Ask five people what a website costs and you will hear five answers, from "free" to five figures. Both ends are real. For a small business that needs a professional site, though, the realistic range in 2026 is much narrower, and most of the difference comes down to two questions: who builds it, and who changes it afterwards.
This guide compares the four ways to get a small-business website online: an AI website builder, a template website builder, WordPress, and hiring someone. Every price was checked on the provider's own pricing page on September 28, 2026 (C Building's own plans as of October 2026), and each option ends with who it suits best.
Website costs at a glance
Every route also needs a domain name ($10–$23 a year for a .com) unless the plan includes one.
What you actually pay for
Whatever route you take, a website's bill is made of the same five items:
- The platform: a website builder subscription, or hosting if you run the software yourself.
- A domain name: yourbusiness.com, renewed every year.
- Design and content: your own time, or someone else's fee.
- Email on your domain (optional): [email protected].
- Changes after launch: new prices, new photos, a new page. This is the cost most people forget, and it is where the options differ most.
1. AI website builder: best if you want a finished site without designing it yourself
An AI website builder does the design and the first draft of the pages and copy for you. With C Building, you describe your business in everyday language (what you do, who your customers are, the style you like), and it builds a complete website in a few minutes. You then keep editing it two ways: tell the AI what to change, or click any text, image or section on the page and change it yourself. When it feels right, you publish.
C Building has two plans, priced in US dollars (excluding tax). Usage is counted in points: 1 point = US$0.01.
The full comparison is on the pricing page.
What the free plan covers
The Free plan costs nothing and has no time limit. A new account gets 100 points when it signs up, and they never expire. You can make up to 3 websites and publish them to a free C Building web address (yourproject.cbuilding.app). Free sites show a small “Made with C Building” label, and you cannot connect your own domain. That is enough to try the idea and show a first version to a partner or a few customers before paying anything. When the points run out, upgrading to Pro is the way to keep going.
How Pro is billed
Pro is $20 a month, billed monthly only. There is no yearly plan, and you can cancel any month. A full year of Pro comes to $240.
What uses points
Two things use points. AI is charged by usage (building and changing your site by chat, the assistant chat and web search): one AI turn uses at most 50 points, and each AI image uses 6. Your website's editing environment uses about 24 points an hour while it runs, that is while you edit the site or the AI works on it, and it goes to sleep after a few minutes without use. Hosting and visitor traffic use no points, so a published site costs nothing to keep online. As a rough guide, Pro's 2,000 points a month come to about 80 hours of editing time, or at least 40 AI requests even if each one hit the 50-point maximum; most requests cost less than that, and in practice you use some of each. On Pro you can top up any time (US$10 = 1,000 points); on Free, you upgrade to Pro. When points run out, AI and editing pause until you add points or upgrade, and your published websites stay online.
A few everyday tasks work like this. Reading form submissions and connecting a domain yourself in the dashboard use no points; asking the AI to do them uses points like any other AI request. Writing an article yourself uses no AI points, though the editing environment runs while you write in the editor's Articles panel, and publishing, updating or unpublishing a live article refreshes your website, which takes about 1 point, the same as publishing the site. Bigger jobs, such as copying or moving a whole website, use more than a small edit (AI plus a few minutes of editing time), though each AI turn is still capped at 50 points.
Which plan fits
- Trying it out: Free. Up to 3 websites on a C Building web address, with 100 points to start.
- Your own domain, one business or several: Pro. Unlimited websites and custom domains, so each brand, location or client can have its own site, with 2,000 points every month.
- Heavy AI use: Pro, plus a top-up when a month's points are not enough.
The domain itself is not included: you register it separately and connect it to your site on Pro.
2. Template website builders: best if you enjoy designing from a template
Wix and Squarespace are the best-known template builders. You pick a design, then replace the sample text and photos with your own and arrange the pages in a drag-and-drop editor. Both now offer an AI tool to generate a starting site (Wix's AI website builder and Squarespace's Blueprint AI); after that you edit in their regular editor.
Wix, per month, billed yearly (taxes excluded):
- Light: $17
- Core: $29
- Business: $39
- Business Elite: $159
Every paid Wix plan lets you connect your own domain and remove Wix branding, and includes a voucher for a free domain for the first year. It covers a new domain registered through Wix, not renewals.
Squarespace, per month:
Annual Squarespace plans include one year of free domain registration. On Basic, Squarespace also takes 2% of online store sales and 7% of digital content and membership sales, on top of card processing (2.9% + $0.30 per US transaction). Core and above take 0% on store sales.
The subscription is cheap. The real cost is your time: choosing a template, writing every page and rearranging sections is the part you do yourself.
3. WordPress: best if you want full control and don't mind upkeep
WordPress itself is free software. You pay to run it, in one of two ways.
WordPress.com hosts it for you. Per month, billed yearly, with the first year at a lower price (pricing):
- Personal: $4 the first year, $5 after
- Premium: $8, then $9
- Business: $25, then $28
- Commerce: $45, then $50
Month-to-month billing costs $9–$70. Every paid plan can now install plugins and includes a free domain for the first year.
Self-hosted WordPress runs on hosting you rent. Big shared hosts advertise about $3–$4 a month, but only when you prepay 12 to 48 months, and they renew at roughly $10–$18 a month. Add a premium theme if you want a polished design: GeneratePress Premium is $59 a year, and Astra Pro is $99 for the first year, then $149. Paid plugins for forms, backups or security are extra, and every update, backup and security fix is your job, or a developer's.
