Contractor website builders, compared honestly.

Four ways to get a contractor website

Every option is some trade between money, time and control, and the brochure for each one hides a different cost. The honest comparison is not the sticker price, it is what you have spent and what you have after three years.

• DIY builders: cheapest to start, and you become the designer, the SEO and the maintenance
• A freelancer: a real site for a few thousand dollars, and then whoever built it moves on
• A traditional agency: a good site, a long timeline, and hourly billing for every change
• A managed platform: a monthly fee that covers the build and everything after it

The cost nobody quotes you is change

The build is the small part. A home service website is not finished: you add a service, you change your hours, you enter a new town, you want the storm damage page live this week rather than next month. On a freelance or agency site every one of those is an email, a quote and a wait. The predictable outcome is a site that was accurate the day it launched and has been slightly wrong ever since, because asking for a change costs more than living with the error.

DIY builders and the real price of free

Squarespace, Wix and the rest are genuinely good products and they will cost you $16 to $50 a month. What the price does not include is a designer, someone writing a page for every service in every town you serve, anyone maintaining your structured data, or anyone noticing when your contact form quietly stopped delivering. Contractors who choose this path usually get a decent-looking site and then discover that the marketing work they thought they were buying was never in the box.

WordPress, and why it keeps ending badly for contractors

WordPress runs a huge share of the web and it is a capable platform in maintained hands. The problem for a home service business is that the plugins that make it work are also a maintenance obligation, and nobody at a plumbing company is going to keep up with them. What we see repeatedly is a site built four years ago by someone no longer involved, running outdated plugins, eventually hacked or broken, with nobody who has the login. If that is where you are, that is a specific and fixable situation.

Where Oxsome fits, and where it does not

Ours is the managed platform option. The site is custom designed rather than templated, it is built and hosted for you, and you change it by typing a message in plain English and watching it happen, instead of emailing a developer. The SEO and AI search agents work it continuously. It is $99 a month with everything included, and there is no separate build fee. Where it is not the right answer: if you want to own and self-host the code and never pay anyone monthly, buy a freelance build instead. If your site is one page and you never intend to compete in search, a DIY builder is honestly enough.

The five questions to ask any of them

Whoever you are talking to, including us, the answers to these decide whether you will be happy in year two.

• Who owns the domain and the site if I leave, and how do I take it?
• What does a change cost, and how long does it take?
• Is there a page for each service in each city I serve, or one services page?
• Who is responsible when the contact form stops delivering, and how will anyone know?
• What is the total cost over three years, build plus changes plus hosting?

Frequently asked questions

What is the best website builder for a contractor?

It depends on which cost you would rather pay. DIY builders are cheapest in dollars and most expensive in your time. A freelancer gives you a real custom site and no ongoing support. An agency gives you both and bills hourly for changes. A managed platform like Oxsome covers the build, the hosting, the changes and the SEO work in one monthly fee, which suits an owner who does not want to become the webmaster.

How much should a contractor website cost?

A freelance custom build is typically $2,000 to $6,000, an agency build $5,000 to $20,000, and DIY builders $16 to $50 a month plus your own labor. Oxsome is $99 a month with the build, hosting, unlimited changes and the SEO agents included, and no separate build fee.

Can I move my existing website to Oxsome?

Usually, yes, and you keep your domain. The common case is a WordPress site that has become a maintenance problem, and moving it is a normal part of onboarding rather than a project you have to manage.

Do I own my website?

You own your domain and your content, always, and you can take them with you. Ask every vendor on your shortlist this question and be wary of any hesitation.