It is a fair question, and most answers dodge it. So here is a plain one, based on what a custom home builder actually needs.
There are roughly three tiers, and they are very different.
The template treadmill: $50-$300 a month
This is Wix, Squarespace, GoDaddy, or a local “web guy” who sets up a theme and charges a monthly fee. It is cheap to start and it looks it. You pick from the same layouts every other builder in your state is using, drop in your photos, and pay forever.
The problem is not the price. It is that the result makes premium work look ordinary. The template was designed for everyone, so it flatters no one. And you never actually own it - stop paying and the site disappears.
For a business selling $500k homes, a website that reads as a $99 template is working against you every day.
The agency: $15,000-$40,000+
At the other end, a full marketing agency will build you a site, and it will likely be good. But you are paying for a team - account managers, project managers, strategists - and a lot of that cost is overhead, not design. Timelines stretch to months. You are one client among forty, and you feel it.
For a large regional builder with a marketing budget, this can make sense. For most custom builders, it is more machine than the job needs.
The honest middle: $2,000-$12,000
For a builder who does genuinely good work and wants a site that shows it, the right number usually sits here. This buys a website built by hand - your real photography, your words, no template - by one person who actually looks at your work.
At Koster Studio, projects start at $2,000. That covers a five-page site built around your best projects, fast enough to open on a phone on a job site, structured so it can be found in search, and yours to keep with no monthly fee. Bigger portfolios and extra pages are quoted up front.
What actually drives the price
Two things move the number more than anything else:
- Photography. Good images are most of the job. If you have a strong set of project photos, the build is faster. If you do not, that is the first thing to fix - and often the highest-return dollar you will spend.
- Scope. Five pages of your best work costs less than a forty-page site with a blog, a team directory, and a project map. Most builders need far less than they think.
The question behind the question
What a website “should” cost is really a question about what a lost job costs. If one prospect a year looks at your site, cannot tell your work apart from a deck company, and hires someone else, that single job is worth more than the entire website.
Priced against that, a site that does your work justice is not an expense. It is the cheapest salesperson you will ever hire.
Koster Studio builds websites for custom home builders and design-build firms, starting at $2,000. If you want a straight quote for your project, tell me about it.