Short answer: a professionally built small business website on Nantucket runs from about $2,000 for a focused custom site to $5,000 or more for a larger build with photography and copywriting. A do-it-yourself Squarespace site costs roughly $600 to $1,200 a year once you add the plan, domain, and email. The right number depends on how many pages you need, whether you already have good photos, and how much of the work you want to hand off.
I build sites for island businesses through AckSites, so I have an obvious interest here. I also think most quotes are confusing on purpose. This post is my attempt to make the numbers plain.
What actually drives the price
Four things move the number more than anything else.
- Page count and content. A five-page site with an about page, services, gallery, and contact form is a different job from a twenty-page site with a booking engine. Every page needs words and pictures, and someone has to produce them.
- Photography. Stock photos of a generic beach look wrong to anyone who has seen Brant Point. Real photos of your shop, boat, crew, or food are the single biggest quality upgrade, and they cost either your time or a photographer's.
- Functionality. Online ordering, reservations, rental calendars, member logins, and e-commerce each add complexity. A link to Resy is free. A custom reservation flow is not.
- Who owns the result. Some agencies keep your site on their platform and charge monthly forever. Others hand you the files. Ownership changes the long-term cost more than the sticker price does.
Three realistic budgets
Around $2,000: a clean, custom starter site
This is where most island service businesses should start. Think landscapers, caretakers, cleaners, charter captains, artists, and small shops. You get a fast, mobile-friendly site with your real photos, a contact form, your hours, and the pages that matter. Through AckSites, my island website company, standard sites are $2,000 and include local search setup, a contact form, and delivery of the source files so you own everything.
What you give up: heavy custom features and long copywriting sessions. What you gain: a site that loads instantly on a phone in a spot with weak cell service, which describes half the island in August.
$2,500 to $5,000: a full brand and site project
This tier makes sense when the website is your storefront. Restaurants, inns, rental managers, galleries, and nonprofits usually land here. It typically includes a half-day photo shoot, a proper menu or listings system, a reservations or booking integration, and copy that was actually written rather than pasted from an old brochure.
$8,000 and up: custom platforms
Booking engines with owner dashboards, membership sites, and multi-location businesses live here. Most Nantucket businesses do not need this, and a designer who quotes it for a five-page site is quoting for their overhead, not your needs.
The ongoing costs nobody mentions
The quote is not the whole cost. Budget for these every year.
| Item | Typical yearly cost | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Domain name | $15 to $25 | Keep it in your own account, not your designer's |
| Hosting | $0 to $300 | Static sites can host for free; heavier platforms cost more |
| Email at your domain | $72 to $144 | Google Workspace or similar |
| Squarespace or Wix plan | $200 to $600 | Only if you build on those platforms |
| Maintenance | $0 to $1,200 | Updates, seasonal hours, new photos |
Ask any designer two questions before you sign: who owns the domain, and what happens to the site if we stop working together. If the answers are vague, walk away.
When to spend more
Spend more when the site is doing real selling. A rental owner losing 15 percent of every booking to a platform fee will recoup a $4,000 direct booking site in a season. A restaurant that fills tables through its site every night should not be running on a $12 template with a PDF menu. A landscaper whose clients are second-home owners searching from Boston in February needs to look established, and that means real photos of real jobs.
Spend less when you mostly need to be findable and credible. A great $2,000 site beats a mediocre $8,000 one, and it beats no site at all by a mile.
What I recommend for most island businesses
Start small and custom. Get real photography. Own your domain and your files. Then, if the site starts making you money, invest in the next tier from a position of knowing what works.
If you want a straight quote for your business, tell me what you are building and I will give you a number, not a sales call. You can also read about what to ask before hiring a web designer and see the websites I have built for Nantucket businesses.
