Website redesign cost: what a small business really pays for

What does a website redesign cost?

A redesign isn’t one job. It can mean a new look for the pages you have, a fresh site built from scratch, or a website that also feeds your booking or job system. Each one is priced differently, so the first step is knowing which one you’re buying.

These are our typical prices as of October 4, 2026. A focused fix to the site you have now costs $750–$3,000 and takes 1–⁠2 weeks. Think of a new request form, a booking page or repairs to a few pages. A full redesign gets its own fixed price after a short call. As a guide, a new website of 5 to 8 pages with a request or booking form is typically $2,500–$6,000 over 3–⁠6 weeks. A website that hands requests to a new business system is priced together with that system, in one quote.

Price guides online quote much wider ranges, and some of those ranges are for large company sites with dozens of page types. The ones we read in October 2026 didn’t say where their numbers came from. A 6-page site for a plumbing company and a 200-page site for a software firm aren’t the same purchase.

If you’re still deciding whether it’s time at all, start with when to redesign your website, and how long it takes. If the site mostly works, a few focused fixes may be all it needs, and our checklist of what to fix before a redesign helps you tell. The rest of this guide is about what you’re paying for.

Refresh, redesign or rebuild: which one are you pricing?

People use these three words loosely, but they price very differently. The difference is how much of the current site you keep. The more that stays, the less gets designed, written, moved and tested.

The platform decides a lot of that. WordPress’s own hosting requirements, for example, recommend PHP (the language WordPress runs on) version 8.3 or greater. They warn that older versions past their end of life may expose a site to security problems. If your site can’t run on a supported version without major work, a refresh can turn into a rebuild, and the price moves with it. Ask your host which version your site runs before you compare quotes.

If the platform itself is the question, our guide to WordPress, a site builder or a custom CMS compares the three for a small business. Here is how the three jobs differ on price:

• A refresh. You keep the platform, the layout and most of the words, and pay only for the parts that change: old photos, a confusing contact page, a form that asks too much. When the changes fit a few pages or forms, we price it as a focused fix, typically $750–$3,000. It’s the cheapest of the three.
• A redesign. New layouts, new menus and new or rewritten words, usually on the same platform and at the same web address. Most of the price goes into design, writing and moving content into the new pages. With us, it gets its own fixed price, with our new-website range above as a guide.
• A rebuild. The site moves to a new platform, often because the old one is hard to edit, slow, or built on parts nobody updates anymore. Every page is built again, and each old page address needs a redirect to its new page. For a small site, that’s close to the same job as a new website, plus moving old content and setting up the redirects. Price a rebuild and a new build side by side, and ask what each one keeps.

Reference: WordPress.org: Requirements (opens in a new tab)

What changes the price of a redesign

Every redesign quote is built from the same pieces. None of them is good or bad. Each one is simply more to plan, build and test. These move the number most:

• How many kinds of pages. Count page types, not pages. Ten service pages that share one layout cost far less than ten pages that each need their own design. A homepage, a service page, an about page, a contact page and a project gallery are five types, however many services you list.
• Who writes the words. Reusing your current text is quick. Rewriting every page, or starting from notes, takes real time, whoever does it. Waiting on words can hold up a launch, so agree early who writes each page.
• Photos. Your own job photos cost only the time to choose them. A photographer or licensed stock photos add a line to the bill.
• A new logo or brand colors. If the redesign comes with a new logo, colors or business name, settle those first. Otherwise pages get designed twice, and the second round adds cost.
• Moving old content. Fifty blog posts or 200 project photos each have to be moved, checked and tidied. Old content nobody reads is cheaper to drop than to move.
• Keeping old page addresses working. When addresses change, each old one should lead to its new page. Google recommends a permanent redirect from each old address to its new one, and warns against sending many old pages to the homepage.
• Forms and features. A simple contact form is small. A quote request with photo uploads, online booking, deposits or a customer login each add design, building and testing.
• Connections to other apps. Requests to Gmail or Outlook, bookings to Google Calendar, deposits through Stripe or Square, or products from Shopify each need their own setup and test.
• Speed and accessibility. A redesign is the right time to make pages fast on phones and usable with a keyboard or screen reader. Google’s Core Web Vitals, for example, aim for a page’s main content to show within 2.5 seconds for most visits, on phones and computers. Building that in costs less than fixing it later.
• How many people approve. One decision-maker and two rounds of changes keep the price steady. Five partners who each review every page add rounds, and rounds add cost.
• Your deadline. A date only a few weeks away, like the start of your busy season, can mean more people working at once or a smaller first launch.

References: Google Search Central: Site moves with URL changes (opens in a new tab) · web.dev: Web Vitals (opens in a new tab)

What a redesign might cost in your trade

Here is how those pieces add up for a few kinds of businesses. These are made-up examples to show the reasoning, not quotes. Notice that the biggest differences come from content and connections, not from how the homepage looks.

