Hourly rates by type of provider
- Students and new freelancers: $25 to $50 an hour. Cheap, but you take on the risk of an unfinished site and of nobody being around to fix it later.
- Experienced freelancers: $50 to $125 an hour. Often the best value for a small WordPress or Shopify site, if you check their work and keep ownership of your accounts.
- Small studios and agencies: $100 to $250 an hour. You pay for a team (design, development, project management) and for someone being there in a year.
- Offshore teams: $15 to $50 an hour. Workable for well-specified tasks, harder for a project where you need a conversation about what the business actually needs.
Why most websites are quoted per project
An hourly rate tells you little on its own. A developer at $60 an hour who takes 80 hours costs more than one at $120 who takes 30. A fixed, itemized quote tells you the total, what is included and what counts as an extra, which is what you actually need to decide. Ask for the quote in writing and ask what happens if the scope changes.
Hourly billing makes sense for ongoing small work (updates, fixes, additions) after the site is live, or inside a maintenance plan where the hours are bundled.
How to compare quotes fairly
Put the quotes side by side on five points: what pages and features are included, who writes the content, who owns the domain, hosting and code afterwards, what support is included after launch, and how many design revisions you get. A low quote that leaves out content, SEO basics and post-launch support is not the low quote once you add them. The guide on how to find the right web developer has the full checklist, and the website cost page explains what moves a project price.