How Much Does a Tradie Website Cost in NZ?

It's one of the first things tradies ask — and the honest answer is that it depends entirely on how you go about it. There are three main options available to NZ tradies right now, and they're not equally good value. Here's a straight breakdown of each.

Option 1 — DIY website builders (Wix, Squarespace, Shopify)

Cost: $0 upfront, then roughly $25–$55 per month ongoing.

DIY builders are tempting because they look free to start. You sign up, pick a template, and start dragging things around. But a few things become clear pretty quickly.

First, it takes a lot more time than the ads suggest. Building something that looks professional — not like a template someone filled in at midnight — takes hours if you don't do it regularly. Time you're not spending on the tools earning money.

Second, the monthly fees add up. At $35/month, that's $420 a year, every year, forever. After three years you've spent well over $1,000 and you still don't own anything — cancel the subscription and the site disappears.

Third, DIY builders are notoriously weak for local SEO. The platforms aren't built with local search in mind, and getting a Wix site to rank well for "plumber Auckland" is a real uphill battle.

For some businesses a DIY builder is fine. For a tradie trying to show up in local searches and win jobs against established competitors, it usually isn't enough.

Option 2 — Web design agencies with monthly retainers

Cost: $1,500–$5,000+ upfront, then $100–$300+ per month ongoing.

This is the model most traditional web agencies use. They charge a setup fee to build the site, then lock you into a monthly retainer to keep it live, handle updates, and — depending on the package — do ongoing SEO work.

The problem isn't that these agencies do bad work. Some do great work. The problem is the pricing structure.

You're paying every single month whether anything meaningful is happening or not. And if you decide to leave, you often find out that you don't actually own the site — it lives on their platform, and walking away means starting from scratch.

For a small trade business, a $200/month retainer is $2,400 a year on top of whatever you paid to get started. That money has to come from somewhere.

Option 3 — One-off custom build

Cost: Varies by scope, paid once, nothing ongoing to the developer.

This is how I work. You get a professional, custom-built website — not a template, not a platform you're renting — and you pay for it once in milestones through iPromise. Once it's live, it's yours. The domain is yours. The content is yours. I don't charge a monthly fee to keep your site online.

The only ongoing costs are the ones you pay directly to third-party providers: your domain name (roughly $20–40 per year) and professional email if you want it (free to around $14 per month depending on the provider). Hosting is included at no ongoing cost.

You're not renting your website. You own it outright.

What ongoing costs should you expect regardless of who builds it?

No matter who builds your website, there are a few small costs that are yours to manage:

Your domain name — the .co.nz or .nz address — costs around $20–40 per year paid to a domain registrar. You own it and it renews annually.

Professional email (e.g. name@yourbusiness.co.nz) is optional but worth having. Depending on the provider, it ranges from free up to roughly $14 per month.

SSL (the security certificate that puts the padlock on your site) should be included automatically. If any developer tries to charge you extra for SSL in 2025, that's a red flag.

What should a tradie website actually include for the price?

Whatever you pay, make sure the following are covered. These aren't extras — they're the basics:

• A mobile-friendly design that loads fast on phones (most of your customers will find you on their phone)
• Clear service pages that explain what you do and where you do it
• Your coverage areas and suburbs listed so Google knows where to rank you
• A contact form and click-to-call button
• A local SEO foundation: proper page titles, meta descriptions, schema markup, and Google Search Console set up
• A handover where you actually own everything — domain, content, code

If a developer can't confirm all of the above, keep looking.

The question worth asking

Before you decide how much to spend, ask yourself what one extra job per month is worth to you.

If a website brings in one additional job a month — a plumber's callout, a painting quote that converts, a builder inquiry that turns into a renovation — what does that add up to over a year?

For most tradies, a single extra job a month more than covers the cost of a website within the first few months. After that, the site is paying for itself every time someone finds you on Google.

The bottom line

A professionally built tradie website in NZ sits somewhere between a few hundred and a few thousand dollars as a one-off cost, depending on how many pages you need and the complexity of the job. The right number depends on your business — which is why I quote per project rather than publishing a fixed price.

What I'd steer clear of: DIY builders if local SEO matters to you, and monthly retainer agencies if you want to own what you're paying for.

The best outcome is a site you own outright, built specifically for your trade and your area, that starts showing up in local searches and sending enquiries your way — without an ongoing invoice attached to it every month.