How Much Does a Website Cost for a Small Business in Denver?
If you’re a small business owner in Denver or the Front Range area, you’ve probably Googled “how much does a website cost” and gotten answers ranging from $0 to $100,000. That’s not helpful.
Here’s a straightforward breakdown based on what I’ve seen building websites for local businesses and what I charge as an independent developer.
The Short Answer
Most small business websites in Denver cost between $2,000 and $8,000 when built by an independent developer or small agency. Landing pages start around $1,500. Larger sites with custom features, e-commerce, or complex integrations can run $10,000 or more.
Template-based builders like Wix or Squarespace cost $17-40/month but come with significant trade-offs in speed, SEO, and flexibility.
What Affects the Price
Scope and Page Count
A 5-page business site (home, about, services, contact, and one more) is the sweet spot for most local businesses. Each additional page adds to the cost, but not linearly. Once the design system is established, new pages are faster to build.
For example, a restaurant on South Broadway might need a home page, menu page, about page, catering page, and contact page. That’s a clean scope. A home services company in Arvada might want separate pages for each service they offer (plumbing, HVAC, electrical), which adds pages but reuses the same layout. More pages doesn’t always mean proportionally more cost.
Custom Design vs. Templates
A custom-designed site costs more upfront but pays off in the long run. Template sites often look like every other business in your industry. A custom build matches your brand, loads faster, and gives you full control over the layout and user experience.
I’ve seen this play out locally. Two coffee shops on Tennyson using the same Squarespace template. Two salons in Lakewood with identical Wix layouts. Customers notice, even if they can’t articulate why one business feels more put-together than another.
Content and Photography
If you have your own photos and know what you want to say, the project moves faster and costs less. If you need help with copywriting or sourcing images, that adds time. I work with clients on content as part of the process. It’s not an extra charge, but it does affect the timeline.
One thing I always recommend: get real photos of your business, your team, and your work. Stock photos are obvious and they undermine trust. A phone photo of your actual shop beats a professional stock image of a generic storefront every time. Customers want to see the real place and the real people. If you’re a salon, take photos of actual haircuts you’re proud of. If you’re a restaurant, shoot the food. It doesn’t need to be fancy. It just needs to be real.
Functionality
A basic brochure site with a contact form is straightforward. Add booking systems, e-commerce, membership areas, or integrations with third-party tools (like a CRM or scheduling app), and the complexity goes up.
Local SEO Setup
For Denver businesses specifically, local SEO setup is a factor. This includes Google Business Profile optimization, structured data markup for your business type and service area, and location-specific content. Some developers treat this as an add-on. I include it as a standard part of every project because a site that doesn’t show up in local search isn’t doing its job.
What You Get at Each Price Point
$1,500 - $3,000: Landing Pages
A single-page site focused on one goal: getting visitors to book, call, or sign up. Great for:
- New businesses testing the market
- Specific promotions or services
- Event pages
- Lead generation
You get a fast, mobile-friendly page with a clear call-to-action, contact form, and basic SEO setup.
$3,000 - $6,000: Business Websites
The most common project for Denver small businesses. A multi-page site with:
- Professional design that matches your brand
- Mobile-first, responsive layout
- SEO fundamentals (meta tags, structured data, fast load times)
- Contact form with email notifications
- Google Business Profile integration
- Basic analytics setup
This is what I built for Critter Care, a pet sitting business that was paying $53/month for a dated template and an SEO package that wasn’t doing anything. The rebuild cut their hosting to $0/month and brought load times from 4+ seconds to under 1. You can read the full case study here. This tier covers restaurants, coffee shops, salons, professional services, home services, and most other local businesses in the Front Range.
$6,000 - $10,000+: Complex Sites
For businesses that need more than a brochure site:
- E-commerce with product management
- Booking or scheduling systems
- Content management (CMS) for regular updates
- Multi-location pages
- Custom web applications
- API integrations
Typical Timeline
Most small business sites take 3 to 6 weeks from kickoff to launch. Here’s what that looks like:
- Week 1: Discovery call, content planning, sitemap
- Weeks 2-3: Design and build
- Week 4: Content integration, revisions, testing
- Week 5-6: Final review, SEO setup, launch
The biggest variable is content. If you have your copy and photos ready, we can move faster. If we’re writing everything from scratch, add a week or two. Start on content early. It’s always the thing that holds up a project. I’ve had projects where the build was done in ten days but we didn’t launch for six weeks because photos and copy weren’t ready. Not a complaint, just reality. If you want to move fast, have your content ready before the build starts.
Why an Independent Developer Often Beats an Agency
Agencies in Denver typically charge $8,000-$25,000+ for a small business site. You’re paying for their office on 16th Street, their project managers, their account executives, and their overhead. The actual developer building your site might be an entry-level employee or a contractor they found on Upwork. You’re not paying for better work. You’re paying for the infrastructure between you and the person doing the work.
With an independent developer like me, you get:
- Direct communication. No telephone game through project managers.
- Lower overhead. No office rent or admin staff to cover.
- Senior-level work. I have 14+ years of experience, not 2.
- Accountability. One person is responsible for the entire project.
I build production software at my day job. Same standards, same tools, same attention to detail on every business site I take on. You’re not getting a WordPress theme with your logo swapped in. You can see the performance scores on my sites here if you want proof.
What to Watch Out For
”Free” Website Builders
The monthly fees add up. A Wix Core plan at $29/month costs $1,044 over three years, and you’re still stuck with slow load times, limited SEO, and a site that looks like a template. A custom site is a one-time investment that you own outright.
Hidden Hosting Fees
Some developers build your site and then charge $50-200/month for hosting on top of their build fee. Modern sites don’t need expensive servers. Hosting should cost $0-20/month for a typical small business site. If someone is charging you $200/month to keep the lights on, ask why.
Ongoing Maintenance Costs
Websites need updates. Ask what happens after launch. Some developers disappear. I offer ongoing support, but even without a plan, I’m local and reachable if something breaks.
Locked-in Contracts
Some agencies lock you into 12-month contracts with mandatory hosting and maintenance fees baked in. Before you sign anything, ask what happens if you want to leave. Can you take your site with you? Do you own the code? If the answer is no, keep looking.
”SEO Packages” That Don’t Do Anything
This one comes up a lot. A developer or agency builds your site, then sells you a $200-500/month “SEO package” on top of it. What does that package include? Usually: submitting your site to Google (free and takes 30 seconds), tweaking a meta description, and sending you a report full of metrics that don’t matter. Real SEO is built into the site from day one. The technical foundations, the structured data, the page speed, the content structure. If those aren’t there when the site launches, no monthly package is going to fix it.
How to Get Started
If you’re a small business in Denver, Lakewood, or anywhere in the Front Range, I’d love to chat about your project. I offer a free consultation where I’ll look at your current site (if you have one), discuss your goals, and give you an honest estimate. You can also try the cost calculator to get a quick ballpark.
No sales pitch, no pressure. Just a conversation about what makes sense for your business. And if you’re not sure whether you need a new site or just a refresh, I wrote about the signs that it’s time for a redesign.
I serve businesses across the Front Range: Denver, Lakewood, Boulder, Arvada, Golden, Littleton, Aurora, Westminster, and Highlands Ranch.