Someone just asked you to build their website, and now you need a number. Guess too low and you end up working weekends for less than minimum wage. Guess too high without a reason and the client walks. This guide shows how to find the lowest rate you can afford to work for, then turn it into a quote you can explain line by line.
How much should you charge to build a website?
Work out your minimum hourly rate first: your target income plus business costs and self-employment tax, divided by the hours you can realistically bill in a year. Then estimate the hours a project needs, multiply, add a contingency buffer and quote it as a fixed price. In the example below, an $80 hourly rate turns a 5-page small-business site into a $3,800 quote.
That number is for this example only. Your rate, your speed and your scope will change it, which is why the method matters more than any single price.
What pricing models can you use?
Most freelancers use one of four models, and many combine them.
| Model | How it works | Pros | Cons |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hourly | Bill every hour you track | Low risk for you; scope changes pay for themselves | Clients can't budget; you earn less as you get faster |
| Fixed project | One price for a defined scope | Easy for clients to approve; rewards efficiency | Scope creep eats your margin if the scope is vague |
| Value-based | Price tied to what the site is worth to the client | Highest ceiling when a site drives real revenue | Needs trust, business data and confident sales skills |
| Retainer | Monthly fee for ongoing work or care | Predictable recurring income | Needs clear limits on what's included each month |
Fixed pricing is what most small-business clients expect. Hourly still sits underneath it: you estimate hours to set the fixed price, and you bill hourly for anything outside the agreed scope.
Value-based pricing works best once you understand a client's numbers. If a new booking site is expected to bring in a lot of revenue for a clinic, the site is worth more to them than your hours suggest. Starting out, that conversation is hard to have credibly, so treat it as something to grow into.
How do you calculate your minimum hourly rate?
Your minimum rate is the floor you shouldn't quote below. Use this formula:
(Target income + business costs + self-employment tax allowance) ÷ realistic billable hours
A worked example, with every number an assumption you should swap for your own:
- Target income: $70,000 a year. For context, the median annual wage for employed web developers was $92,650 in May 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. An employer covers costs you'll now pay yourself.
- Self-employment tax allowance: $10,710. The IRS self-employment tax rate is 15.3% (12.4% Social Security plus 2.9% Medicare). This example applies it to the full $70,000 as a rough allowance; income tax is separate, so check your real figures with a tax professional.
- Business costs and benefits: $9,000. For this example, assume software, hardware, insurance, accounting and health coverage you'd otherwise get from an employer.
- Billable hours: 1,152. Assume 48 working weeks (four weeks off for holidays, vacation and sick days) at 40 hours, and that only 60% of those hours are billable. The rest goes to sales calls, email, invoicing and learning.
| Line | Amount |
|---|---|
| Target income | $70,000 |
| Self-employment tax allowance (15.3%) | $10,710 |
| Business costs and benefits | $9,000 |
| Total you need to earn | $89,710 |
| Billable hours (48 weeks × 40 hours × 60%) | 1,152 |
| Minimum hourly rate | $77.87, rounded to $80 |
That billable-hours assumption does the most work. Drop from 60% to 50% billable and the same income needs about $93 an hour. It's easy to overestimate how many hours you'll bill, so track yours for a few months and adjust.
The BLS also notes that 18% of web developers were self-employed in 2025, and its pay figures don't cover self-employed workers. So an employee's hourly wage isn't a fair benchmark for a freelance rate — it leaves out the taxes, costs and unbilled hours you now carry.
How do you scope a website quote?
A quote is only as accurate as the scope behind it. Before you price anything, pin down three things in writing.
Pages. List every page by name: Home, About, Services, Contact, and so on. "About 5 pages" becomes 9 by launch day if nobody writes it down.
Features. Contact form, booking, a blog, a shop, integrations with a CRM or email tool. Each one is its own line of hours. Features, not page count, are what usually push a quote up.
Content. Who writes the copy and supplies the photos, and by when? Waiting on content can stall a project for weeks, so put a delivery date in the scope. If you're writing it, price it separately.
Also agree on the platform, the hosting setup, and whether the client owns their domain and hosting accounts. Our WordPress cost breakdown lists the platform line items clients will pay on top of your fee.
What does a worked quote for a 5-page site look like?
For this example, assume a local business wants a 5-page WordPress site (Home, About, Services, Reviews, Contact) on a customized premium theme. It needs a contact form and basic on-page SEO setup, and the client supplies all copy and photos. Hours are illustrative estimates for someone with a few projects behind them.
| Task | Hours | At $80/hour |
|---|---|---|
| Discovery call, sitemap and scope document | 3 | $240 |
| Design: homepage and inner-page mockups on the theme | 10 | $800 |
| Build 5 pages | 12 | $960 |
| Contact form, SEO titles and descriptions, analytics | 4 | $320 |
| Loading content and optimizing images | 4 | $320 |
| Testing on devices, launch and a client walkthrough | 4 | $320 |
| Project management and communication | 4 | $320 |
| Subtotal | 41 | $3,280 |
| Contingency buffer (15%) | $492 | |
| Quote (rounded) | $3,800 |
The buffer covers the things you can't see yet: a plugin conflict, a slow approval, one more round of small tweaks. If the client also needs copywriting, quote it as a separate line so they can see what it costs.
As a sanity check, the Website Cost Calculator estimates a 5-page brochure site with a contact form and SEO setup (content supplied, standard timeline) at $1,800–$2,500 on a template design and $2,400–$3,400 semi-custom. It uses an illustrative agency rate card rather than your hours. If your quote sits well above it, check your hour estimates and be ready to explain what the client gets for the difference. How a calculator estimate compares with a real quote covers why the two rarely match exactly.
How should you handle deposits, revisions and change requests?
These three terms protect your fixed price. Put all of them in the contract.
Deposit. Take a deposit before any work starts. In this example, a 50% deposit is $1,900, with the remaining $1,900 due before the site goes live. A deposit screens out clients who aren't serious and covers your time if a project stalls.
Revision limits. State how many rounds of design revisions are included — two is a common choice — and what counts as a round. Extra rounds are billed at your hourly rate.
Change requests. Anything outside the written scope (a new page, a booking system, a second language) gets a short written change order with its own price and timeline before you do the work. It turns "can you just add…" into a normal business conversation.
How much should you charge as a beginner?
Charge less by building less, not by cutting your rate. As a beginner you'll take longer than your estimates, so offer a tightly scoped package: a template-based site, a fixed page count, a contact form and nothing custom. Track your real hours on every project, then compare them with your quotes.
A small portfolio discount is reasonable for your first few clients, as long as you name it on the invoice. That way the client knows the full price, and raising it later doesn't feel like a surprise. After three or four projects, your tracked hours will tell you whether your estimates hold.
How do you add recurring revenue after launch?
Every site you build needs updates, backups and small edits. Offering a monthly care plan turns one-off projects into income you can count on. For this example, a plan covering two hours of work a month at $80 would be $160 a month; ten clients on that plan add $1,600 a month before you start a new build. The maintenance section of our WordPress cost breakdown lists what clients usually expect a retainer to cover: updates, backups, uptime monitoring and small content changes. For how to structure plan tiers and what's out of scope, see what website maintenance costs.
Be clear about what the plan covers, and point clients to the ongoing costs they'll pay regardless, such as hosting, domain renewal and plugin licenses.
