By Renie Ravin, co-founder of InkySites. Updated 8 November 2026. Every price on this page was read on the company's own US price page on 8 November 2026, and the .com prices were read again that day. Having a site built rather than running one? Read what a small-business website costs to build in the US.
What each line of your website bill costs
Your bill covers hosting, the web address, the security certificate, business email, plugin licences and any care plan, plus a fee on every sale if you sell online. The table gives a low, a middle and a high published price for each line, with its source. On a builder such as Wix or Squarespace, the builder fee replaces your hosting line. Budget with the renewal price, since you pay it after year one.
| What you pay for | Published US prices, low to high |
|---|---|
| Web address (.com)every year | Low: Cloudflare $11.17, the same at renewal. Middle: IONOS renews at $20. High: GoDaddy and Network Solutions, $22.99 a year after the first. |
| Shared hostinga monthly figure, prepaid for 1 to 4 years | Low: IONOS Essential renews at $8 a month. Middle: Bluehost Starter renews at $9.99; Hostinger Premium and DreamHost Launch at $10.99. High: SiteGround GoGeek renews at $44.99. |
| Managed WordPress hostingmonthly or yearly | Low: DreamHost DreamPress renews at $19.99 a month. Middle: Kinsta Business, $35 a month, or $350 billed annually. High: WP Engine Business, $400 a month, billed annually. |
| Or a website builder, in place of hostingmonthly or yearly | Low: GoDaddy Airo Starter, $9.99 a month billed annually. Middle: Wix Light $17 and Squarespace Basic $19 a month, paid yearly ($25 paid monthly). High: Wix Business, $39 a month paid yearly. |
| Security certificate (SSL)every year | Free from Let's Encrypt, and included at Bluehost, SiteGround, Squarespace and Porkbun. A paid one: DigiCert, $372 a year. |
| Business email, per personmonthly or yearly | Low: Zoho Mail Lite, $1 a month, yearly only. Middle: Google Workspace Business Starter, $7 a month on a one-year commitment or $8.40 month to month; Microsoft 365 Business Basic, $7 a month paid yearly. High: Microsoft 365 Business Standard with Copilot, $23.50. |
| Care plan with no changes includedevery month | Taupecat Essential Care $75; Johnny Flash Maintenance Only $99; StateWP Starter $110, with a one-year commitment. |
| Care plan with some changesevery month | Taupecat Premier $150 (2 hours a month); Johnny Flash Silver $169 (30 minutes); SiteCare Gold $435 (5 content edits); StateWP Elite $829 (5 hours). The highest we found: SiteCare Diamond, $2,190. |
| Changes by the houreach time you ask | Low: Site Smart Marketing, $75, with a one-hour minimum. Middle: WebEditor $125; Logic Web Media $149. High: Emily Journey, from $200, with a three-hour minimum. |
| WordPress plugin and theme licencesevery year | Gravity Forms Basic $59; Wordfence Premium $149; Astra Pro renews at $149; Elementor One renews at $228. |
| Payment fees, if you sell onlineon every sale | Squarespace card rates from 2.9% + $0.30 on Basic and Core, 2.7% + $0.30 on Plus and 2.5% + $0.30 on Advanced. Shopify Basic card rates from 2.9% + $0.30 online, plus a 2% third-party transaction fee if you use a payment provider other than Shopify's own. |
| Sales taxon top, by state | Set by your state, and most price pages do not include it. See below. |
All prices in US dollars as each company published them, before sales tax unless the company says otherwise. A builder plan includes its own hosting and security certificate, so it replaces those two lines. Prices are not converted, rounded or averaged.
