How much should I charge for a website?

Start from a floor: your hours, including selling and revisions, times your hourly rate, plus costs and a margin. Then look at what the site is worth to the client. A single job for a roofer can pay for years of website, so the same site can fairly cost more for them than for a florist.

Should I charge a monthly fee for a website?

Most people who sell websites to local businesses do, because hosting and small changes recur, and it builds income that doesn't reset each month. Say clearly what it covers, and what happens to the site if the client stops paying.

What hourly rate should I use?

Use what an hour of your time has to bring in once you allow for taxes, tools, unpaid selling time and holidays. Many freelancers start by dividing the income they need by the hours they can really bill in a year, which is fewer than they expect.

Web design pricing calculator

The least to charge, from your own hours, and what a monthly plan adds up to.

Your hourly rate ($)

Margin on top (%)

Hours to build

Hours selling and revising

The hours people forget.

Costs on the job ($)

Your costs a month ($)

Hosting and tools, for one site.

Hours a month, per client

What one job is worth to them ($)

New clients a month

Clients who stay each month (%)

$840

The least to charge to build it

$90

The least to charge each month

At these prices, 4 of their jobs pay for the client's whole first year.

Monthly income over a year

After 12 months: about 18 clients paying $1,655 a month. This is only arithmetic on your own figures.

How to use it

Enter your real hours
Count the selling, meetings and changes along with the build. They're usually half the job.
Add what one job is worth
A roof and a haircut aren't the same sale. It tells you how easily the price pays for itself.
Read the floor
That's the least to charge. Charge more when the job's worth more.

Treat it as a floor

This works out the least you can charge without losing money on your time. Your real price depends on what the website is worth to the client, what others around you charge, and how sure you are when you say it out loud. Many people who sell websites find they can charge well above this once they show what one new customer is worth.

The monthly number matters more than it looks. A one-off fee means starting from zero every month. A monthly plan means each client adds to the last, so the chart climbs even at a modest rate of new clients. It levels off because some clients leave, which is why the share who stay is in the form.

None of this is a forecast. It's arithmetic on the figures you put in, and it's only as good as your guess at how many clients you'll win.