Why quotes are all over the place
If you ask several designers to quote for the same five-page site, expect very different numbers. That isn't always someone overcharging. Often they're quoting for different jobs. One price includes copywriting and photos. Another assumes you'll send every word yourself. A third bundles in a year of hosting and a monthly fee you only notice later.
So before you compare prices, compare what's actually in them. A cheap quote that leaves you writing every word and sorting out hosting yourself can end up costing you more. Mostly in time.
What a small business website costs with each option
Doing it yourself with a builder
Wix, Squarespace and similar builders charge a monthly subscription, and getting started is cheap. The real cost is your evenings. You pick a template, write everything, crop the photos and then work out why the mobile menu looks odd. If you enjoy that, go for it. For a plumber who's on jobs all day, I don't think it's a good use of time, and the result tends to look like a template because it is one.
Hiring a freelancer
Freelancers range from people on their first project to designers with years behind them, and their prices vary just as much. The good ones are excellent value. The risk is that you can't easily tell which kind you've found until you're halfway through. Ask to see live sites, and open them on your phone rather than looking at screenshots.
A small studio
This is where I sit, so read this part knowing I'm biased. A small studio gives you one person who looks after your project from first draft to launch, with a set process and prices you can read before you get in touch. Mine are on the site: $150 for the first page and $50 for each extra page, so a five-page site is $350. I also design a free homepage demo before anyone pays, because I'd rather you judge the work than my sales pitch.
An agency
Agencies have whole teams under one roof, from strategy to photography, and they price for those teams. If you need a large site with custom booking logic or a big online shop, an agency can be worth it. For a dentist who needs six clear pages and a booking button, I think it's more than the job needs.
What pushes the price up
The number of pages is the obvious one. Each page needs its own text and layout, and someone has to check it on a phone, so a twelve-page site costs more than a four-page one.
Custom features matter more than people expect. A contact form is simple. Online booking that syncs with your diary, or a shop that tracks stock, is a different project altogether.
Content is the hidden cost. If you don't have text or decent photos, somebody has to produce them. Either budget for it or plan to write it yourself with some help.
Languages add real work as well. An English and Arabic site isn't one site with a translation pasted in. The Arabic version needs a right-to-left layout, and the text should come from someone who writes Arabic well.
I'd also be a little wary of "unlimited revisions". Nobody can work for free forever, so that promise is either priced in from the start or quietly limited later. A fixed number of revision rounds is more honest.
Running costs people forget
Your domain name is a yearly fee. Hosting can be close to free for a simple static site on some platforms, or a monthly fee for managed hosting. Business email is normally charged per person, per month. Keep the domain and hosting in your own name so you're never stuck if you change designer.
Then there's upkeep. Someone has to change the opening hours at Christmas and add the new service you started last spring. You can do that yourself if the site allows it, or use a care plan.
Questions I'd ask any web designer
What exactly is included, and what costs extra? How many rounds of changes do I get? Who owns the domain, the hosting and the files at the end? When do I pay, and how much each time?
And one more: are the examples you're showing me real client sites or concepts? Concepts are fine. I show concept designs for fictional businesses myself, and they're labelled that way. Passing them off as client work is not fine.