How much does a contractor website cost?
Contractor websites fall into three ranges: $500 to $1,500 for a template someone configures for you, $3,000 to $8,000 for a custom site with your own job photos and a real path to enquiries, and $10,000 and up when branding, photography and new written content are included. The difference is not the design: it is how much of your business goes inside the site.
Why the same request has three prices
When you ask for a quote for "a website", everyone quotes something different and nobody spells it out. One quotes installing a template and loading your details. Another quotes designing the pages from scratch. Another also quotes going out to shoot the photos, writing the copy, and cleaning up your reviews.
All three are legitimate answers. The problem is comparing the first against the third and choosing on the number.
What you are paying for in each range
$500 to $1,500. An existing template, your logo, your services and your phone number. Works if you are just starting and all you need is to exist when someone searches your name. It will not compete against anyone.
$3,000 to $8,000. A structure built for your trade, your job photos curated and ordered, and a clear path for a visitor to call you. This is where a site starts bringing work instead of just confirming you exist.
$10,000 and up. All of the above plus what you do not have yet: visual identity, a photo shoot, copy written from scratch, and sometimes cleaning up your presence on Google. It pays off when the site is going to be your main source of work.
The question that settles the decision
It is not how much you want to spend. It is where your work comes from today.
If 90% arrives by referral and the site exists so people can find you once they have your name, the bottom range is enough. If you want people who do not know you to pick you over someone else, you need the middle one, because that decision is made by comparing and you have to give them something to compare.
A contractor I worked with had seven reviews against competitors with 78, 110 and 416. Winning on volume was impossible, so the site was built around different proof: the license number visible from the front page, which almost none of his competitors published, and 55 of his own projects in a gallery. That does not come out of a template, and it is exactly what separates one range from the next.
What almost nobody quotes and ends up costing
The photos. If you hand over a hundred phone photos in no order, someone has to curate them. On a real project, over a hundred photos became 54 after two passes. That work exists, it takes time, and either you do it or the budget pays for it.
The copy. "We are a company committed to quality" was not written by anyone: it was written by the template. Getting the site to say something your competitor cannot copy and paste requires someone to interview you.
The weight. Your clients open the site from a job site or a parking lot, not from an office on fibre. A site with 50 MB of photos does not load. Compressing them properly is half an hour of work that almost nobody does.
Frequent questions
Is a Wix or Squarespace template worth it?
If your real budget is under a thousand dollars, yes: a well-loaded template site beats no site. The limit shows up when you need to compete against someone with more reviews or more years than you, because then the site has to argue, and a template does not argue.
How long does it take?
A custom contractor site takes three to six weeks, and what takes longest is almost never the design: it is gathering photos and confirming copy. If you arrive with the material ready, it halves.
What about monthly maintenance?
A static site of this kind does not need monthly maintenance. It needs hosting, which costs between zero and twenty dollars a month, and updates when you add new work. Be wary of a monthly fee that does not come with a list of what gets done each month.