What a custom small-business website typically runs at an agency, before anything ongoing. Ours are published: $2,950 spec, $4,750+ custom.
Source: 2026 industry cost guides (Elementor, GruffyGoat)The typical ongoing cost of keeping a site updated, secure and backed up. It’s the line most build quotes leave out entirely.
Source: 2026 website cost guidesTop-ranking web design pages we reviewed that publish a flat monthly price for a built-and-maintained website. Ours is $599.
Source: Southern Tide Media review of 10 top-ranking agency pages, August 2026What’s included
Your website is the only channel you aren’t renting. Your ad account, your social following and your listings all sit on someone else’s platform and change when they change. So we build the site properly, and then we keep improving it.
Focus areas · Build & ship
Design & build
Designed for phones first, tested before launch, old URLs redirected, analytics wired in before go-live. That’s the launch discipline most rebuilds skip. Every build ships with a launch report: see a sample →
Speed & Core Web Vitals
Built light, then measured on a mid-range phone over a real connection, not a lab score on a fiber line. The numbers go in your launch report.
Accessibility
Readable contrast and keyboard access (the WCAG AA standard) are build requirements, not a plugin added later.
Structured data
Code on your pages (JSON-LD) that tells search engines and the AI answer engines, ChatGPT, Google’s AI Overviews and Gemini, Perplexity and Copilot, exactly who you are. We build it and keep it current. When you want that pushed further, it has its own service.
E-commerce
Stores that sell: product structure, feeds and checkout done right. Adds $1,500 to a build. E-commerce work is a specialty here.
Landing pages & funnels
A single page built to sell one offer, from $950. It’s the fast lane for campaigns, and usually the cheapest way to get more out of the traffic you already pay for.
Migration
We move you off whatever you’re on now with your rankings and redirects intact. From $1,425, quoted before it starts.
Ongoing evolution
Design requests, new sections and campaign pages handled month after month under Website Care. A site that stops changing quietly gets old.
What “built properly” looks like, measured
Every agency says fast, accessible and search-ready. Almost none of them show you the numbers. This is the scorecard that ships with a launch: the same measures Google grades, taken on a mid-range phone instead of a lab machine on a fiber line.
| Largest Contentful Paint | 1.4 s | How long until the main content is actually visible. | Good |
|---|---|---|---|
| Interaction to Next Paint | 112 ms | How fast the page responds to a tap. | Good |
| Cumulative Layout Shift | 0.02 | How much the page jumps around while it loads. | Good |
- 214 old URLs redirected one-to-one
- Analytics and Search Console live before go-live
- Organization and LocalBusiness JSON-LD validated
- WCAG AA contrast and keyboard access on every template
- Forms submitted and delivery confirmed from a real phone
- Backups verified by restoring one
- The scores. Useful, but easy to flatter. A lab score on a desktop connection tells you very little. We publish the mobile numbers because that’s the customer standing in a parking lot.
- Core Web Vitals. Google’s three published grades: good is under 2.5 seconds, under 200 milliseconds and under 0.1, in that order (source: Google’s Web Vitals documentation). They feed search rankings, and more to the point, they’re what impatience feels like.
- The launch checklist. The unglamorous half that decides whether a rebuild keeps its traffic. The whole document, redirect map, tracking, structured data and handover, is here: see a sample launch report →
How we compare
We read the top-ranking web design pages selling this same service, and what the AI answer engines warn buyers to watch for when asked how to choose. Every line on the left is a pattern from those.
The typical web shop
- “Request a quote” before you can hear a price
- Silence on who owns the code once you leave
- Built on a platform you can’t take with you
- A launch, then quiet, with care sold later as an upsell
- “Custom” that arrives looking like the template it was
- A scanner’s speed score, if any number at all
Southern Tide Media
- $2,950 spec, $4,750+ custom, $599/mo subscription, printed on this page
- Domain, hosting, CMS, analytics and content in your name, listed at handover
- Open, standard technology, so the site runs anywhere, including without us
- A launch report with the real numbers, then a standing change queue from $149/mo
- Real design on your real content, seen before you commit to the build
- Core Web Vitals measured on a mid-range phone, published in your report
Where it starts
$2,950Own It — the spec buildThe one-time build at a fixed price: designed, built, tested and launched. Classic custom builds start at $4,750. E-commerce adds $1,500.
How pricing worksWhat we build on
How pricing works
Three published ways in: buy it outright, subscribe with nothing down, or start with a single page. No mystery quotes for the standard jobs. For context, cost guides put a custom small-business site from an agency at roughly $10,000–$35,000 before anything ongoing, and most agency pages won’t print a number at all. Ours are right here.
The one-time build at a fixed price: designed, built, tested and launched. Classic custom builds start at $4,750. E-commerce adds $1,500.
