If you've gotten a quote for a new website and the first line was a four-figure setup fee, before the monthly bill even started, you've seen one of the more common ways agencies price small business work. That fee can run $1,500 to $5,000 or more, and it's due before a single page goes live. At Frisco Web Designs, there's no website setup fee. We fold the cost of building your site into the monthly subscription, so you can have a custom site online for as little as $49 the first month.
What is a website setup fee?
A setup fee (sometimes called an onboarding fee or a build deposit) is a one-time charge a web agency collects before they start work. It covers their design and development labor upfront, so they're not carrying that cost while you pay down a monthly retainer over time.
The problem isn't that agencies invented this out of greed. It's that the model puts all the financial risk on you. You pay before you see anything, and if the project drags on or revisions pile up, you've already spent the money with little to show for it.
How much does it typically cost to create a website for a small business?
In the Dallas-Fort Worth area, a professional service-business website from a local agency typically runs $2,000 to $5,000 in setup costs alone. That's before monthly hosting or maintenance. Add a year of ongoing fees and you're looking at $4,000 to $9,000 or more for year one.
The numbers vary widely depending on scope, but the point is that most small business owners get sticker shock before they've had a single conversation about features.
Why agencies charge setup fees
This is worth understanding so you can have a more informed conversation with any vendor. Most agencies have developers and designers on staff or retainer. When they take on a new project, those hours have to be billed somewhere. The setup fee is how they recover that labor immediately, rather than hoping you stick around long enough for the engagement to be profitable.
That's a legitimate business problem for them. But it's their cost-structure problem, not yours. When it gets passed to you as a mandatory upfront payment, it locks out a lot of businesses, particularly newer ones or owners who are watching cash flow closely.
How we handle the cost of website design for a small business differently
Frisco Web Designs runs on a subscription model. We absorb the build cost ourselves and recover it over the term of your plan. You don't write a check before we write a line of code.
Plans start at $49/month for a custom 5-page site on our Starter plan. The Closer plan is $89/month and adds up to 15 pages, lead-capture workflows, real-time SMS and email notification routing, and a reputation portal with a review QR code. The Professional plan at $175/month brings up to 50 pages, a full content management system, live chat integration, and a Managed Visibility Pack covering structural SEO, Google Business Profile management, and citation optimization for AI search engines like ChatGPT and Perplexity.
The initial term is six months, then month-to-month after that. You can see every plan detail at our pricing page.
What this means if you don't have cash to spare on day one
A $3,000 setup fee is a real barrier for a lot of owners. The electrician in Frisco who just bought a second van doesn't have three grand sitting in a discretionary account. The esthetician opening her first suite in McKinney is juggling equipment leases and product orders at the same time.
When there's no setup fee, the decision looks completely different. Your first-month cost is $49, $89, or $175. A number most owners can say yes to without a budget meeting. And because the site goes live quickly, it can start generating leads before you've paid much of anything.
You're not trying to recover a sunk cost. You're paying for a running website while it runs.
What you get from day one
Every plan includes a fully custom-designed site (not a template from a library you could have purchased yourself), domain registration, SSL, cloud hosting, and mobile optimization. There's no phase two where you pay again to unlock the features that actually matter.
The higher tiers add real capability. The Closer plan's lead-capture system notifies you by SMS and email every time someone submits a form, so you're not logging into a dashboard three days later to find out a potential customer tried to reach you. The Professional plan's SEO work is structured to help you rank in both traditional Google results and AI-generated answers, which is increasingly how customers in Frisco, Plano, and Allen find local service businesses.
The real cost to create a website for a small business: a side-by-side look
Typical agency model:
- Build/setup fee: $2,000 to $5,000 (due upfront, before work starts)
- Monthly hosting and maintenance: $100 to $300/month
- Year-one total: roughly $3,200 to $8,600
Frisco Web Designs:
- Setup fee: $0
- Monthly rate: $49 to $175/month
- Year-one total: $588 (Starter) to $2,100 (Professional)
The risk profile is different too. If you go the traditional route and the site underperforms, you're sitting on a $4,000 sunk cost with no easy exit. With a subscription model, if month seven isn't working, you cancel. You've paid a few months of a low monthly rate, not a lump-sum build fee you can't get back.
Is there a catch?
The six-month initial commitment is the main constraint. We ask for it because building a real site takes time and resources, and we need enough runway to do the work right and deliver something that actually performs. After six months, the plan is month-to-month. No rate escalation, no surprise fees, and no billing for features that are listed in your plan.
If you want to see what we'd build for your business before committing to anything, get a free website mockup. No payment required, just a real look at what your site could be.