How much does a website cost in Australia in 2026?

Ask a web studio what a website costs and the answer is usually "it depends". It does, but you still need a number to budget with. This post pulls together the prices we could actually source, and explains what moves a quote up or down. All prices are as at September 2026.

If you build it yourself

Template platforms are the cheapest way to get a site live. You pay a monthly plan, pick a template, and put the time in yourself.

• Squarespace: A$17 to A$109 a month billed annually, or A$24 to A$149 billed monthly. Excludes GST.
• Wix: A$21 to A$199 a month, billed annually. Includes GST.
• Webflow: from US$15 a month per site, billed annually. Plus tax.
• Shopify: A$42 to A$114 a month billed annually, or A$56 to A$149 billed monthly. Excludes GST.

If you're GST-registered, Squarespace and Shopify drop the GST when you add your ABN. Webflow bills in US dollars, so the Australian price moves with the exchange rate.

On top of the plan, budget for a domain, any paid template, and your own time. If you pay someone to set up a template for you, you're into the next section.

If you pay someone to build it

There's no official price list for web design in Australia, but a few sources publish real data:

• Clutch, a review site for agencies, reports that most web design firms in Australia list rates of US$100 to US$149 an hour. Most projects reviewed on the site cost under US$10,000, although large projects pull the average up to about US$38,000.
• GoodFirms surveyed more than 300 web development companies across 31 countries for its 2026 cost survey. 60% quote US$1,000 to US$3,000 for a basic website, and 63% of fixed-price projects fall between US$1,000 and US$15,000. For complex, feature-heavy builds, the most common quote was US$20,000 to US$50,000. These are global figures, and many respondents are in lower-cost countries, so Australian quotes tend to sit higher.
• Airtasker's Australian cost guide puts the median website design job at A$11,250, with most between A$2,500 and A$20,000. That data was last updated in December 2023, so treat it as a rough guide.

The spread is wide because "a website" covers everything from a three-page site for a local business to a full web application. The next section covers what makes the difference.

What moves the price

Scope

The number of pages, the number of integrations, and whether you need to edit content yourself. A five-page site with a contact form is a very different job from a 30-page site with case studies, a blog and a careers section. If a quote seems vague, it's usually because the scope hasn't been pinned down yet.

Custom design or a template

A custom design means working out the layout, look and feel for your business specifically, usually over a few rounds of feedback. Adapting a template skips most of that. Both can look good. A template costs less, while a custom design is the way to stand out from every other site built on the same theme.

Editing content yourself

If your team wants to update pages, add blog posts or swap images without calling a developer, the site needs a content management system (CMS). Someone has to set up the content structure and the editing screens, which adds to the build. If you'll rarely change the site, you may not need one.

Integrations

Each system your site connects to adds work: online bookings, payments, a CRM, an email platform, a member login. Some are quick to add and some take real development time. For example, the Billionaire Barbers site connects to Square for bookings, while Sports Connect needed Stripe payments and a full admin portal. Those are very different sizes of job.

Who builds it

The same scope can be priced very differently depending on who you hire. A freelancer charges for their time. A small studio charges for its time plus a small margin. A larger agency also has account managers, project managers, junior staff and an office to pay for, and that shows up in the quote. For some businesses, that extra structure is worth paying for. For a small business, it often isn't.

Ongoing costs

Once the site is live, you'll pay for hosting, your domain, and any subscriptions the site depends on.

Hosting for a modern custom site is usually cheap. Cloudflare Pages has a free tier, and paid plans on Vercel and Netlify start at US$20 a month. If a quote includes hosting at many times that, ask what else is included.

Maintenance is worth paying for when real work happens each month: updates, fixes and changes. If a maintenance fee only covers hosting and renewing your domain, you're paying a subscription, not a retainer.

What you shouldn't pay extra for

• Weeks of discovery workshops for a small site. A small project can usually be scoped in a single call and a follow-up email.
• Paying for each round of changes. A couple of rounds of revisions should be included in the price.
• Marked-up hosting. See above.

The simplest way to check any quote is to ask for it itemised, then ask what would change if each line were removed.

Where we fit

We're a two-person studio in Brisbane and Perth. For small businesses, our small business website is a fixed AU$2,500 for up to five pages, with the copy, SEO foundations and a contact form included. If you only need one page sorted, our landing page redesign is a fixed AU$999. Anything bigger, we quote on its scope.

If you'd like a second opinion on what your project should cost, send us the brief. We'll tell you honestly whether we're the right fit, and if we're not, we'll try to point you to someone who is.