Redesign & migration · Priced by the month Website redesign cost: what the market charges, and what I charge instead.
The published cost guides put a website redesign at $3,000 to $10,000 as a one time project, with a start date and a finish date on it. I price the same work by the month, starting at $800 with the website built inside the plan, so you know your number before anybody starts and the site keeps gaining pages long after launch.
Two ways to pay for it
- Billed as a one time project
- $3,000 to $10,000
- The published cost guides
- Built inside a monthly plan
- $800 to $3,500 a month
- Another Monday
The cost guide figure is the market's number for a one time redesign and it isn't mine. Mine is the monthly one, and it carries the website inside it instead of billing it as a project of its own.
How much does a website redesign cost?
The cost guides land in roughly the same place because they're all pricing the same shape of job, a fixed number of pages delivered on a date. What moves you around inside that $3,000 to $10,000 is scope, and scope for a local business is rarely as complicated as the spread makes it look.
The page count
Every page has to be designed, coded and written. Twenty of them won't cost you twenty times the design work, though somebody still has to sit down and write all twenty, which is where the hours pile up.
What has to work behind it
Booking, payments, a client portal, anything that has to talk to another system. A site that takes money is a different job from a site that explains what you do, and a quote moves a long way between the two.
Who writes the words
Copywriting is where a quote quietly doubles, and it's the line owners tend to find out about late, because a redesign priced without the words still needs the words.
I can't hand you an itemized split of design against development against copywriting, because I don't bill those separately and I don't work off an hourly rate. One person does the strategy, the writing, the design and the code here, so an invoice broken into departments would be a fiction I made up for the paperwork. You get the monthly number before we start, and it doesn't move because a page took me longer than I thought it would.
A redesign quote is mostly a page count. The rest is who writes it.
Why I don't quote a redesign as one project.
A one time redesign is at its best the week it launches, and that's the part that stopped me selling them that way. After launch you own a fixed page count while the businesses you compete with keep publishing, so two years later somebody is quoting you for another redesign to fix what went stale in between.
So the website gets built inside the monthly plan and never billed as a project of its own. The plan opens at $800 a month for two new pages and runs to $3,500 for ten, with the rate per page falling as the count goes up. There's a three month minimum and then it's month to month, so there's no long contract to sign your way out of.
Whatever rate you land on, all of this is included:
- Google Business Profile management and optimization
- A Google Business Profile post with every new page
- Citation publishing across the directories that matter
- AI search optimization (AEO and GEO) on every page
- Conversion optimization that turns SEO traffic into calls
- A custom built website on your brand that loads fast
- Automatic replies to your Google reviews, handled for you
- A custom built analytics dashboard you can open any time
- A monthly video walkthrough of the work, in plain English
- A direct line to me for strategy and operations help
Now you're into a real growth phase, month over month.
What it has to earn back
The plan is an investment, so the only question that matters is how many jobs it takes to cover it. Work it out with your own numbers.
Break-even only, at the rate the slider is showing. Anything past that is margin, and a customer who comes back is worth more than the first job suggests.
If none of these numbers work for where the business is right now, tell me on a call. I'd rather put together something smaller that actually fits than lose the conversation over a number.
Ad budget is separate and goes straight to the platform, never through me.
Moving what you already have gets quoted after I've looked at it. If you put a handful of pages together yourself, they usually come over at no extra cost, while a site carrying years of posts, a store and a real backlink history is a bigger piece of work and I price it as one. Everything a plan includes is on the marketing services page.
If you're weighing this against everything else you spend to bring customers in, the how the rest of the budget divides up guide runs those numbers for a local business, including how much of the total belongs to the website in the first place.
Got a site you're thinking about replacing?
Drop in your URL and what made you start looking at this. I'll run the speed and structure checks before I reply, usually within one business day, and tell you whether the site you have is the thing holding you back.
- 450K+ search impressions across the sites we manage
- 5,800+ organic search clicks across the sites we manage
- 600+ leads and booking requests across the sites we manage
Last 90 days, across the sites and Search Console/GA4 accounts Another Monday manages. Figures as of August 2026.
