How much should I charge for a website?

01Step 1: work out your hourly floor

Employees' pay is a useful anchor. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports a median of $47.85 an hour for web developers and digital designers in May 2025, in its occupational outlook. As a freelancer, you pay both halves of Social Security and Medicare, which the IRS sets at a self-employment tax of 15.3%, plus your own tools, insurance, equipment and holidays, and you will not bill every working hour, because sales, admin and learning take time.

That is why a common rule of thumb is to divide the salary you would expect by about 1,000 to get an hourly rate: $90,000 a year becomes about $90 an hour. Treat that as a floor, not a target.

1. 1Pick a yearly income goalWhat you want to take home before tax.
2. 2Add business costsSoftware, hardware, insurance, accounting, marketing.
3. 3Estimate billable hoursOften 1,000 to 1,200 a year once sales and admin are counted.
4. 4Divide(Income + costs) / billable hours = your minimum hourly rate.

02Step 2: estimate the project

Break the site into tasks and estimate each: discovery and planning, design, copy help, build, content entry, testing, launch and training. Add 20 to 30% for revisions and surprises, because projects nearly always take longer than planned. Multiply by your rate to get a cost-based price.

03Step 3: adjust for value

Cost-based pricing sets your minimum. Value sets the ceiling. A dentist who gains three new patients a month from a better site might earn tens of thousands of dollars a year from it; a hobbyist's site earns nothing. Ask what a new customer is worth to the client and how many the site might bring, then price somewhere that makes the project an easy decision for them and a good one for you.

AI tools change the hours, not the value. If an AI builder lets you produce a first version in a day instead of a week, keep the value price and deliver faster, or pass on some savings while spending more time on strategy and copy. How do web designers charge? compares hourly, fixed and value pricing in more detail.

04How to present the price

Give a fixed price tied to a written scope: number of pages, what content you provide versus the client, rounds of revisions, launch tasks and what is not included. Offer two or three packages so the client chooses between your options rather than between you and a competitor. Ask for a deposit, often 30 to 50%, before starting. How to write a web design proposal shows the structure.

• Fixed price per package, not an hourly estimate.
• Scope, deliverables and timeline in writing.
• Revision rounds and the rate for extra work.
• Payment schedule: deposit, milestone, launch.
• Optional monthly care plan.

05Common pricing mistakes

Charging an employee's hourly rate as a freelancer, forgetting tax, quoting before understanding the scope, offering unlimited revisions, and discounting to win a client you do not want. Raising prices is easier with new clients than existing ones, so raise them for every new quote once you are busy. Ongoing work should be priced separately; how much to charge for website maintenance covers it.