What a custom website actually costs
Separate the one-time website build from ongoing AEO, analytics, and care. Compare the scope and decide what your website needs to do.
Compare the scope before the price
A useful website quote should explain what gets built, what happens after launch, and what you own. “Custom website” can describe very different projects. Comparing the headline price without the scope makes the decision harder than it needs to be.
Start with the job the site must do. A personal site that introduces one professional is a different project from a company site with multiple services, people, and project stories. Both deserve care; they need different amounts of content and structure.
What Espo Studio charges
Our company website build is $1,500 one time, plus $100 per month. Our personal website build is $750 one time, plus $50 per month. Both ongoing plans include AEO, search and AI-referral tracking, agreed key-action tracking, visibility reviews, hosting, and small website updates.
For annual recurring billing, company service is $960 per year and personal service is $480 per year. That is equivalent to $80 and $40 per month, respectively, paid annually. The one-time build fee is additional in either case.
The pricing page is the current offer reference. We agree on the project’s pages and scope before building, and discuss additional pages or larger changes separately.
What the build should give you
A design that expresses the business
The page structure, typography, imagery, and copy should help a visitor understand your particular business. For a firm, that might mean making a complicated set of services easier to navigate. For an individual, it might mean bringing a biography, expertise, and professional profiles together.
Distinctiveness matters when it communicates something real. A clever animation cannot replace useful content or a contact form that works.
A website that works across screens
Desktop compositions need to become usable mobile pages. Navigation, long titles, images, form labels, and reading widths all need attention. The small-screen version should receive its own review instead of being treated as a shrunken desktop.
A readable technical foundation
We deliver key content in HTML, describe relevant information with structured data, and maintain clear page titles, links, and URLs. These are implementation choices we can inspect and test. They do not promise a particular search position or AI recommendation.
Clear ownership and handoff
At Espo Studio, the website, code, and content belong to you. The recurring service supports the site after the build. Ask any provider how your domain, hosting, source code, and accounts will be handled, and what happens if you stop the service.
What ongoing AEO, analytics, and care are for
A website describes a living business. People join, services change, and old information becomes misleading. Ongoing care should keep that public information consistent and address the site’s technical needs.
At Espo Studio, it also means learning from how people find and use the website. Answer engine optimization (AEO) makes your expertise easier for answer engines to find and understand. We improve the answers, business information, page structure, and technical accessibility of your website.
We track search clicks and impressions, visits that analytics identifies from AI platforms, and agreed website actions such as contact clicks or completed inquiries. We connect the relevant accounts and configure the events during setup. We connect analytics as part of the launch so the starting point and future reviews can use the available evidence.
Visibility reviews bring together available traffic, search, and action data with the website changes we have made and the next improvements to prioritize. We agree on the review schedule during onboarding.
Identifiable AI referrals are visits to your website, not a count of every appearance in an AI answer. Search clicks, site visits, and inquiries measure different steps; a useful review keeps those distinctions clear.
Tracking is configured with your account access during setup. Review timing and key actions are agreed at onboarding. New pages, larger content programs, and new functionality are scoped separately. Ask any provider how requests are handled and what the recurring service includes. A low monthly number means little if nobody has agreed on the work behind it.
When a simpler starting point makes sense
A well-chosen template can be a reasonable way to launch a small, changing business. Custom design becomes more useful when you have a clear identity, specific content, or a structure a standard layout handles poorly.
There is no universal revenue threshold or business age that makes the decision for you. Consider the time available to build and maintain the site, the clarity of your offer, and what a better site would help a visitor do.
Five questions to take into a website conversation
- Which pages and features are included in this scope?
- What content and assets do I need to provide?
- How will we review the direction and the working site?
- What will I own, and what happens after launch?
- What does the recurring service include?
You should be able to get plain answers before you commit. Tell us about the site you have in mind and we’ll work from there.