Will a redesign cost me my Google rankings?
A redesign loses rankings when the URLs change and nothing tells Google where they went, and that's the whole mechanism. All of it gets prevented before a single line of code is written, in the unglamorous part where somebody sits down and works out what you already have and what each piece of it is worth.
Inventory before anything else
I crawl every public URL you have and write down its address, title, heading and meta, then pull Search Console for pages, keywords and click rate by position, plus the pages your analytics says people land on from search.
The migration map
Every old URL gets marked keep, redirect or kill, and it carries its keyword, its position and its traffic with it. That one file is what the new site has to satisfy before it's allowed to go live.
Rebuild address for address
Anything earning traffic keeps the exact address it already has, which means most of the site needs no redirect at all. Every redirect is one more line somebody can write wrong, so I'd rather not need many.
Redirects for whatever moves
Whatever does change address gets a permanent 301 pointed at its closest match on the new site. Sending it to the homepage instead is what throws away everything that page had earned.
Checks before the switch
Speed, structure, schema, every form filled in for real, and every tracking tag fired and followed until it arrives somewhere. Nothing goes live until that whole chain passes.
Watch it settle
The new sitemap goes into Search Console and I watch coverage and positions through the first weeks. Rankings can wobble while Google recrawls everything, and that window is the part worth planning around.
Two of the sites I've moved are far enough along to check in Search Console. Both came off a hosted platform and kept the pages that were earning, and both went live in early August, which is why the table reads July against August.
| The site | July | August |
|---|---|---|
| Tutoring service, moved off Wix | 13 clicks | 48 clicks |
| Nail salon and spa | 34 clicks | 52 clicks |
Neither one dropped, and that's the whole of what I'll claim from it. Two sites, one month of data each, no control group, and August is a strong month for a tutoring business no matter who built its website. What it does rule out is the thing owners are afraid of when they ask me this question, which is the search traffic disappearing the week the new site goes up.
The mechanism is the part to trust here. Keep whatever earns, redirect what has to move, hand Google a fresh sitemap and watch the coverage report for a month. For how search equity gets built and held over years, that's the baltimore seo company page.
Keep the URLs that earn, and the rankings come with you.
What is the site you have now costing you?
The other half of a cost question is what the website you already have charges you every month in speed, and you can measure that part yourself in about thirty seconds. Put your own URL into Google PageSpeed Insights and read the mobile score. Google ranks faster sites higher, so a slow one costs you twice over, once in the people who leave before the page finishes drawing and again in where you land in the results.
Every row here is a Lighthouse mobile run on a client site, measured before I touched it and again after.
| The site | What I measured before | After the rebuild |
|---|---|---|
| Therapy practice, on Squarespace | Mobile score 55, main image took 26 seconds to appear, 4.0MB a page | Rebuilt to 95 |
| Plant studio, on Square Online | 5,017 KiB over 187 requests, main image at 25 to 27 seconds | Rebuilt to 100 on the live domain |
| Tutoring service, on Wix | Mobile score 59, main image at 12.8 seconds | Rebuilt, custom coded |
None of those before numbers are a knock on whoever built the sites. On a hosted platform the platform's own code is most of the page weight, and you can't delete code you don't own, which is why template sites tend to cap out in the 40s and 50s on mobile. New design on the same platform doesn't change what the platform weighs. Custom code gets built to 90 and up, and anybody with a browser can check that number on the day it goes live, including you.
If you're on Squarespace, the where the platform tops out on search guide goes through what the platform can and can't do for search, which is worth reading before you decide whether leaving it is worth the money.
Run the test on your own URL before you spend a dollar.
What goes wrong after a redesign goes live?
I moved my own site onto this stack and it went live with eighteen automated checks green, a clean install, and one page shipping as an infinite redirect loop. The URL pointed at itself, and I followed it twelve redirects deep by hand before I stopped counting. It sat in the sitemap, every one of the other thirty six pages linked to it, and no browser and no crawler could reach it.
