A small business website in Knoxville usually runs $1,500 to $5,000 with a typical agency, sometimes more once you add ongoing hosting and plugin fees. At Tennessee Web Dev, the build itself is free. You only commit to twelve months of SEO, and that is the whole cost.
What a typical Knoxville web agency charges
Most local agencies price a small business website somewhere between $1,500 and $5,000, depending on how many pages you need and how custom the design is. Freelancers can run cheaper, but you often lose the ongoing support once the invoice is paid. Either way, that number is just the build. SEO, hosting, and updates get billed separately, on top.
A five page brochure site for a contractor or a law office lands near the bottom of that range. A site with fifteen pages, service area pages for each town, a booking system, and photography lands near the top. Anything with online payments, a customer login, or inventory sits above it entirely and is a different kind of project.
What moves the price up or down
Four things account for most of the difference between a $1,500 quote and a $5,000 one.
- Page count. Every service you offer and every town you serve should have its own page if you want to rank for it. Ten pages is more work than five, and it is usually the right call.
- Who writes the copy. If you supply the text, the build moves fast. If the agency writes it, that is often a third of the cost.
- Photography. Stock photos are free and look like stock photos. Real photos of your crew, your shop, or your finished work cost money and convert better.
- Functionality. A contact form is standard. Online scheduling, payments, quoting tools, or a customer portal each add real hours.
What the cheaper options actually cost
Building it yourself on Wix or Squarespace runs about $200 to $400 a year in subscription fees. The real cost is your time and the result. Most do it yourself sites in this area end up three pages long, missing a phone number above the fold, and invisible in search because nobody set up titles, descriptions, or a Google Business Profile.
A cheap freelancer at $500 to $900 will usually hand you a template with your logo on it. That can work. What tends to go wrong is what happens six months later, when you need a page added or something breaks and the freelancer has moved on. Ask who you call in month seven before you decide on price alone.
The costs that come after launch
The build price is not the whole number. Hosting runs $10 to $40 a month for a small business site. A domain is $15 to $20 a year. Premium plugins, a booking tool, or an email service add their own monthly fees. Security updates and backups either cost you a maintenance plan or cost you a hacked site eventually.
Budget $500 to $1,000 a year in running costs on top of the build if you are paying for all of it separately. On our plans, hosting and the domain are included in the monthly for the length of the term.
Why we do not charge for the build
We build the site for free in exchange for a twelve month SEO commitment. That is the whole model. We are not hiding the cost somewhere else, and we are not pretending there is no contract. There is one, it just covers the SEO work that gets you found, not the website itself.
A website nobody finds is a brochure sitting in a drawer. Most businesses that pay $3,000 for a site and stop there see almost nothing come back from it. Tying the build to the ongoing work means the site launches into an actual plan for getting traffic, and it means we are still here in month eight when you want a page added.
What is included with the free build
- A mobile friendly custom design, live in days, not months
- A working contact form so leads reach you right away
- Basic on page SEO from the day the site goes live
- Hosting and your domain covered for the length of the term
- Google Business Profile setup or cleanup
- Ongoing SEO work for the length of the commitment
- You own the site outright at launch
You can see the full breakdown by tier on our pricing page.
What you are actually agreeing to
One agreement: a twelve month SEO plan, priced the same on our pricing page as everyone else’s. The site comes with it at no extra charge. Compare that to paying $1,500 to $5,000 for a website on its own, then paying again for a year of SEO after that. Bundled together, most East Tennessee businesses end up paying less overall, and their SEO starts on day one instead of waiting.
Common questions
How long does the build take?
Days, not months, once we have your content. A five to ten page site is usually live inside a week. What slows a build down is almost always waiting on photos, service descriptions, or a logo file from the client.
What happens if I cancel early?
The agreement carries a website build credit equal to the list price of the site. It is waived and earns out one twelfth for every month you pay. If you leave at month four, the unearned portion is due. If you finish the twelve months, you owe nothing and the site is yours.
Do I own the website?
Yes, from the day it launches. It is your domain, your content, and your hosting account. Nothing is held hostage if you decide to go elsewhere later.
Can I get a site without the SEO plan?
Yes. A Starter Site is $950 and a Growth Site is $1,950, paid once, with no ongoing commitment. The free build only comes with the twelve month plan.
Want to know what your specific business would pay? Call (865) 591-9884 or send us a message and we will walk you through it, free.