If you've asked around about website pricing, you've probably gotten answers ranging from "$99" to "$15,000" — sometimes for what sounds like the same site. That spread isn't dishonesty. It's that "a website" can mean five very different things, and nobody explains which one they're quoting.

Here's the version of that explanation I'd give you across a table.

The honest range

For a small business in South Georgia, a professionally built custom website generally runs from a few hundred dollars for a focused starter site to a few thousand for a site with custom design work, more pages, and deeper functionality. At Francis Web Agency the range is concrete: custom sites start at $600, and most growing businesses land between $1,200 and $2,500. You can see exactly what each tier includes on the pricing page — every price is published, which tells you something about how the rest of the process goes.

Anything dramatically cheaper than that range is usually a template with your logo dropped in. Anything dramatically more expensive is usually an agency whose invoice includes people you'll never meet. Both can be legitimate — but you should know which one you're buying.

What actually drives the price

How many pages, and what they have to do

A site that needs to introduce you, show your work, and get people to call is a different project than one with ten service pages, a booking system, and a careers section. More pages isn't just more typing — each one needs a reason to exist and a path that leads somewhere.

Custom design versus assembled design

Template sites start from someone else's layout and squeeze your business into it. Custom sites start from your business and build the layout around it. The second takes real design hours, and that's a large share of what you're paying for — along with the part where your site doesn't look like your competitor's.

Features beyond the brochure

Online booking, customer portals, payment handling, integrations with tools you already use — this is where websites shade into web applications, and where budgets grow. A good developer will tell you when you don't need these yet.

How ready your content is

If you have your text, photos, and logo ready, the project moves fast. If they need to be created or heavily shaped, that's real work that belongs in the estimate — not a surprise at the end.

What the tiers look like in practice

To make the ranges concrete, here's how it breaks down at FWA:

  • Starter — $600, 1–2 weeks. Three to five custom pages, responsive design, a contact form wired to your email, and on-page SEO foundations. For a business that needs to be taken seriously online, fast.
  • Growth — $1,200, 2–3 weeks. Seven to ten pages with a conversion-focused structure, SEO-optimized content architecture, and analytics so you can see what the site is doing for you.
  • Premium — $2,500+, 4 weeks. Fully custom design system, advanced functionality, CMS integration, and deep SEO and performance work. For businesses where the website is the storefront.

The price and timeline are agreed in a written proposal before anything starts. If the scope doesn't change, the number doesn't change.

The costs nobody mentions up front

A website also costs something to keep — hosting, security updates, backups, and the small edits every business needs over a year. Some shops hide this; the honest version is that it's modest and predictable. FWA's management plans run $25 to $100 a month depending on how much attention your site needs. Budget for it the way you'd budget for any utility.

Domains are cheap (usually under $20 a year) and should always be registered in your name — walk away from anyone who wants to own your domain for you.

How to not get burned

  • Get the price in writing before work starts. A fixed proposal, not an hourly guess.
  • Ask who actually does the work. A surprising number of quotes include a middleman.
  • Ask what happens after launch. Updates, hosting, small fixes — who does them and what do they cost?
  • Make sure you own everything. Domain, site files, accounts. All of it.

The bottom line

A small-business website in South Georgia shouldn't be a mystery purchase. The honest range starts around $600 for focused custom work, and the right tier depends on what your site has to do — not on how well you negotiate.

If you want a number for your specific situation, tell me about your business. You'll hear back within 24 hours with a straight answer — including "you don't need the bigger package" when that's the truth.