• A landscaper with 4 crews has a 6-page site from years ago that’s hard to read on a phone. The services and service area haven’t changed, but the words need tightening and the photos are from old jobs. That’s a full redesign of a small site. It gets its own fixed price, and as a guide, our new websites of 5 to 8 pages are typically $2,500–$6,000.
• A café’s site looks fine, but the menu is an out-of-date PDF and catering orders come in by phone and text. It doesn’t need a redesign. A menu page staff can edit and a catering order form are focused fixes, in the $750–$3,000 range.
• An HVAC company has 30 city pages and 60 blog posts, many of them short or out of date. Here the work is less about design and more about deciding which pages to keep, merge or drop. Then every retired address needs to point to the right new page. That’s well past a 5 to 8 page site, so get the content work priced on its own before design starts.
• A property manager wants owners to read about services and tenants to send maintenance requests with photos. If those requests should land in a maintenance list instead of an inbox, the website and the request system are priced together. With us, one business system is typically $6,000–$18,000 over 6–⁠10 weeks, and the website is priced in the same quote.
• A tile and flooring showroom sells online through Shopify and wants its main site to match. Matching the main site is the redesign. Changing the Shopify store’s theme too is a second piece of work, so the quote should say whether it’s included.

Costs that don’t show up in the redesign quote

The build price is one line. Ask about these before you sign, so the first year holds no surprises. Our guide to what a small business website costs covers the running costs of any site in more detail.

• Hosting and care. The new site needs somewhere to run and someone to keep it updated. Ask whether that’s a monthly line, what it covers and what changes cost after launch.
• Your domain renewal, paid to whichever company your domain is registered with.
• Email on the old host. If your business email runs through the company that hosts your old site, plan the move so email keeps working. Don’t cancel the old hosting until you’ve checked.
• The old contract. Some web designers and hosts bill a year ahead or need notice to cancel. Check before you set a launch date.
• Pay-monthly websites. Some companies offer a redesign for a monthly fee with little paid up front. Ask how long you must keep paying, and whether you keep the site and its words if you stop.
• Payment fees. If the new site takes deposits, each payment has a fee. Stripe, for example, lists 2.9% + 30¢ per successful payment on US cards, with no monthly fee (when we checked in October 2026).
• Apps the site uses. Booking tools, form tools or plugins that charge monthly stay on their own bills.
• Your team’s time. Someone has to gather photos, answer questions and check every page. Plan a few hours a week while the work runs.

Reference: Stripe: Pricing (opens in a new tab)

Decide where requests go before the design starts

A redesign quote usually prices how the site looks. It may not say what happens after a customer presses “Send.” Yet a request that sits in a forgotten inbox can cost you more than an old-looking homepage.

Decide this early, because it changes the price. A form that emails the office is the simplest. Some forms also add the customer to your customer list, or create a new job with the address and photos attached. Then the website connects to a system. That’s more to build, and it saves someone retyping every request.

For example, a roofing company’s quote form might ask for the address, the roof type and a photo. In a simple setup, that becomes an email. In a connected one, it becomes a new estimate in the job system, so the office sees every open request in one list. Our guide to what to put on a quote request form covers the fields. Whichever setup you choose, answer these before anyone designs a page:

• Who gets each request, and at which email address?
• Where is it stored, so it isn’t lost if the email lands in spam?
• Does it need to reach a calendar, a customer list or a job app?
• Who sends a test request after launch, and checks that it arrives?

How to keep a redesign from costing more than it should

Redesigns often run over when the scope grows, the words arrive late, or the quotes you compared priced different jobs. A few habits keep the number steady:

• Keep what works. Pages that bring in calls or requests today should keep their address and most of their words. Check your form history and visitor numbers before you cut anything.
• Drop what nobody reads. Every page you don’t move is one less to design, write and check.
• Write the page list first. Name each page type, how many of each, and who supplies the words and photos.
• Ask for a fixed price. An hourly estimate can grow with every round of changes. A fixed price, with what’s included written down, means the builder carries the risk of going over.
• Launch smaller, then add. If the deadline is tight, a booking page or project gallery can follow a month after launch.
• Compare the same job. Give every builder the same page list, features and connections. Ask what each quote leaves out: writing, photos, moving old pages, hosting and fixes after launch.

How we price a redesign, and what to write down first

Our team looks at your current site before we quote. Sometimes a few focused fixes beat starting over, and we’ll tell you if so. The ranges at the top of this guide are our typical prices as of October 4, 2026. We help write the pages, and build in clear page titles, fast pages and the basics search engines need. When requests should land in a business system, we quote the website and the system together.

The first call is free. After it, you get a fixed price in writing within 48 hours, with hosting and care listed as a monthly line. Your domain stays in your name, and you own the code we write once the project is paid in full. Hosting runs on our account, and you can take it over after payment. Every launch includes 30 days of fixes.

See how our website design and development works, or book a first call. Whoever you ask for a price, you don’t need a technical document. Half an hour with this list gets you quotes you can actually compare:

• Your current site’s address, the platform if you know it, and who holds the logins for the domain and hosting.
• The pages that bring in calls or requests today, and the ones you’d happily drop.
• The page types you need, and roughly how many of each.
• Who will write the words and supply the photos.
• Every form, booking or payment the site needs, and where each request should go.
• Apps the site must connect to, like Google Calendar, Gmail or Outlook, Stripe, Square or Shopify.
• Your budget range and any date that matters.