Website Cost Calculator: Builder, Hosting or Freelancer?

How the calculator works

The calculator prices the same site four ways and adds up each year separately, so intro offers and renewals show up where they happen rather than being averaged away.

• Hosting and builder plans are charged month by month. Intro prices apply only for the length of the term you choose (12 or 36 months); every month after that is charged at the renewal rate. Month-to-month billing never gets the intro price.
• Builder plans are chosen from the type of site: portfolio and blog use the basic plan, small business uses the business plan, and stores use the commerce plan. Builders rarely use intro discounts, so the price is the same every year, with yearly billing cheaper than monthly.
• Domain: builders and shared hosts commonly include the first year free on yearly or longer terms; managed WordPress usually doesn't. After year one, the domain renews every year.
• Email is priced per mailbox per month at hosted-suite rates. If you'll use the mailboxes included with shared hosting, set mailboxes to 0.
• Freelancer route: a one-time build fee (base + per page, plus store setup and product entry for stores) on shared hosting, plus an optional monthly care plan.
• Your time is optional. Enter an hourly value and the calculator adds setup hours and monthly maintenance hours for each route, which is often what decides between a builder and WordPress.
• Card processing for stores is shown separately, because it's about the same on every route and would hide the differences you're comparing.

Reading the result

The four boxes show year 1, the last year in your range, the total and the average per month. A warning appears when year 2 costs much more than year 1, which is almost always an intro price or a free domain ending. The table below the boxes breaks each year into lines, and the comparison table runs the identical inputs through all four routes and marks the cheapest. You can copy a link to share a result; the inputs are stored in the link itself.

Worked example

A 5-page small business site, new domain, two mailboxes, over three years, billed yearly:

Email adds $144 a year to every route; with the mailboxes included in shared hosting instead, that route drops to $348 over three years. Change the billing to 36 months and the shared hosting total falls further, because the intro price then covers the whole period. If you add your own time at $25 an hour, the builder becomes cheaper than WordPress. The guides explain each of these trade-offs: builder vs hosting, hosting renewals and email options.

What it doesn't include

• Sales tax or VAT.
• Paid advertising, logo design, copywriting or photography.
• Price increases during the period; renewal rates are assumed to stay flat.
• Promotional discounts beyond the standard intro rate.

Assumptions you can edit

Every number the calculator uses is below. Change one and the result above updates. Values reset when you reload. Last reviewed: 2026-10.

Reset assumptions