The cause was two redirect rules written five hours apart in two different sessions of work, each one pointing at the other, and nothing catches that until a real server answers a real request. The site compiled, passed every check I had, and still handed a dead end to anybody who clicked that link.
The same audit turned up the old site's tracking pixel missing from an ad account that was live and spending, and I pulled the code back out of an internet archive capture of the old pages. The staging copy of the site was still telling Google to index it, the cache headers were gone, and the email authentication record had nowhere to send its reports.
Every redirect, followed
I request them one at a time against the live server until every one of them lands somewhere real. A redirect chain looks perfectly fine in a config file right up until a browser follows it.
Every tracking tag, refired
Analytics, ad pixels and conversion events all get fired again, and I submit a real form and follow the event through to wherever it's supposed to land.
Every form, submitted
One test lead goes through each form and I go looking for it in the inbox, the spreadsheet and the CRM. A form can look right on the page and quietly deliver nowhere.
Every page, fetched
Status codes, canonical tags, the sitemap, cache headers, and whatever the staging copy of the site is still telling Google about itself.
That work is a real line item on a redesign and it's the first one to get cut, because it happens after the exciting part is over and the site already looks finished. It's also where the money quietly goes, on an ad account nobody thought to open for two weeks. Whoever quotes your redesign, ask them what gets checked on the live server after the switch and get the answer written into the scope.
Curious what a rebuild would run on your site?
Do you need a redesign, or just a fix?
Sometimes the answer is no, and I'd rather say that on a call than after you've paid me. I go through what you have first. Plenty of sites just need their content and their structure sorted out, which is a far cheaper year than a rebuild, and if that's yours I'll say so. When I do say rebuild, it's because the template underneath is what's capping the search engine optimization, and no amount of tidying the content on top will lift that.
It's worth knowing which of the two words you're being sold, because most quotes call both of them a redesign. One is a new look on the same foundation, and the other replaces the foundation, which is the job when you're coming off a hosted platform onto custom code. The money sits in very different places depending on which one you're getting, so it's a fair question to put to whoever hands you the quote.
I've been on the paying side of a quote like this one. The event venue I opened in Baltimore cost about $30,000 to build out, a $20,000 personal loan covered most of it and the rest went on a credit card. I ran that business for three and a half years, so I know how a five figure number feels against real revenue coming in the door.
It takes a few weeks
Your website stays live and taking calls the whole time the new one is being built, and nothing changes for a customer until the day the domain points somewhere else.
Google takes a few weeks to re-settle
Your rankings can move around while it recrawls the new pages, which is normal. I keep coverage and positions open in Search Console through that window so nothing sits broken without me seeing it.
You lose the drag and drop editor
Changes come through me instead of a builder screen. Some owners are relieved by that and some would rather keep the keys, and it's worth knowing which one you are before you sign anything.
If the site you have can carry SEO as it stands, I'll tell you to keep it.
What does a website cost to maintain after the redesign?
Maintenance gets quoted across a range so wide that a local business can't do anything useful with it. What you're really asking is what still hits your card every month once the new site is up.
Hosting
Included in the monthly plan. Keeping the server up is my problem, and there's nothing extra for you to renew.
The platform subscription
Your Squarespace, Wix or WordPress bill stops, which is commonly $200 to $400 a year back in your pocket. One shop I moved had been paying $276 a year.
Ongoing work
The plan keeps publishing pages after launch, so the site is bigger every month than it was the month before instead of sitting at whatever size it launched at.
Ownership
The code and the content are yours, handed over in writing. Nothing is locked to me, and there's nothing to buy back if you leave.
The Brooklyn auto body shop rebuild is written up on the case studies page, and six synced before and after videos sit on the the rebuilds with their before and after shots page, captured from the real sites on the day each one moved. Or put half an hour on the calendar with a small business marketing consultant and we'll go through yours instead.
Questions owners ask me about redesign pricing.
How much does a website redesign cost for a small business?
