I get asked this constantly by tradies who’ve had three wildly different quotes for what sounds like the same website. A$40 a month from a mate who “does websites”, A$1,200 from a freelancer on a marketplace, A$8,000 from an agency. None of those numbers are wrong. They’re quoting different products. Here’s what you’re actually paying for at each level, and where the maths lands over three years instead of week one.
The market, roughly, as it actually sits in 2026
| Option | Typical range | What you’re really getting |
|---|---|---|
| DIY builder (Wix, Squarespace, GoDaddy) | ~A$20-60/month | A template you assemble yourself. No suburb-level SEO, no schema, generic copy unless you write it. |
| Template freelancer (Upwork, Fiverr, local) | ~A$500-2,000 one-off | A pre-built theme with your logo, colours, and a few pages of copy dropped in. Fast, cheap, rarely differentiated from the next tradie’s site. |
| Local web agency | ~A$3,000-10,000+ one-off | Custom design, suburb/service pages, schema markup, a content plan, and (usually) ongoing SEO or maintenance as a separate line item. |
| Enterprise / franchise marketing firm | A$10,000+ plus retainer | Full brand system, multi-location architecture, paid-media integration. Overkill for a single-truck operator; the right tier for a multi-branch outfit. |
These are typical market figures, not quotes from anyone in particular; treat them as a landscape, not a price list. What actually determines where you land inside a tier matters more than which tier you pick.
What actually drives the cost
How many suburbs you service. A single-suburb solo operator needs a fraction of the pages a ten-suburb, multi-truck outfit needs. Each real suburb page (not a stub, an actual page written for that area) is more work than a generic “service area” list, and it should cost more, because it does more.
Whether the copy is actually written for your business. Template freelancer builds usually reuse the same boilerplate across every client in the niche, swapping the business name. That’s why two competing tradies in the same suburb sometimes have near-identical site copy. Custom copy costs more because someone had to actually learn your business to write it.
Schema and technical SEO. LocalBusiness, Service, and FAQ structured data isn’t visible to a homeowner scrolling the page, but it’s what tells Google and AI Overviews what you do and where you do it. With 68% of local searches now showing an AI Overview and the website carrying roughly 24% of the ranking weight behind it (Whitespark 2026), a site with no schema is invisible to a growing share of searches regardless of how it looks.
Page speed. A sub-2-second mobile load isn’t cosmetic. Slow sites lose the visitor before they see the trust stack, the pricing, or the phone number. Getting genuinely fast (not “fast enough on wifi”) usually means a modern static build, not a page-builder plugin stack.
Whether growth is built in or bolted on later. A one-page site with a contact form is cheap because it stops there. A site built to add a new suburb page or blog post without a redesign every time costs more upfront and less over three years.
What the cheap option actually costs you later
The A$40/month DIY site and the A$800 template freelancer build aren’t wrong choices for every business. They’re the wrong choice once you’re relying on the site to bring in work, because the thing neither one does is earn rankings. A generic “service areas” page doesn’t compete with a written page for each suburb. A stock template doesn’t carry structured data most builders don’t touch. Eighteen months in, the business hasn’t just spent A$720 on hosting, it’s spent eighteen months not accumulating the local search equity a properly built site would have banked in that time. The rebuild, when it comes, starts from zero rankings, not from momentum.
Where Kovus sits
Every Kovus build is quoted to the individual business, not off a rate card, because a solo operator in one suburb and a five-truck outfit across ten aren’t the same job. As a rule of thumb, one booked job usually covers the build. You own the site, the domain, and the code outright from day one, whether or not you keep the optional month-to-month retainer afterwards. No lock-in, no platform dependency.
See the full breakdown of what’s included at each stage on the pricing page, or read what actually separates a ranking tradie site from a template one if you want the longer version before you go shopping for quotes.
Want an honest read on your situation?
Tell me your trade, your suburbs, and what you’ve been quoted. I’ll tell you straight whether that number makes sense for what you need, no pitch attached.
Frequently asked questions
What's the cheapest way to get a tradie website online?
A DIY builder like Wix or Squarespace, at roughly A$20-60 a month. It's a genuine option if you're a side-gig operator with no local competition to speak of. The trade-off is your time, a template look, and a ceiling on what the site can do for Google and AI search once you're busier than you can handle.
Is a A$500 website actually worth it?
It depends what you're comparing it to. Against nothing, yes. Against a Wix site you build yourself in a weekend, probably not, since a A$500-2,000 template freelancer build is usually the same template stack with your logo dropped in. Ask what's actually custom before you pay for it.
Why do some agencies quote A$10,000+ for a tradie website?
At that price you should be getting suburb-level SEO pages, custom design, schema markup, a content plan, and ongoing support, not just a homepage. Some agencies charge that for genuinely custom, growth-focused builds. Others charge it for the same template work a A$2,000 freelancer does. The price alone doesn't tell you which one you're getting.
Does a cheap website actually cost more in the long run?
Usually, yes, once you count the rebuild. A site with no suburb pages, no schema, and no real content plan doesn't build search equity over time. Most owners on a cheap build end up paying for a full rebuild in year two or three, plus they've lost however many months of rankings they never earned in the meantime.
Should I pay monthly or one-off for a tradie website?
Both models exist and both are legitimate. A one-off build you own outright suits an owner who wants no ongoing obligation. A monthly SaaS-style plan can suit a business that wants zero upfront cost but never owns the site. Read the fine print on what happens to your rankings and content if you stop paying either way.
What actually drives the price of a tradie website up or down?
Five things: how many pages (a single-suburb operator needs far less than a ten-suburb outfit), how much of the copy is genuinely written for your business versus templated, whether schema and technical SEO are actually implemented, how fast the site loads on mobile, and whether ongoing suburb/content pages are part of the deal or a separate future cost.
Can I just ask an agency to match a cheaper competitor's quote?
You can ask, but it's the wrong question. Ask what's included at each price point instead: how many suburb pages, whether the copy is written for your actual services, whether schema and speed are handled, and who owns the code when you're done. Two quotes at the same number can be very different builds.