Everyone wants to talk about the upfront cost of a website. Can you do it for $500? $1,000? $5,000? But that's only half the story. What matters more is what you pay over time. A website is not a one-time expense. It's an ongoing commitment. And depending on the approach, that commitment can either be lean or absolutely brutal.
Let me walk you through the real numbers. I build static HTML websites for small businesses, and the cost structure is completely different from what you're probably used to. It's worth looking at exactly why, and what it means for your bottom line over the next few years.
Year one costs. Let's compare.
You commission a static website from someone like me. One flat build fee, $15 domain renewal, and free hosting on Cloudflare Pages. Your ongoing cost from year two onwards is just the domain.
You go with WordPress instead. You might find a budget builder who charges a similar fee to set it up. But WordPress itself is "free," right? Well, not quite. You need hosting. That's $300 to $400 per year minimum for something reliable. You need a theme (usually $50 to $100), and plugins for SEO, security, backups, caching. Another $100 to $200 per year easily. Year one looks like $800 to $1,100 before you even put it live.
What about Squarespace? Clean, simple, you build it yourself. $204 per year for their plan (or $300+ for higher tiers). Add a designer to help you set it up properly. Suddenly you are at $500 to $700 in year one.
Static HTML: $415. WordPress: $800 to $1,100. Squarespace: $500 to $700. Already there is a gap.
Year three. Where the gap widens.
With my static HTML site, you are paying $15 per year for domain renewal. Three years in, you have spent $445 total. That's it.
WordPress, year three: You have paid the initial build, the hosting every year ($300 to $400 annually), theme updates, plugin subscriptions, security monitoring services. You might have dealt with a broken plugin or a compatibility issue that needed a developer to fix ($100 to $300). Three years in, you are looking at $1,200 to $1,600.
Squarespace, year three: $204 times three, plus whatever you paid for setup and design help. You are at $612 to $900.
The gap is now $170 to $455 in your favour with static HTML. That is meaningful money for a small business.
Year five. The real story emerges.
Five years with my static HTML site: $475 total. Just domain renewals, year after year. The build cost, long since paid off, now represents less than 85 percent of your total investment.
WordPress, year five: The hosting stack alone is $1,500 to $2,000 over five years. Add theme updates, plugin costs, the occasional developer fix. You are looking at $2,000 to $2,400 total.
Squarespace, year five: $204 times five, plus setup costs. You are at $1,020 to $1,400.
That is a difference of $1,525 to $1,925 between static HTML and WordPress. Between static HTML and Squarespace, you are saving $545 to $925. And that gap keeps growing every single year.
Why is hosting free? How does that work?
This is the part that surprises most people. Static HTML sites are deployed to services like Cloudflare Pages or GitHub Pages. These services offer free hosting for static websites. They are not charity. They are infrastructure plays by companies who want your traffic on their networks. For you, it means zero hosting costs. Forever.
You do not get a database, so you do not need to maintain one. You do not need a content management system with all its moving parts. You do not need to patch security vulnerabilities in WordPress core every time a vulnerability is discovered. You do not need plugins scanning your site for malware. A static HTML site is just HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. It is deployed, it sits there, and it works.
What you never pay for.
Let me spell out what is already baked into those WordPress and Squarespace costs. CMS licensing fees that come and go. Plugin subscriptions that renew automatically and you forget about. Theme updates and replacements. Security monitoring services. Managed hosting premiums. Database backups. Plugin compatibility testing. Crash recovery services. Performance optimization tools. That list goes on, and every item on it represents money that leaves your account.
With static HTML, those costs do not exist. Your site is not vulnerable to plugin bugs because there are no plugins. It does not have a database to hack. It does not need constant security updates. The build cost, once paid, stays paid.
But what if you need to update your site? That is a fair question.
You will want to change things. Add a new product. Update your hours. Add a testimonial. Refresh a photo. It happens.
You have two options. First, I offer an update service. $50 per change, done within 48 hours. For most small businesses, that is five or six updates per year. That is $250 to $300 in annual updates. Still less than your annual hosting bill on WordPress.
Second, you can do it yourself using AI. Tools like ChatGPT and Claude can edit your HTML file for you. You open your file, tell the AI what you want changed in plain English, and it makes the edit. No coding knowledge required. I also offer a 1:1 AI education session where I walk you through exactly how this works, so you feel confident doing it on your own. After that, you never need to pay anyone to update your site again.
Compare that to WordPress, where even small changes often require a developer because of the complexity of the system. Or Squarespace, where you are stuck with their interface and their limitations on what you can actually change. With a static HTML file and AI, you have more control than either of those platforms ever gave you.
The real savings come later.
The pitch for static HTML is not really about year one. Sure, $415 is cheaper than $800, but the difference is only a few hundred dollars. The pitch is about patience. The longer you keep a website, the more that upfront cost difference dissolves into irrelevance. The hosting costs that will never appear. The plugin fees that will never exist. The panic calls to a developer when something breaks.
A small business owner I worked with did the math three years in and sent me a message: "I just realised I have saved more than $1,600 compared to if I had gone with WordPress." That is not a coincidence. That is the curve working in your favour.
You are building for the long term. A website you will use for five years, ten years, maybe longer. In that context, the choice becomes pretty clear.
Disclaimer: All platform pricing, features, and comparisons mentioned in this article are accurate to the best of my knowledge as of March 2026. Pricing and features may have changed since publication. This article reflects my professional opinion and experience as a web designer.