Why your second year costs more
The low price on a hosting sign-up page covers the first term. SiteGround GrowBig is $3.99 a month for the first 12 months, then $29.99 a month. By our sum, that is 7.5 times as much. IONOS Plus is $1 a month for one year, then $14 a month, or 14 times as much. The low monthly figure also needs the whole term paid upfront: 12 months at SiteGround, 36 at Bluehost, 48 at Hostinger. You pay it all on day one. Your web address can jump too. Network Solutions charges $11.99 for a .com, then $22.99 at renewal. GoDaddy's Microsoft 365 Business Professional email is $143.88 a mailbox for year one and renews at $239.88. Before you pay, find the renewal line under the headline price. Put that number in your budget, and year two holds no surprise.
What does a website care plan include?
Many care plans include no changes at all. Johnny Flash's Maintenance Only plan, $99 a month, has no support time. StateWP Starter, $110 a month, has no editing hours. Where changes are included, they are rationed by the clock. Johnny Flash Silver, $169 a month, gives you 30 minutes, tracked in 15-minute increments. Taupecat Premier, $150 a month, gives two hours, and unused hours expire. Logic Web Media includes changes at $99 and does not say how many. StateWP's plan with two hours of changes is $349. Outside a plan, US firms charge from $75 to $200 an hour and up. StateWP asks for a one-year commitment and $199 for setup. Now you can ask how much change time your plan has, and what an extra hour costs.
Does your state charge sales tax on your website?
There is no federal sales tax, so your state decides what your bill costs. Texas taxes web hosting and website maintenance as data processing, on 80 percent of the charge. Washington taxes website design, development and support from 1 October 2025, but not hosting or domain registration. Oregon has no general sales tax. Most price pages say nothing about tax, so check the checkout total. This is general guidance, not tax advice, and an accountant can tell you what applies in your state.
What makes your website bill go up or down
- Builder or self-hosted: a builder fee replaces hosting, and Wix, Squarespace and GoDaddy Airo include the first year of the web address on yearly plans
- Paying yearly or monthly: Squarespace Basic is $19 a month paid yearly and $25 a month paid monthly
- Plugin licences: self-hosted WordPress often carries licences that renew every year, such as Wordfence Premium at $149
- Mailboxes: each person on business email is another seat, at $1 to $7 a month on a yearly plan
- Who makes your changes: a plan without changes costs less, and each change outside it is billed by the hour
Website bill traps to check before you pay
- The one-cent web address: GoDaddy's .com is $0.01 for year one only with a three-year purchase, then $22.99 a year
- The address in someone else's name: Chroma Marketing warns that unless it is registered in your name, it may legally belong to your web developer
- The care plan that leaves changes out: Taupecat Essential Care at $75 a month includes no development time
- Long contracts and paying to leave: Cindaro runs 36-month terms that renew, with remaining fees due if you end early and $1,000 for a copy of your site's files
- Free paid another way: Wix's free plan shows a Wix banner ad, and Wix's help page says you cannot host a Wix site anywhere else
Questions to send before you renew
- How much will I pay at renewal, per month and for the whole term?
- For that price, how many months do I pay upfront?
- Is my web address registered in my name, with my details?
- How many minutes or hours of changes does my plan include each month?
- What is your rate for a change outside the plan?
- If I end early, what do I owe, and do I get a copy of my site's files?
- Does the plan cover fixing my site after a hack or a failed update?
When to keep the setup you have
If your renewal price matches what you expected, and your plan covers the changes you ask for, your setup is doing its job. Moving takes time, and a tool you know well has value. The one line to check first is your web address. Make sure it is registered in your name, with your own details, and note when it expires. Then you keep control of your address whatever you decide later.
Where InkySites fits in your website bill
InkySites builds a fresh version of your current site, free, from your public pages, and emails it within 48 hours, no card. If you like it, it is $29 a month for hosting and unlimited reasonable changes, asked for by email. Reasonable means new text, photos, prices or pages. A ground-up redesign or a new online store is a separate conversation. There is no setup fee, notice period or annual contract. We do not sell web addresses or email, or build full online stores. Your web address stays at your own registrar, and you get your site's code whenever you ask, at no cost.
