Small Business Website Checklist (2026): Every Box, What It Costs, Which Plan Ticks It

A small business website must include five things before anything else: a domain you own, email on that domain, five working pages (home, services, about with reviews, contact, location), one tested way for a customer to reach you, and a Google Business Profile pointing at the site. Everything on this checklist either supports those five or protects them. What the usual lists leave out is the price of each box, and the plan tier a builder makes you buy before the box can be ticked, so this version prints both, with vendor prices read on 9 October 2026.

It is written as a claim form you work down from the top. If you are still picking a platform, the ranked shortlist in our best website builder for small business guide comes first; if you are starting from an empty page, the build a website in a weekend plan is the construction side of the same job.

What a small business website must include (the short answer)

Most of the boxes below are free or bundled. The ones that cost money are the domain after year one, mailboxes after year one, and anything that moves money or books time: online payments, appointment booking and, on one platform, a separate scheduling subscription. The table is the whole checklist in one view; the sections after it explain each line.

The basics: domain and email

1. Domain registered in your name. Look up the registrant on a WHOIS service: it should be you or your business, not the builder and not the person who set the site up.
2. The renewal price read before checkout, not only the first-year price. Wix's own domain price list puts a .com at $7.90 for year one and $21.35 at renewal, and its free-domain voucher covers the first year only, on annual plans, for new registrations.
3. Auto-renew switched on, with a calendar reminder for month eleven. An expired domain takes the website and the email down together.
4. Email on your domain: [email protected], not a free webmail address. Google Workspace Business Starter lists at $7 per user a month on an annual commitment; on 13 October 2026 Google was showing a $5.60 introductory price for the first 12 months, for up to 20 users. On Hostinger's Premium builder plan, two mailboxes per site come free for year one, then bill at a rate the plan page does not print.
5. HTTPS on the live domain. Check for the padlock on your own address after you connect it, not on the builder's preview link.
6. A plan that matches the job. If the site must take payments or bookings, confirm the tier includes them now; the lead section below lists which tiers do.

The pages: five that matter

1. Home: what you do, where you do it, and two ways to act (call and form) visible without scrolling.
2. Services: one named section or page per service, written in the words a customer would type.
3. About, with reviews: a real name, a real photo, years in business, and a few customer quotes used with permission.
4. Contact: phone, form, hours, and either an address with a map or the area you cover.
5. Location or service area: the towns you serve, stated plainly, so out-of-area inquiries stop before they reach your phone.

Anything past five, such as a blog, a gallery or a long FAQ, is a second-month job. A five-page site is the smallest thing that answers every question a first-time customer has; adding pages before those five are right only adds places for out-of-date information to hide.

Trust: proof you're the real thing

1. License and insurance numbers wherever your trade requires them, plus in the footer.
2. Your own photos of your premises, your team and finished work. Stock images signal that there was nothing real to show.
3. Reviews that are real and dated. Never write testimonials yourself; besides the legal exposure, readers can tell.
4. Prices or from-prices where you can commit to one. A number filters out the wrong inquiries before they cost you a call.
5. A face near the contact form. People hire people, and the contact page is where they decide.

Leads: every way in, working

This is the section where plan tiers decide what is possible, and where most first builds come up short. The scorecard shows which entry plans tick the three lead boxes on their own.

1. A short form on the home and contact pages: name, phone, what needs doing. Three fields get more replies than eight.
2. The form's notification tested. Submit it yourself and watch the message arrive before launch day.
3. A tappable phone number in the header and footer, tried with your own thumb on a phone.
4. Online payments only on a tier that takes them. Wix's Light plan lists no payment acceptance; Core at $29 a month is its cheapest plan that does. If a deposit or a product sale is part of the plan, start on Wix Core rather than upgrading after the first customer tries to pay.
5. Booking on a tier that includes it. Hostinger puts booking and ecommerce on Unlimited ($3.99 a month, prepaid for 48 months, renewing at $16.99), not on Premium; Hostinger Unlimited is the cheapest bookable ticket here if you can live with the term. Durable's free tier has no booking at all, while its Launch plan at $22 a month on annual billing includes it, so Durable Launch is the least-setup route for a solo operator. On Squarespace, scheduling is Acuity, a separate subscription that started at $16 a month for Starter on Acuity's August 2026 price list (its pricing page would not display prices to our US check in October, so confirm it), which our booking builder comparison prices in full.
6. Chat only if someone will answer it. An unanswered chat box costs more trust than no chat box.
7. A response rule decided in advance: who replies to form leads, and how fast. Same day is the minimum worth promising.

Findability: the local minimum

1. Google Business Profile claimed, verified and linked to the site. Creating one at business.google.com costs nothing. Whether you need both a profile and a website is its own question, which we answer in website or Google Business Profile; for most businesses the answer is both.
2. Name, address, phone and hours identical on the site and the profile.
3. Page titles that say service plus town: "Roof Repair in Tucson", not "Home".
4. One page or clearly headed section per main service.
5. Image file names and alt text that describe the picture, such as "deck-rebuild-oak.jpg" with a matching description.
6. A meta description on each page that says what you do, where, and one reason to choose you.

Legal: the boring shields

1. A privacy policy page. Your contact form collects names and phone numbers, so you need one; write it in plain language and make sure it matches what the site actually collects.
2. A cookie and analytics notice if you run any tracking.
3. Accessibility basics: alt text, labeled form fields, readable contrast, headings in order. Try one page with your phone's screen reader before launch.
4. The legal business name in the footer, plus any license wording your trade or state requires.
5. Terms covering cancellations and refunds if you take payments or bookings through the site.

The final hour

1. Open every page on a real phone, not the editor's preview.
2. Click every link and button once, footer included.
3. Submit every form once and confirm the notification arrived.
4. Check the three things customers punish you for: prices, hours and phone number.
5. Read each page aloud once. Typos you skim past on screen are obvious when spoken.

After launch: the yearly boxes

Launch is one date; the boxes below come back every year, and the ones that cost money all arrive at month thirteen or later. That is when year-one freebies end: the voucher domain starts renewing at the registrar's normal price, bundled mailboxes start billing, and introductory email pricing reverts to list. Hostinger's builder prices hold for the whole 48-month prepay, then renew at $10.99 a month for Premium and $16.99 for Unlimited.

1. A monthly fifteen minutes: prices, hours and phone still right, one test form, one new photo or review.
2. A yearly list of renewal dates for the plan, the domain and the email, kept somewhere you will look.
3. Renewal prices re-read on the vendor's page in month eleven, before anything auto-renews.
4. The domain's registrant re-checked once a year, and after any change of web person.

What the whole operation adds up to per year, plan and renewals included, is worked through in our small business website cost guide. If you are about to buy, the cheapest way to tick every box above in one subscription is usually the tier just above entry: Wix Core at $29, or Squarespace Basic at $19 plus Acuity if bookings matter and design matters more.