A small business website redesign is quoted at $3,000 to $10,000 as a one time project in the published cost guides. I price it as a monthly plan starting at $800 with the website built inside it, so you're never handed a project invoice you have to find the money for.
What is the difference between a website redesign and a rebuild?
A redesign changes how the site looks and keeps what it's made of underneath. A rebuild replaces the underlying code, which is what you're buying when you move off Squarespace, Wix or WordPress onto a custom-coded website. That's why redesigning on a template platform leaves the platform's speed ceiling exactly where it was. Where moving off WordPress lands you depends on which part of running it stopped working, and that gets its own page.
Will a website redesign hurt my Google rankings?
A website redesign hurts rankings when URLs change and nothing redirects the old ones. The fix is an inventory of every page you already have with its keywords attached, a rebuild that keeps most of those addresses exactly as they are, and a 301 on each of the few that have to move. Two sites I moved off hosted platforms both finished the month with more search clicks than they started it with.
How long does a website redesign take?
A custom website takes weeks and not months, because the design direction gets settled before any code ships. Your current site stays live the whole time and only stops serving customers on the day the domain points somewhere new. Google takes a few weeks to re-settle after that, which is normal and worth planning around. If what you are pricing is a first website instead of a rebuild, the timeline for a new website is broken down project by project with the real dates on it.
How much does it cost to move a website off Squarespace or Wix?
Moving an existing site gets quoted once I've looked at it, because the work lives in how many pages you have and what's on them, not in which platform they sit on. A do-it-yourself site of a handful of pages usually comes over at no extra cost. Years of pages, a store and a real backlink history is a bigger job and gets priced as one.
Can I keep my current website live while the new one is being built?
Your current website stays live for the whole project. The new one gets built and tested at a separate address, and the switch itself is a DNS change on a single day at the end. Customers keep landing on the site you have right up until that morning.
What happens to my old URLs after a redesign?
Old URLs get inventoried before anything is built and marked keep, redirect or kill. Pages that earn traffic keep their exact address, so they need no redirect at all. Anything that has to move gets a 301 to its closest match, and the sitemap goes back into Google Search Console so the recrawl starts quickly.
How much does a website cost to maintain after the redesign?
On a monthly plan here, hosting is included and the platform subscription you were paying goes away, commonly $200 to $400 a year. One shop I moved had been paying $276 a year for the platform alone.
Do I own the website after the redesign?
You own the website, the code and the content, and all of it gets handed over in writing. Changing agencies later never means paying somebody to start your website again from nothing. That counts for more with a custom-coded website than with a template, because what you're keeping was written for your business and nobody else's.
How much does a freelancer charge to redesign a website compared to an agency?
The published cost guides put a redesign at $3,000 to $10,000 as a one time project, and an agency quote sits above a freelancer's for the same site. The gap is mostly scope: an agency is pricing strategy, copywriting, design, development, technical SEO and somebody answering the phone when a form breaks, while a freelancer is usually pricing the design and the code.
What factors determine website redesign pricing?
Page count moves the price more than anything else, followed by custom functionality, third-party integrations like booking or payments, and who writes the content. Responsive design and technical SEO should be included by default and are worth confirming in writing, because a quote that quietly leaves out the copywriting is the one that grows later.
How do I know if my current website is the problem?
Put your own URL into Google PageSpeed Insights and read the mobile score. A low score on a hosted template usually means the platform's own code is a large share of the page weight, and that is the part a redesign on the same platform can't delete. Then search the service you sell plus your town, leave your business name out of it, and see whether you turn up anywhere at all.
The $3,000 to $10,000 range on this page is the published figure from the cost guides that rank for this search. It's quoted as the market's number and not as mine. Every other figure is first party. The search numbers come from each client's own Search Console property, pulled on 2026-09-08 for the windows shown in the table.
Book the call before you spend anything on a redesign.
A free thirty minute session. We'll open your site together and run the speed test while you're watching, then work out whether the structure you already have can carry SEO or whether rebuilding pays for itself inside a year. If it's the first one, that's what I'll tell you.
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