Quotes for a musician website range from nothing to five figures, which is not helpful when you are trying to budget. The spread exists because four very different things are being sold under one word.
Here is what each option actually costs, including the parts that are usually left out of the quote.
Do it yourself on a builder
DIY builders range from under 10 US dollars a month to over 100, depending on the platform, the billing cycle and which features you need, plus a domain at around 15 dollars a year. Prices checked August 2026. That is the real cash cost, and at the lower end it is genuinely cheap.
The cost that does not appear on the invoice is your time and the ceiling on the result. You are choosing from templates built for restaurants and photographers, and you will spend evenings fighting a layout that has no concept of a catalogue number. If you enjoy that, it is the best value on this list.
Hire a freelancer
A one-off build from a freelance designer or developer typically runs from about 1,500 to 6,000 US dollars depending on scope and where they are based, paid up front or in stages.
The two risks are both about what happens afterwards. The site is frozen at the moment they hand it over unless you can edit it yourself, and small changes later depend on that person still being available and still interested.
Hire a studio
A design studio building a bespoke site for a label usually starts around 8,000 US dollars and goes up quickly. You get proper design work and a considered result.
You are also paying the whole cost before you know whether the site earns its keep, and maintenance is usually a separate retainer.
Subscription with the build included
This is what we do, so read it with that in mind. The design and build are rolled into a monthly fee, which for us is 99 US dollars a month for an artist and 199 for a label, with nothing to pay up front.
The trade is straightforward. You never own the design outright while you subscribe, and over three years you will have paid more than a one-off freelance build. In exchange there is no upfront cost, hosting and updates are included, and the incentive to keep the thing working stays with us.
The costs nobody quotes
- Domain registration, roughly 15 US dollars a year, and it should stay in your own account.
- Hosting, from nothing to around 20 dollars a month, unless it is included.
- Photography, which is the single most common reason a good design looks bad.
- Your time writing the biography and the copy, which nobody else can do for you.
- Changes after launch, which is where one-off builds quietly become expensive.
How to decide
If you release once a year and mainly need a link in a bio, a builder is the right answer and anyone telling you otherwise is selling something.
If your catalogue, roster or tour dates change monthly, the deciding question is not the price. It is whether you can update it yourself at one in the morning without emailing anyone. A cheap site you cannot edit costs more than an expensive one you can.
Common questions
- Is a free website enough to start?
- For a first release, yes. The moment a promoter or a label is searching for you, the thing that matters is that what they find is current and has your booking contact on it.
- Why do quotes vary so much for the same brief?
- Because most of the cost is design time, and design time is where the difference between a template and a considered site lives. Hosting and code are the cheap parts.
- What happens to my site if I stop paying a subscription?
- Ask before you sign. With us the site goes offline after a grace period, nothing is deleted, your content stays exportable and the domain remains yours. Not every provider gives you the domain back easily, so check that specifically.