4. Freelancer or agency: best for custom features and hands-off service
Hiring someone costs the most up front, but you do the least work:
- Freelancers: Upwork's cost guide puts a small-business website at $2,000–$8,000 or more, with maintenance at $50–$200 a month.
- Agencies: Clutch's pricing survey reports typical agency rates of $100–$149 an hour. The average web design project on Clutch costs $38,105 and takes about seven months, though most projects come in under $10,000.
The less visible cost comes after launch. Unless you pay a maintenance fee, each change, from a new menu to updated opening hours, is usually a new request and a new invoice.
Costs people forget
- Domain renewal. A .com costs $10.46 a year at cost through Cloudflare Registrar. Elsewhere, first-year deals renew higher: Namecheap renews at $18.48, and GoDaddy's $0.01 first year renews at $22.99.
- Intro prices. Hosting, WordPress.com and many domains are cheapest in the first term. Compare renewal prices, not the headline.
- Business email. Google Workspace Business Starter is $7 per user a month on an annual plan ($8.40 on the flexible plan). Microsoft 365 Business Basic is $7 per user a month paid yearly.
- Transaction fees. If you sell online, check the fee on each sale as well as the plan price.
- Paying for every change. With a freelancer or agency, each update after launch is another invoice or a monthly maintenance fee. With an AI website builder like C Building, changes come out of your plan's points: ask the AI, or click and change it yourself.
Example: the first year of a small café's website
A café needs about eight pages (home, menu, about, location, contact and a few more), its own .com domain and one email address. Here is the first year on each route:
Email is Google Workspace Business Starter for one person at $7 a month.
On the subscription alone, the template builders are slightly cheaper than C Building in the first year, and all three cost a fraction of hiring someone. What the price does not show is who does the design and writing. On a template builder you fill in the template yourself. On C Building the AI builds the whole site from your description, and you only change what you want different.
How to choose
You need a professional site this week, on a small budget
An AI website builder. You get a complete first version in minutes, and C Building Pro at $20 a month ($240 for the year) plus a domain covers a real site on your own address.
You want to try before you pay
Start on the free plan. Build the site, show it to a few people, and upgrade to Pro only when you want your own domain or need more points.
You like designing and have time
A template builder such as Wix or Squarespace is the lowest subscription, as long as you are happy to design each page yourself.
You run several brands or locations
Look at C Building Pro: unlimited websites and custom domains under one account, so each brand or branch can have its own site.
You already have a WordPress site
You do not have to start over. When you create a site, choose “Move my website” and paste your current site's address. C Building checks it, shows which platform it was built with and how many pages and articles it found, and asks whether to move it as it is or give it a new look. The website AI then moves your pages, articles and images; moved as it is, your pages keep the same addresses. Sites built with Wix, Shopify, Squarespace or Webflow can be moved the same way. The AI reads your live site, so the old site needs to be online, and features that came from plugins (such as a shop or a members area) may not all carry over as they are. After that you edit it by chat or by click like any other site.
You need complex custom features
A large online store, bookings tied into your own back-office system, or anything that needs custom code is still a job for a developer or an agency. Budget for their build fee and for ongoing maintenance.
Frequently asked questions
Can I build a website with AI for free?
Yes. C Building's Free plan costs $0 and has no time limit. A new account gets 100 points when it signs up, enough to try building with AI, and you can publish up to 3 websites to a free C Building web address with a small “Made with C Building” label. A custom domain needs Pro, at $20 a month with 2,000 points every month.
Do I need to buy a domain separately?
Yes, on C Building. Pro lets you connect as many of your own domains as you like, but the domain is registered separately, at about $10–$23 a year for a .com. Wix and Squarespace include a free domain for the first year on annual plans, then charge for renewal.
Is there a yearly plan?
Not on C Building. Pro is billed monthly only, at $20 a month, and you can cancel any month. Many template builders and hosts do give a discount for paying a year up front.
What happens if I run out of points?
Your websites are kept, and published websites stay online: hosting and visitor traffic use no points. AI and editing pause until you add points (an AI turn already running finishes). To keep editing with AI, on Pro you can top up any time (US$10, $25, $50, $100 or $200 give 1,000 to 20,000 points) or wait for next month's 2,000 points; on Free, upgrade to Pro.
Can I edit the website myself after AI builds it?
Yes. You can ask the AI to make changes, or click any text, image or section on the page and change it yourself. Both work on the same site at any time, and neither needs code.
Is an AI-built website cheaper than hiring a web designer?
Usually by a wide margin. A freelancer typically charges $2,000–$8,000 for a small-business website, while C Building is free to start and Pro costs $20 a month ($240 a year). A designer is still worth it when you need custom features or want someone else to handle everything.
The bottom line
For most small businesses in 2026, a professional website costs a few hundred dollars in its first year, not a few thousand. The subscription prices of AI and template builders are close; the difference is how much of the building you do yourself, and what it costs to change the site later. Hire a freelancer or agency when you need custom work, and budget for maintenance when you do.
If you want to see what an AI-built site looks like for your business, start on the free plan, with no credit card, and decide on a plan once the site is ready.
Prices checked on September 28, 2026, on each provider's pricing page; C Building's plans updated to its current Free and Pro plans in October 2026. Prices change often, so check the linked pages before you buy.