What does a website cost in South Africa?
Real numbers for 2026, including the costs most quotes leave out. Written by people who sell websites, so read it with that in mind — the figures for everyone else are the ones we are quoted against every week.
The short answer
A small business brochure website in South Africa costs somewhere between R1 200 and R60 000, and the spread is almost entirely about who builds it rather than what you get. An online store generally starts around R25 000 and climbs from there.
| Who builds it | Typical build | Monthly | What you are paying for |
|---|---|---|---|
| DIY builder Wix, Squarespace, WordPress yourself |
R0 | R200 – R600 | Your own evenings and weekends. Cheap in rand, expensive in time, and the result looks like the template it came from. |
| A friend or a nephew | R0 – R3 000 | Varies | Goodwill. Works until they get busy, and then nobody can update it or find the login. |
| Freelancer | R3 000 – R15 000 | R0 – R500 | One person's time at an hourly rate. Quality varies enormously and so does whether they are still around in a year. |
| Productised service Fixed scope, fixed price — what we do |
R1 200 – R2 500 | R240 | A defined set of pages at a published price, built quickly because the process is the same every time. |
| Agency | R15 000 – R60 000+ | R1 000 – R5 000 | Strategy, custom design, project management and account handling. Real value at the right size of business. |
| Online store | R25 000+ | R500 – R3 000 | Products, payment gateway, delivery rules, stock. A different kind of project to a brochure site. |
The four costs most quotes leave out
A build fee is not the whole number. These four arrive afterwards, and a quote that omits them is not cheaper — it is incomplete.
- Domain — about R120 a year for a .co.za, paid to the registrar, and it should be registered in your name. If your developer owns your domain, you do not own your website.
- Hosting — R25 to R125 a month for plain space, more if someone is actively looking after it.
- Email on your domain — around R20 to R25 per mailbox a month. Worth it: a quote from a gmail address reads differently to one from your own domain.
- Maintenance — the invisible one. Prices change, photos get stale, certificates expire, WordPress plugins need patching. Budget for it or accept that the site has a shelf life of about two years.
What drives the price up
Page count matters least of what people expect. The things that genuinely move a quote are: whether you need to sell online, whether you need bookings or logins, whether the copy and photographs have to be created rather than supplied, and how many people have to approve each round. A five-page site where the owner sends good photos and decides quickly costs a fraction of a five-page site assembled through a committee.
What we charge, and why it is what it is
R1 200 for 3 pages, R1 800 for 5, R2 500 for 8, and R25 000 for a full online shop. Then R240 a month for hosting, SSL, daily backups, monitoring and content changes done for you.
The saving is real overhead being absent, not corners being cut: no office, no account manager, no sales team, and heavy use of AI tooling for the repetitive parts of the build. We would rather say that plainly than let you assume there is a trick in it. Every fact on your site still comes from you, and you approve every sentence before it is public.
See what is included Get a quote
Questions people ask
How much does a website cost in South Africa?
For a small business brochure site, expect roughly R1 200 to R8 000 from a freelancer or a productised service, R15 000 to R60 000 from an agency, and R0 to R3 000 a year for a DIY builder where you do the work yourself. An online store usually starts around R25 000. Our own prices are R1 200 for three pages, R1 800 for five, R2 500 for eight and R25 000 for a full shop, plus R249 a month for hosting and maintenance.
Why do agency quotes start so much higher?
You are paying for the overhead attached to the work: an office, an account manager, a project manager, a designer and a developer, each taking a share, plus the meetings that coordinate them. For a large brand that structure earns its money. For a four-person plumbing business it is being charged for machinery you will never use.
What are the hidden costs of a website?
Four usually catch people out. Domain registration is about R120 a year for a .co.za, paid to the registrar. Hosting runs from R25 to R125 a month for raw space. Business email is around R20 to R25 per mailbox a month. And maintenance — somebody has to update your prices, swap a photo and renew the SSL certificate, or the site quietly rots. A quote that leaves all four out is not a cheaper quote, it is an incomplete one.
Is a cheap website worth it?
It depends entirely on what makes it cheap. Cheap because there is no office and no account manager is real saving. Cheap because it is a recycled template with your logo dropped in, hosted somewhere unmaintained and abandoned the day it goes live, is not — you will pay again within two years. Ask what happens after launch, and who fixes it when it breaks.
How much should a small business pay per month for hosting?
Plain hosting in South Africa runs about R25 to R125 a month, and if hosting is genuinely all you need, that is what you should pay. Anything above it should buy you something specific: backups, security updates, monitoring and somebody who makes your content changes for you. Ours is R249 and includes all of that — but ask what the difference buys before paying it to anyone.
Do I pay everything upfront?
No. We take 50% to start and the balance before the site goes live, so you have seen the finished thing before the second payment. Nothing is charged before you have seen a design.
Want a number for your business?
Tell us what you do and how many pages you think you need. You will get a fixed price back, not a discovery call.