Quick answer: A DIY website costs $0–$500 plus 40–80 hours of your time. A professional designer costs $1,800–$9,500 and costs you 0–5 hours of your time. The honest answer isn’t “DIY is cheaper” or “hiring a pro is better.” It’s: DIY makes sense for a learning project, a temporary site, or a true micro-business where every dollar matters. A professional makes sense the day your website is supposed to bring in real customers.

The cost breakdown side by side

Most comparisons quote the wrong number. The DIY price is rarely $0 and the professional price is rarely the sticker shock. Here is the real math for a Central Washington small business:

DIY sticker price: $50–$500. Pro sticker price: $1,800–$9,500. The two numbers look far apart until you price in your time.

The time math nobody wants to talk about

A realistic DIY timeline for a five-page business site breaks down like this:

• Pick a platform and template: 3–5 hours
• Write or rewrite copy for every page: 6–12 hours
• Source or shoot product photos: 4–8 hours
• Wire up the contact form, booking widget, payment: 3–6 hours
• Set up a Google Business Profile and link it: 2–4 hours
• Install an SEO plugin and write meta titles + descriptions: 3–6 hours
• Make the site mobile-friendly and test on five devices: 4–8 hours
• Add accessibility basics (alt text, contrast, headings): 3–5 hours
• Set up a basic schema markup: 4–8 hours
• Set up analytics, search console, sitemap: 2–4 hours
• Test, fix broken links, fix typos, second-guess the design: 6–12 hours

That’s 40–80 hours of an owner’s time. At $75/hour (the rough loaded cost of an owner who could otherwise be running the business or serving customers), that is $3,000–$6,000 in opportunity cost. The DIY sticker suddenly looks more like $3,000–$6,500 in total cost — and that’s if you don’t make a major mistake.

The skill list

A website today is not a single skill. It is at least seven different disciplines rolled into one deliverable:

1. Information architecture — how the menu is structured so customers find what they need in three clicks.
2. Visual design — typography, color, hierarchy, brand consistency.
3. Mobile-first layout — over 70% of local traffic is on a phone. A desktop-only site is a dead site.
4. Search engine optimization — on-page structure, internal linking, meta data, page speed.
5. Schema markup — the JSON-LD that gives Google your business hours, reviews, menu, and FAQ rich results.
6. Accessibility — alt text, contrast, keyboard navigation, screen reader compatibility. Required by ADA in many jurisdictions.
7. Conversion design — the calls to action, the form layouts, the trust signals that turn a visitor into a lead.

A good designer has done all seven hundreds of times. A DIY owner is doing them all for the first time, on a deadline, while also running the business.

The risk math: what a bad DIY site actually costs

DIY sites fail in predictable ways, and each failure has a measurable business cost:

• Google penalty from thin content or no schema: $0 upfront, but 6–12 months of lost organic traffic. For a $5,000/month SEO lead value, that is $30,000–$60,000 in lost revenue.
• Security hole from outdated plugins or weak hosting: a hack can cost $400–$1,500 to clean up, plus the brand damage from a defaced homepage.
• Slow load time from a heavy template plus stock photos: every extra second of load time drops conversions by 7%. A 5-second DIY site on a slow template can halve your lead volume.
• Broken mobile layout from a template that doesn’t scale: every mobile visitor is a lost lead.

A professional site won’t always be perfect either, but the failure rate is dramatically lower because the designer has already made (and recovered from) every rookie mistake.

When DIY actually makes sense

DIY is the right call when one of these is true:

• Temporary site. You need something live in 48 hours while a real site is being built, or for a one-event landing page.
• True micro-business. You are a sole proprietor doing under $50K/year and every dollar matters more than polish. A Squarespace site with a real domain is better than no site at all.
• Learning project. You want to learn web design, or you have a non-business passion project (a wedding site, a family newsletter) that doesn’t need to convert.
• Your time has no opportunity cost. Rare. Maybe you are retired, or you are between contracts, or you actually enjoy this.

When a professional clearly makes sense

• You need leads from the site. If your phone should be ringing because of your website, every week you delay because of a bad DIY site is a week of lost revenue.
• You’re time-poor. Most owners are running operations, sales, HR, and bookkeeping simultaneously. Adding “web designer” to that list is how projects die half-built.
• You’ve tried DIY before and it stalled. Half-finished sites are worse than no site because they signal neglect.
• You need credibility. For services over $1,000, a polished site is part of the close.

The Central Washington angle

In Moses Lake, Ephrata, Quincy, Othello, and the surrounding communities, business owners wear too many hats. The owner of a 10-person shop is also the salesperson, the HR director, the bookkeeper, and the marketing department. Asking that person to add “web designer” to the hat rack is unrealistic — which is why a lot of sites around Central Washington look like they’ve been sitting half-finished since 2021. A professional redesign is often the cheaper long-term move, even when it isn’t the cheapest sticker price.

If you’re not sure where you sit on the spectrum, the honest first step is a 30-minute conversation. We’ll tell you if a redesign project makes sense, or whether a few hours of coaching on your DIY setup is the better call.

FAQ: DIY vs. hiring a web designer

Is DIY actually cheaper?

It is cheaper in sticker price. It is usually more expensive in total cost once you price in 40–80 hours of owner time, plus the cost of mistakes from being inexperienced.

How long does it take a professional to build a site?

Most small business sites take 4–8 weeks from kickoff to launch. Owner time on the project is usually 5–10 hours total, mostly for content and feedback.

What if I already started a DIY site?

We can take it over, finish it, and harden it. Many of our redesign projects start from a half-built Wix, Squarespace, or WordPress.com site that the owner ran out of time on.

What’s the cheapest professional option?

Our five-page starter build is $1,800. That covers the design, mobile layout, on-page SEO, schema, contact form, and a launch checklist. Hosting and a maintenance plan are separate but bundled.

Do you only work in Moses Lake?

No. We work with small businesses across Central Washington including Quincy, Ephrata, Othello, Wenatchee, Ellensburg, and the Tri-Cities. Most of the work is remote with occasional on-site visits.

Gorden Web Design — 223 W 3rd Ave, Moses Lake, WA 98837 — +1-509-230-4576 — gordenwebdesign.com/contact/