🌐 What you actually need to make a website
You know you need a website. Either you don’t have one yet or the one you have is essentially collecting dust. Unless you’re a web designer, odds are your eyes start glazing over when you hear “enterprise SSL” or “optimize SEO.”
DON’T LEAVE.
Let me save you the spiral: most people are either overpaying for tools they don't need, or cobbling together free options that break or make your customers confused af.
So I’m going to walk you through what you actually need, what can wait, and some considerations that might be important for you.
Everyone's selling you the premium package
The website industry thrives on confusion, add-ons, and upgrades. Every platform wants you on their highest tier with the promise of driving more money into your wallet. Every developer wants to build you something custom. Every plugin promises to be "essential."
But here's the thing: unless you're running a full online store or complex booking system right out of the gate, you probably need about four things total. And three of them are shockingly cheap.
Don’t end up paying $50/month for features you'll never touch, or piecing together a Frankenstein site that you're terrified to update.
What You Actually Need (And What It Costs)
Let's break this down into the four core pieces every legitimate website needs:
1. A Domain Name ($10–15/year)
This is your yourname.com address. You buy it for an annual fee from a domain registrar.
I recommend: Namecheap or Porkbun. They're straightforward, cheap, and don't try to upsell you on 47 add-ons at checkout. Standard .com domains run around $11-14/year at Namecheap (with occasional first-year discounts bringing it lower).
Do NOT buy your domain through your website builder if you can avoid it. If you ever want to switch platforms, you want to own your domain separately. It makes moving way less painful.
2. A Website Platform ($19/year–$35/month depending on your needs)
This is where you actually build and host your site. Here are your real options:
For most small businesses/creatives without e-commerce or booking:
Carrd ($19/year for a custom domain) – Perfect for simple one-page sites. Portfolio, contact info, links to your work. Clean, fast, stupidly easy.
Squarespace ($16/month for Basic plan, $23/month for Core plan, billed annually) – Great for multi-page sites that need to look polished without you thinking about it. Good templates, built-in everything. The Basic plan changed recently from what was called "Personal," but it's solid for most small sites.
Webflow ($18/month for Basic, $29/month for CMS, billed annually) – More design control than Squarespace, slightly steeper learning curve. Worth it if you care about custom layouts.
If you need a blog or more flexibility:
WordPress.com (Premium plan: $8/month, Business plan: $25/month, billed annually) – Managed WordPress without the headache of hosting. Good middle ground. The Premium plan gives you decent features for bloggers and simple sites. Business unlocks plugins and more serious functionality.
Ghost ($15/month for Starter, $29/month for Publisher, billed annually; $18 and $35 monthly respectively if you pay month-to-month) – Clean, focused on writing and newsletters. Great if your site is content-first or you want to be able to offer paid subscriptions to your content.
If you eventually need e-commerce or appointment booking: Squarespace and Webflow both have e-commerce add-ons. Carrd does not. WordPress can handle ecommerce with plugins but I’m not a fan. Don't pay for these features now if you don't need them yet, but know what your upgrade path looks like.
3. Email That Matches Your Domain ($7–12/month, optional but recommended)
You want [email protected], not [email protected].
Options:
Google Workspace ($7/month per user for Business Starter, billed annually; note that prices increased in early 2025 with bundled AI features) – Gmail interface, professional addresses, includes Google Drive/Docs.
Zoho Mail (Mail Lite at $1/month, Mail Premium at $4/month, billed annually) – Cheaper, solid, just email. They also have a free plan for up to 5 users if you're really bootstrapping it.
Built into some platforms – Squarespace and others offer this as an add-on.
This isn't technically required for your website to function, but it's the difference between looking like an actual business and looking like you're winging it.
4. SSL Certificate (Free, but make sure it's included)
This is what makes your site https:// instead of http://. It keeps your site secure and makes Google not throw up a "dangerous site" warning.
Every modern website platform includes this for free. If someone tries to charge you for it separately, they're living in 2010 or scamming you.
What this looks like in practice
The "I just need a simple site with basic info" setup:
Domain: $12/year (Namecheap)
Platform: $19/year (Carrd) or $192/year (Squarespace Basic at $16/month)
Email: $84/year (Google Workspace at $7/month)
Total: $115–$288/year
That's it. That's a professional web presence.
The "I need a real business site with multiple pages" setup:
Domain: $12/year
Platform: $192–276/year (Squarespace $16-23/month or Webflow $18-29/month)
Email: $84/year
Total: $288–372/year
Even at the high end, you're talking about $31/month. Less than one client lunch.
What You Don't Need (Yet)
Custom development – Unless you have truly specific functionality requirements, paying someone $5K to build you a site you can't update yourself is usually overkill. If you want design help, make sure you can edit the content on your own or with your existing team once they’re done.
Premium plugins or apps – Start with the basics. Add tools only when you hit a specific limitation.
SEO optimization services – Before you pay someone to "optimize your SEO," just make sure your site has clear page titles, actual content, and loads quickly. That's 80% of it.
Analytics beyond the basics – Most platforms have built-in stats. You don't need Google Analytics until you're actually looking at the data regularly and can properly use UTMs (a whole other conversation).
A Note on E-Commerce and Booking Systems
If you're selling products or taking appointments, your platform choice matters more:
For e-commerce: Squarespace and Webflow also have decent e-commerce plans built in, but if you’re doing complex shipping you’ll likely need another platform like Shopify. The extra cost gets you inventory management, checkout, payment processing. Worth noting that Shopify recently renamed their middle tier from "Shopify" to "Grow" but the functionality is solid.
For appointment booking: Squarespace has Acuity appointment scheduling built in. Otherwise you're looking at separate tools like Calendly ($10–15/month) or Square Appointments (free–$50/month depending on features). Personally, I don’t think linking to those appointment tools is a big deal, so use whichever is the easiest for you and the least confusing for your customers. What creates the least friction? Use that one.
How To Get Started This Week
Go buy your domain. Seriously. It's $12 and takes five minutes. Even if you don't build the site yet, you own your name and nobody else can take it.
Then pick one platform and set up the free trial. Give yourself two hours to poke around. You'll know pretty quickly if it's going to work for you or if you need to try a different one.
Simple portfolio/landing page? → Carrd
Multi-page business site with polish? → Squarespace
Content/blog heavy? → Ghost or WordPress.com
Set up the free trial or starter plan and build your first version. Don't overthink the template. Pick one that's close and customize it.
The goal isn't perfection. The goal is having a professional web presence that you control and can update without calling your cousin.
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