The honest pricing bands
Here are realistic Australian studio rates in 2026, side by side. Anything well below this is either a template site in disguise or someone shifting work offshore.
| Price band (AUD) | What you get | Right for |
|---|---|---|
| $1,500–$3,500 Template assembly |
Pre-built theme, minor customisation, stock layouts, basic plugins. Limited SEO and speed work. | One-person service business that just needs a presence. |
| $4,000–$10,000 SME commercial |
Solid theme or light-custom build, ~8–15 properly designed pages, baseline technical SEO, speed/Core Web Vitals tuning, analytics, training. | Most Australian SMEs. The realistic commercial floor. |
| $10,000–$25,000 Custom WordPress |
Custom-designed theme, bespoke page templates, proper design system, structured content types, ACF editing, 1–2 integrations, measurable SEO work. | Growing businesses where the website is a real sales channel. |
| $25,000–$60,000+ Commercial / e-commerce |
Multi-language, multi-location, product catalogue, custom WooCommerce, API integrations, content workflow, ongoing optimisation. | National brands, multi-site operators, e-commerce, SaaS. |
Note: these are build prices. Hosting, care plans and SEO are separate ongoing costs covered further down.
Three worked examples for Australian SMEs
Brisbane trades business
~$6,500 · 10-page WordPress site, suburb landing pages, Google Business Profile setup, contact + quote forms, baseline technical SEO and local SEO foundations.
See local SEO Brisbane →Professional services firm
~$14,000 · Custom-designed 20-page WordPress site, structured service templates, team and case-study content types, HubSpot integration, technical SEO and Core Web Vitals work.
See WordPress website design →Trade supplier with catalogue
~$28,000 · Custom WooCommerce build, ~600 SKUs imported, trade-pricing logic, Xero integration, branded checkout, technical and on-page SEO across category pages.
See website redesign →What actually drives cost
- Design depth. A themed build reuses layouts. A custom WordPress website design creates them.
- Page count & content types. Ten pages is not "the same as" sixty.
- SEO foundations. Proper technical SEO takes real hours — meta, schema, sitemaps, internal linking, performance.
- Integrations. CRM, booking, ERP, API integrations each add scope.
- Speed & Core Web Vitals. Getting to mobile green is engineering, not luck — see WordPress speed optimisation.
- Copy & imagery. Someone has to write the words and light the photos.
What "cheap" actually costs you
A $1,500 WordPress site is almost always rebuilt within 18 months — we see this pattern constantly. The real cost is the traffic and leads you never had in the intervening period, plus rebuilding from scratch.
Where to focus a real budget
- A clean, fast, custom-coded WordPress foundation.
- Content structured around commercial intent, not decoration.
- Technical SEO baked in from day one.
- An asset pipeline that keeps the site fast as it grows.
For what a disciplined SEO foundation can do on a WordPress site, see the technical SEO case study.
Ongoing WordPress costs (separate from the build)
- Hosting — $20–$80/month for managed WordPress hosting on a serious provider. Cheap shared hosting will hurt Core Web Vitals.
- Care plan — $60–$300/month for plugin and core updates, daily backups, security monitoring, uptime checks and small content tweaks.
- SEO & content — optional. Local or technical SEO retainers typically run $600–$2,500/month depending on scope. See technical SEO services and local SEO Australia.
- Domain & email — usually under $200/year combined.
Refresh vs full rebuild
If your existing WordPress site is mostly working but feeling tired, a refresh can save 40–60% of a full rebuild's cost. We cover the trade-off in detail in website refresh vs rebuild and link practical scopes in website redesign.
Frequently asked questions
Sub-$1,000 sites are typically templates assembled with stock content, often offshore. They rarely meet Core Web Vitals, lack proper SEO foundations and almost always need rebuilding within 12–18 months — which is the real cost.
A solid theme, around 8–15 properly designed pages, baseline technical SEO (schema, sitemap, internal linking), speed and Core Web Vitals tuning, an analytics setup, and training so you can edit content yourself.
Integrations like CRM (HubSpot, Pipedrive), booking (SimplyBook, Calendly), email marketing (Mailchimp, Klaviyo) or accounting (Xero) typically add $800–$3,000 each depending on data flow and edge cases. Custom API integrations cost more.
No. Expect ongoing hosting ($20–$80/month), a WordPress care plan ($60–$300/month for updates, backups, security and monitoring) and optional SEO or content support. These are separate from the initial build.
A small SME site typically takes 4–8 weeks from kickoff to launch. Custom-designed builds run 8–14 weeks. Larger commercial builds with integrations or e-commerce can take 3–6 months.
Need a real number for your WordPress project?
Tell us roughly what you need. We'll give you an honest price band in a day, not a vague "starts from" number.