How much does a website cost for a plumber, electrician or builder?
A plumber asks what a website costs with one hand on the phone, between a job and a quote. The answer is less than one marketplace lead a month, if the site is the kind that produces the lead itself.
Prices read from the plans on every load; the judgement reviewed 8 November 2026.
One of the trade business designs the plan price includes.
The short answer
A trade business website has to run on its own domain and take quote requests. Priced three ways:
| Route | What you pay | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| A builder with it built in Webkio |
$14.99 a month Starter at $14.99; $179.88 a year |
The site and the features in one plan, edited by you, live the same day. Card processing is extra on every route. |
| A freelancer | from $1,158 to $2,316 as a floor 3 to 6 days at $386 a day, derived below |
Somebody's week. Then hosting, and an invoice for every change. |
| An agency | No published figure three quotes, and the questions below |
A team and a process. Right for a group with unusual needs; rarely for one location. |
The table assumes no money is taken through the site itself, so no percentage applies. If you do take payments on it, put the monthly amount in the calculator and the plan and fee recompute.
Year one, on a builder
What the first twelve months come to for a trade business that builds it itself, at the assumption above.
| The plan (Starter), twelve months | $179.88 |
| Card processing | the processor's rate, on every route |
| Your domain name | from your registrar, typically a small yearly fee |
| Your time to set it up | an afternoon with the words and photos ready |
| Total of the lines with a figure | $179.88 |
Which route fits a trade business
A builder, if
You work alone or with a small crew and want the number, a quote form with photos and a page per town, live this week.
A freelancer, if
You want something unusual - a configurator, a client portal - and can fund the days it takes.
An agency, if
You run a regional firm with a marketing budget and a tender process.
The same site on other builders
Published renewal prices, with the date each was read, for the cheapest plan that covers the same needs. "Not covered" means no first-party product for it.
| Builder | Cheapest plan that covers it | Per month |
|---|---|---|
| Webkio | Starter | $14.99 |
| WordPress.com compare | Personal (read 2026-11-04, billed monthly) | $9 |
| Hostinger compare | Premium (read 2026-11-04, renewal rate on a 48-month term) | $10.99 |
| IONOS compare | MyWebsite Now Starter (read 2026-11-04, renewal rate on a 1-year term) | $14 |
| Wix compare | Light (read 2026-11-04, billed yearly) | $17 |
| Squarespace compare | Basic (read 2026-11-04, billed monthly) | $25 |
| Webflow compare | Basic (read 2026-11-04, billed monthly) | $25 |
| Square Online compare | Plus (read 2026-11-04, billed monthly, per location) | $49 |
What moves the price for a trade business
Quote requests
A contact form is free and loses the photos. A quote form with photo upload, your questions, and a quote the customer accepts online is the paid line, and the one that pays back first.
Service-area pages
A page per town you cover, written from real jobs there. More pages, more work on a custom build; on a builder it is your afternoon.
Job photos
Before and after, captioned. Free, and the single most convincing thing on a trade website. The cost is remembering to take them.
Reviews
Real ones, with names and dates, pulled or typed from where they already are. Zero cost, high value, often missing.
The costs that are not on the quote
- Lead marketplace fees. Paying per lead for enquiries that also go to four competitors is the real cost most trades carry. Your own site replaces part of it, with the customer who searched for you.
- The phone. A site that produces calls at 7am costs you a call-handling plan. It is a good problem; budget for it.
- Licence and insurance display. Not a cost, a requirement in many places, and what gets checked before a quote is accepted. The guide on licence numbers covers it.
What a trade business can skip
Money commonly spent on this kind of site that does not need spending.
- A bespoke design: spend on job photos and reviews instead; the layout is the least of it.
- A page per postcode generated in bulk; one honest page per real town beats fifty thin ones and gets you penalised for neither.
- Live chat you cannot staff. A tappable number and a quote form answered the same day do more.
Free things worth doing first
- Claim and complete your Google Business Profile with your service area and your licence number.
- Collect twenty job photos and ten reviews before you buy anything; they are the content and nobody else can make them.
- Decide whether you want enquiries by phone, by form, or both, and when you will answer the form.
If you ask an agency
Agencies do not publish prices and we will not guess one. Ask each of three what is included and what is billed after, who owns the domain and the content, what a change costs after launch, what hosting and maintenance are per year, and whether you can edit the site yourself.
Where the freelancer floor comes from. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the median web developer wage at $92,650 a year (Occupational Outlook Handbook), $386 a day over 240 working days. A freelancer charges more than a salaried day, so 3 to 6 days at that rate is a floor, not an estimate.
Guides for a trade business deciding this
Questions
Do I really need a website if I get work from a lead marketplace?
The marketplace sends the same lead to several of you and charges each. A site of your own is where the customer who searched for your name lands, and where repeat work comes from. The guide on lead marketplaces does the sums.
Can customers send photos of the job?
On Webkio, yes: the quote form takes photos and your questions, and the request lands with everything attached. That is the quotes feature in the table.
Should I pay for a custom design?
A trade website has a short, well-known job. Spend on photos and reviews, not on a bespoke layout.
How much is a website for a one-person trade?
The plan with quotes in the table above, plus a domain. Most sole traders spend more on one month of marketplace leads.
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