $120 a year quietly becomes $360. Wix and Squarespace have no comparable cap on their entry plans, which is a real part of their price that never shows up in a comparison table.

What I'd actually spend

Testing an idea: the floor tier, $15, using Framer's free tier or static files, per the weekend plan. A real business or project under 30 pages: Framer Basic at $120 a year, the honest middle of the market and my standing pick. A site that will keep growing pages, or that needs to look good with no design work: Squarespace at $228 and no page ceiling to collide with. Zero tolerance for learning curves: Wix Light at $204 and accept the tradeoffs. Tightest possible budget with a long horizon: Hostinger's 48-month deal with the renewal date in your calendar.