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For most small businesses, Bluehost with its guided WordPress setup is the smarter starting point - saving $2,000-8,000 upfront and giving you full control. Hiring a developer makes sense only for genuinely complex, custom functionality most small businesses never actually need.
"Should I just hire someone to build my website?" It's one of the most common questions small business owners ask when they're starting out. The honest answer depends on what you actually need - but for the vast majority of small businesses, the maths and the practicality both point the same direction. Bluehost with WordPress gets you further, faster, for less.
Freelance web developers in 2026 typically charge $50-150 per hour, or quote a flat project fee for a small business website. Here's what that looks like in practice:
| Developer route | Typical cost |
|---|---|
| Simple 5-page business website | $2,000-4,000 |
| Website with e-commerce | $4,000-10,000 |
| Ongoing monthly maintenance | $100-500/month |
| Any future changes or updates | $75-150/hour |
| Typical first year total | $3,500-12,000+ |
| Bluehost route | Typical cost |
|---|---|
| Hosting (Business plan) | $6.99/month |
| Domain name | Free year 1 |
| SSL certificate | Free |
| WordPress theme (free options) | $0 |
| Any future changes | $0 - you do it yourself |
| Typical first year total | ~$84 |
The sticker price isn't the whole story. When you hire a developer, you typically lose something just as valuable as money: control.
To be fair and balanced - there are real situations where a developer is the right call:
Complex custom functionality - booking systems with unusual logic, custom integrations with internal software, or genuinely unique features that off-the-shelf WordPress plugins can't handle.
You have zero time and a healthy budget - if your time is worth significantly more than the cost of outsourcing and you can comfortably afford $3,000-8,000, paying someone else to handle it entirely can be a reasonable trade.
Highly bespoke brand requirements - businesses where the website design itself is core to a premium brand identity sometimes benefit from custom design work a template can't replicate.
The truth is most small business websites need the same handful of things: a homepage, an about page, a services or products page, a contact page, and maybe a blog. WordPress on Bluehost handles all of this extremely well with free themes built specifically for small business - no custom development required.
Bluehost's guided setup walks you through choosing a theme and installing WordPress in minutes. From there, adding pages and content is genuinely drag-and-drop simple - no coding knowledge needed.
For the vast majority of small businesses, hiring a developer is paying a premium for something Bluehost and WordPress already handle well - and locking yourself into ongoing costs and dependency in the process. Unless your needs are genuinely complex, starting with Bluehost gives you a professional website, full ownership, and thousands of dollars back in your pocket to spend on actually growing your business.
Bluehost from $3.99/month - free domain, free SSL, one-click WordPress, 24/7 phone support. 30-day money-back guarantee.
Get started with Bluehost →