Every line you will actually pay after launch, which ones you should not be paying, and the one that grows with your team.
Resources / What does a website actually cost to run each year?
For most small business websites, from about $140 a year: roughly $20 for a .com.au domain and from $10 a month for hosting and care. The security certificate should cost nothing. The cost that grows is business email, which is charged per person, so for a team of five it is usually a bigger line than the website itself. Here is what each cost covers, and what to check before you renew anything.
A year to run a typical small business site
What the security certificate should cost
How email is charged, the cost that grows
Four things keep a website running: the domain, the hosting, the security certificate, and someone looking after it. Business email usually rides on the same domain, so it belongs in the same budget even though it is billed separately.
For a straightforward small business site, the domain and hosting with care come to from about $140 a year, with the certificate free, as it should be. Care, meaning updates, backups and monitoring, is either bundled into the hosting or a separate plan, and whether it is bundled is the biggest difference between quotes that look similar.
Then there is the cost that is easy to forget because it sits with you: time. A site nobody updates goes stale, and a site nobody patches becomes a risk. Either you do that work, or it is in the price.
A .com.au domain costs roughly $20 a year. It is the cheapest line on the list and the most important one to control, because your website and your email both depend on it. If it lapses, both stop working, and a lapsed domain can be registered by someone else.
Check two things. The domain should be registered to your business, with the registrar account in your name and login details you actually have. And auto-renew should be on, with a payment card that has not expired.
We regularly meet businesses whose domain was registered by a previous web designer, in that designer's own account. It works until the day you want to move, and then it becomes the hardest part of the job.
Hosting is where the site lives. Care is the upkeep: software and plugin updates, daily backups, the security certificate, and someone noticing when the site goes down. Our own hosting and care is from $10 a month per site, on Australian infrastructure, with daily backups, SSL certificates and plugin updates included and uptime checked every five minutes.2
Cheap hosting often looks cheaper than that and is not. The common pattern is an introductory price that jumps at the first renewal, with backups, updates and support either missing or sold as extras. Compare the renewal price, not the first-year price, and ask what happens if the site breaks at 9pm on a Friday.
Website builders such as Wix, Squarespace and Shopify roll hosting, templates and an editor into one subscription. That is simple, but the plans that take payments cost more, some add transaction fees, and moving the site elsewhere later usually means rebuilding it.
The security certificate, the thing behind the padlock and the https in your address, is free. Let's Encrypt issues them at no cost,1 and good hosting renews them automatically. If an invoice has an SSL line item for a normal small business site, ask what it is for.
Your Google Business Profile is free too. So is basic uptime monitoring, and so are the SPF, DKIM and DMARC records that protect your email domain. Setting these up takes someone's time, which is fair to pay for once. A recurring annual fee for any of them is not.
And you should not be paying for things you no longer use: an old hosting account left running after a move, a premium plugin nobody needs, a second domain that was registered for a campaign five years ago. A once-a-year look at your card statement usually finds one.
Business email on your own domain, through Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, costs roughly $10 to $20 per person per month depending on the plan. For a team of five, that is roughly $600 to $1,200 a year, which is usually more than the website costs to run.
It is still worth it. A proper business address is more trusted, gets delivered more reliably, and belongs to the business rather than to whoever set up the account. The plan usually includes the Office apps or their Google equivalents, file storage and video calls, so it is often replacing costs you would have anyway.
The thing to watch is licences for people who have left. An account for someone who left a year ago is still billed every month until someone cancels it, so check the licence count against the team list whenever someone leaves.
A simple brochure site: about $20 for the domain plus from $120 for hosting and care, so from about $140 a year. Add business email for each person on the team. Add content changes if you want someone else to make them, either through a care plan or charged as needed.
A site that takes bookings or payments costs more to run, because it has more to keep working and more to protect. Budget for the platform or plugin fees and for more frequent checks, not just the hosting.
If you want a number for your own site, our Website Cost Estimator asks seven questions and gives an honest range for both the build and the running costs. It does not ask for your email.
Website Cost Estimator: Seven questions, an honest range for building and running your site, no email required.
How much does a website cost in Sydney?: The build side: what you get at each price level, and how to compare quotes.
Why shouldn't I run my business on a Gmail address?: Why the email line on this list is worth paying for.
For a typical small business site, from about $140 a year: roughly $20 for a .com.au domain and from $10 a month for hosting and care. Business email is extra and charged per person, usually roughly $10 to $20 per person per month.
Not for a normal small business site. Let's Encrypt issues trusted certificates free, and good hosting includes them and renews them automatically. If you see an SSL line item on an invoice, ask what it is for.
Your website and your email both stop working, and after a grace period the domain can be registered by someone else. Keep auto-renew on with a current card, and make sure the domain is registered to your business in an account you control.
Many hosts advertise an introductory price for the first term and charge a higher standard rate from the first renewal. When comparing hosting, compare the renewal price and what is included, such as backups, updates and support.
For any site running software like WordPress, yes. Updates close security holes, and backups are what you restore from when something breaks. Either someone in your business does it regularly, or it should be included in what you pay for hosting.
Send us your website address and what you pay now. We will tell you which costs are normal, which you can drop, and what our hosting and care would cost instead. Free, no obligation.
Prefer to talk? Call (02) 9053 8789.
Belivanis Information Systems