If you’ve started asking around, you’ve probably heard prices from “free” to “$20,000.” Both can be true. What a church pays for a website depends on who builds it, what it needs to do, and who will keep it running after launch.
Here’s an honest breakdown from someone who builds church websites for a living, and who spent years on the other side as a worship leader. It includes what I charge.
The short answer
| Option | Up-front cost | Yearly cost after launch |
|---|---|---|
| DIY website builder | $0 | About $200–$600 |
| Church website platform (monthly subscription) | $0–$500 setup | About $300–$1,500 |
| Freelance designer | About $1,500–$8,000 | Hosting plus optional care, $200–$2,400 |
| Agency | About $8,000–$30,000+ | Often a retainer |
Most small and mid-size churches land in the middle two rows. The right one depends less on budget than on one question: who on your team will update the site every week?
Where I fit: I build the kind of site in the third row, custom and yours to keep, but churches and ministries pay $625–$975, once, at launch. See what’s included →
Option 1: A DIY website builder
Builders like Squarespace and Wix let a volunteer drag and drop a site together over a few weekends.
Good for: very small churches and church plants with a tech-comfortable volunteer.
Watch for: sermons and events. Builders are made for businesses, so a sermon archive usually means embedding YouTube videos one at a time, and recurring services (“first Friday of every month”) often have to be entered by hand. The site also tends to depend on the one volunteer who built it.
Option 2: A church website platform
Several companies sell church-specific site builders on a monthly subscription, with sermon and event features built in.
Good for: churches that want church features with no setup and are happy to pay every month.
Watch for: the total over time. A subscription that looks small monthly adds up over five years, and if you leave you usually can’t take the site with you, only your content.
Option 3: A freelance web designer
A freelancer designs and builds a site for your church, usually on WordPress, and hands it over.
Good for: churches that want a site that looks like them, that they own, without agency pricing.
Watch for: what happens after launch. Ask who handles updates and security, whether your staff will be trained, and whether the sermon and event features are built for churches or improvised.
Option 4: An agency
An agency brings a team: strategy, copywriting, photography, design and development.
Good for: large, multi-campus churches with a communications staff and a bigger budget.
Watch for: paying for process you don’t need. For most churches, the features that matter (a clear first-visit page, sermons, events, giving) don’t require a team of ten.
The costs churches forget
The build is only part of it. Plan for these every year:
- Domain name: about $15–$25 a year.
- Hosting: about $10–$50 a month for a typical church site.
- Updates and security: the site and its plugins need regular updates. Someone has to do them, or pay someone to.
- Premium plugins: sermon, event or form plugins often renew yearly.
- Photos: real photos of your people beat stock photos, but either can cost money.
- Staff time: the cheapest site isn’t cheap if it takes your office manager three hours to post a sermon.
What I charge churches
I build church websites your staff can update themselves, and churches and ministries get 50% off every build:
- Essentials, $625: a modern, fast site your staff can update, with your current pages moved and refreshed, online giving and an events calendar, SEO setup, and training.
- Complete, $975: everything in Essentials plus a sermon library and resource center, using the Sermon Studio and Blog & Resource Manager plugins I built for churches.
There’s no deposit. You pay once, at launch. Monthly care plans for hosting, updates and changes start at $50 a month and are optional.
That covers the gaps in every option above: sermon and event tools built for churches (I wrote them), a site you own outright, and training so it never depends on one volunteer. Before I built websites I served as a worship leader, so I build for the people who will actually run the site: the pastor posting Sunday’s message and the office manager updating this week’s events.
Five questions to ask any church web designer
- Who owns the site and the domain when we’re done?
- How do we add a sermon or an event, and how long does it take?
- What does it cost per year after launch, all in?
- Who keeps the site updated and secure?
- Can I see a church site you built?
Whoever you choose, a good answer to all five is a good sign. Here’s how I answer them:
- Who owns it? You do. The domain, the content and the site are yours. If I host it on a care plan, I’ll give you a full copy and help you move it whenever you ask.
- How do we add a sermon or event? From the WordPress dashboard. A sermon is a title, a video link and a series. A weekly service is entered once and the next date always shows.
- What does it cost per year? Hosting on your own runs about $10–$50 a month. My Care plan is $50 a month and covers hosting, updates, backups and security.
- Who keeps it updated? I do, on a care plan. Or your team does, with the training that comes with every build.
- Can I see your work? Yes. Read how I built Destination Church, a new church plant, and Felix Harcourt Ministries, a teaching ministry with four recurring online gatherings.
Ready to talk?
Tell me about your church and I’ll recommend the option that fits, even if it isn’t me. There’s no deposit and you pay once at launch, so a conversation costs nothing.