Your new site plus the full Foundation care scope in one payment, on a 12-month minimum. Built, hosted, secured and kept current instead of quietly getting old.
A single page built to sell one offer. Pair it with Tracking & Analytics Setup at $795 so every result can be measured from day one.
Bundling is cheaper than buying the pieces.
See plans & pricingHow long it takes
What to expect
Most builds run six to ten weeks, and the slow part is almost always content, not code. Here’s the order things happen in.
What the site has to do, who it’s for, and every page that has to exist. Then real design on your real content, which you see before you commit to a build.
Built, tested on real devices, checked for speed, contrast and keyboard access.
Redirects, analytics, go-live. Then a standing queue for changes as the business moves.
Who we help
These aren’t a menu. They’re the industries on our client roster today, and each one needs its website to do a different job.
Hospitality & Resort
Booking-first sites that turn lookers into direct reservations.
Explore →E-commerce & DTC
Stores built to sell, with structure, speed and product feeds included.
Explore →Medical & Med Spa
Credible sites that book consultations and stay inside the rules.
Explore →Outdoor & Recreation
Product pages that hold up when the season sends a traffic spike.
Home Services & B2B
Lead-generating sites that answer the questions buyers research first.
Legal & Professional
Sites where credibility is what turns a visitor into a call.
Chambers & Nonprofits
Community hubs with events, members and directories that work.
Portfolios & multi-site
One design system across every property you own.
Don’t take our word for it
“The Southern Tide Media team has smartly positioned itself as partners, versus “vendors.” Each step along the strategic path, I feel as if they are “all in” and have our best interests at heart.”
“Southern Tide Media increased our conversion rates on our SEO campaigns by 60% in short time… Brandon takes the worry out of all the technical jargon and translates that into workable applications you can understand as a business owner.”
“In every dealing I have ever had with Brandon Evans, he has been knowledgeable, fair, and has responded quickly. I would highly recommend using him for any of your business’s marketing or advertising needs!”
Questions, answered
Do I own the site?
Completely. Your domain, your hosting, your content, your accounts. If we ever part ways we hand over access and documentation and nothing is held hostage. Here’s why we say it so plainly: by default, copyright in custom code sits with whoever wrote it unless the agreement transfers it, which is exactly why buyers get warned about this. Ours transfers, and the handover sheet lists every credential by name.
How does the $599/month option work — what’s the catch?
There is one, and we’d rather say it up front. The build is included instead of billed, so the plan runs on a 12-month minimum. The build’s rate-card value is spread evenly across those twelve months. If you leave early, you’re invoiced the unpaid share of the build and nothing else. No penalty, no exit fee. After the initial term it runs month-to-month with 30 days’ notice. It exists so a new site doesn’t need a lump sum, not to trap anyone.
What platform do you build on?
Whatever fits the job: WordPress where content and plugins earn their keep, and fully custom builds where performance or the product demands it. What we don’t do is build you into a platform you can’t leave. Our sites run on open, standard technology, so the site is portable instead of an export file that needs rebuilding somewhere else. We tell you which we’d pick and why before you decide.
Can you move me off Wix, Squarespace or GoDaddy?
Yes. Migrations start at $1,425, quoted in writing first. One thing to know: those platforms own the underlying design and code, so a move is a rebuild on open technology, not a file transfer. You keep your content, your domain and your rankings. The redirect map is what protects the traffic.
Will my rankings survive a rebuild?
That’s what the redirect map is for. Every old URL is mapped to its best replacement before go-live, then watched in Search Console for the first month. Rankings usually wobble for a couple of weeks and settle. The rebuilds that lose traffic are the ones where nobody did this step. You can see it itemized in the sample launch report.
Will it actually be fast?
Measured, not promised. We test on a mid-range phone over a slowed-down connection, not a lab score on a fiber line, and the Core Web Vitals numbers go in your launch report with the thresholds they’re graded against. Then we measure again later, because sites get slower as content gets added. That’s one of the jobs Website Care does.
Will the site work for AI search?
It ships with the structural part handled: clean code, validated JSON-LD, and pages that answer questions in plain language. Those are the things ChatGPT, Google’s AI Overviews and Gemini, Perplexity and Copilot need to describe you correctly. Tracking and improving how those engines answer for your brand is AI Visibility, a separate service from $499/mo.
Do I need a rebuild, or just fixes?
Often just fixes. If the foundation is sound, targeted work on the pages that matter (a landing page, a shorter form, a faster load) is cheaper and faster than a rebuild. If the site is slow, unusable on a phone or fighting its own CMS, a rebuild costs less than patching a sinking ship. A full audit answers it with evidence, and we’ll tell you plainly when the answer is the cheaper one.