Questions people ask
How much does website maintenance cost per month in the US?
Running it yourself on Squarespace Basic paid yearly is $19 a month, plus $7 a month for one Google Workspace email seat. Self-hosted WordPress hosting renews at $8 to $44.99 a month, plus a .com web address at $11.17 to $22.99 a year. Care plans at US-based firms run from $75 a month, with five hours of changes at $829, and the highest we found was $2,190. Budget with the renewal price, which is what you pay from year two.
Why did my website hosting go up after the first year?
The low price on a hosting sign-up page is for the first term. SiteGround GrowBig is $3.99 a month for 12 months, then $29.99. IONOS Plus is $1 a month for a year, then $14. The low monthly figure also needs the whole term paid upfront, such as 36 months at Bluehost. Look for the renewal line under the headline price, so your next bill is one you expected.
Does a website care plan include changes to my site?
Many do not. Johnny Flash's Maintenance Only plan at $99 a month has no support time, and StateWP Starter at $110 a month has no editing hours. Where changes are included, they are rationed by the clock. Johnny Flash Silver at $169 a month includes 30 minutes, and Taupecat Premier at $150 a month includes two hours that expire if unused. Ask how much change time your plan includes before your first request.
What should a .com web address cost a year?
A .com costs $11.17 a year at Cloudflare and $11.81 at Porkbun, the same at renewal. GoDaddy and Network Solutions charge $22.99 a year after the first. GoDaddy's $0.01 first year needs a three-year purchase. Domain privacy, which hides your name and address from the public record, is free at Porkbun, Namecheap and Squarespace. Check the renewal price, so you know what you pay each year after the first.
Is website maintenance subject to sales tax in the US?
It depends on your state, because there is no federal sales tax. Texas taxes web hosting and website maintenance as data processing, on 80 percent of the charge. Washington taxes website design, development and support from 1 October 2025, and leaves out hosting and domain registration. Oregon has no general sales tax. Most price pages do not mention tax, so check your checkout total. An accountant can say what applies to you.
How we got these prices
We read 140 price, plan, help and tax pages on 8 November 2026, from a US location, and recorded each price with its page and sentence. We read every .com price again on the day of writing. Prices appear as each page shows them, never rounded, averaged or converted. Any sum is our own arithmetic. We update this page when prices move, so the date at the top shows how current your numbers are.
Every page these prices came from
- Web addresses: Cloudflare Registrar prices, Porkbun, Namecheap .com, IONOS domain prices, GoDaddy .com, Network Solutions, Network Solutions privacy, and Verisign's notice of the .com fee rise
- Hosting: SiteGround, IONOS, Bluehost, Hostinger, DreamHost, Kinsta, WP Engine
- Website builders: Wix, Squarespace, GoDaddy Airo, Wix on its free plan's banner, Wix on hosting elsewhere
- Security certificates: Let's Encrypt, DigiCert
- Email: Zoho Mail, Google Workspace payment plans, Microsoft 365 plans, Microsoft 365 compared, GoDaddy's Microsoft 365 email
- Care plans and hourly rates: Taupecat Studios, Johnny Flash Productions, StateWP, SiteCare, SiteCare Flex Packs, Logic Web Media, Mad Bird Design, Site Smart Marketing, WebEditor Design Services, Emily Journey and Associates, Rocquett Websites, Cindaro pricing and Cindaro's terms of service
- Licences: Gravity Forms, Wordfence, Astra, Elementor, WPForms
- Sales tax: Texas Comptroller on data processing, Washington Department of Revenue on custom website development, Washington on web hosting, Oregon Department of Revenue
- Payment fees: Squarespace, Shopify
- Whose name the web address is in: Chroma Marketing
See who holds your web address today
Run the free site check to see who your web address is registered with and when it expires. It needs no email and changes nothing on your site. Or ask for a free preview of your site, rebuilt and sent by email within 48 hours, with no card.