A builder quotes from plans, in writing, with what is in and what is out. A website quote should be no different. Here are ours, and what the alternatives really cost.

Key facts

A Durazno website for a builder costs $1,490, $2,590 or $3,590 AUD, fixed before work starts, with no GST charged.
For a building business the Standard package ($2,590) covers a home page, a page per type of work, a licence-and-insurance page and four suburb pages; Complete ($3,590) adds ten suburb pages and a job-request flow.
Builders are chosen slowly: a customer compares several sites over weeks, so the gallery of finished work and the licence number do most of the persuading.
Durazno guarantees a live site within 21 days of an agreed start date, a Google Lighthouse score of 95 or better on handover, and handover of everything within five business days if the client leaves.
Lead platforms and marketplaces charge per enquiry or per job won and keep the customer relationship; a website is bought once and belongs to the builder.
The care plan is $99 a month, month to month; nothing already paid for switches off if it stops.

Ways an Australian builder can pay for a web presence, compared
Option	Upfront cost	Who owns it	Lock-in	Time to live
Durazno (fixed-price studio)	Fixed: $1,490 / $2,590 / $3,590 AUD, no GST	You, from day one	None	21 days, or you pay half
DIY builder (Wix, Squarespace)	Monthly fee plus your hours	The platform	Rebuild if you leave	Your evenings
Lead platform (hipages)	Per enquiry	The platform	Stops with the payments	Same day
Marketplace (Airtasker)	Fee per job won	The platform	History stays there	Same day
Template shop	One-off, stock layout	Ask who holds the domain	Depends on the domain	Days to weeks

Five ways to get a building business online, compared on upfront cost, ownership, lock-in and time to live. Durazno prices are the published catalogue; other options are described by their pricing model, not by figures.

A builder is chosen slowly. Nobody picks the person who will knock out the back of their house from a map box at 9pm. They look at four or five sites over a fortnight, they ring two, and the one they ring first is the one whose site answered the questions the other four made them ask. That changes what the website has to do, and it changes what is worth paying for.

The short answer

The prices are published and they are the same for a builder as for anyone else, because the work is the same amount of work. Starter, at $1,490, is one strong page. Standard, at $2,590, is five to seven pages with four suburb pages. Complete, at $3,590, is ten-plus pages, ten suburb pages and the job-request flow. None of them carries GST. The care plan afterwards is $99 a month, month to month.

What moves a builder between the three is how many kinds of work you want to be found for, how many suburbs you want enquiries from, and whether you want a job-request form that asks the right questions before the first site visit. Count those and you have your package.

What a building business needs from a site

The customer is not in an emergency. They are deciding whether to trust you with the biggest cheque they will write this year, and they are doing it from your website before they have met you. Four things decide it.

The registration and the insurance, visible. Registered builder number, the licence class, the insurance in place. In every state this is the first thing the careful customer checks and the first thing a bank asks about. It goes on a page of its own and in the footer of every page.
Finished work they can look at. Real photos of real jobs, before and after where the difference is obvious, with a line about what the job was. A builder site without a gallery is a builder without references. This is the part most builders already have on their phone and never publish.
A page for each kind of work. Extensions, renovations, new builds, decks and pergolas, commercial fit-outs, whatever you actually want more of. A customer searching "second storey extension" does not click a page called "Services".
A job-request form that asks the right questions. What, where, roughly when, and whether there are plans yet. Five fields, so the first phone call starts at the second question instead of the first. That form is included from the Standard package up; the Complete package turns it into a proper job-request flow.

Which package fits which builder

Starter, $1,490. A sole trader or a two-person outfit that does one kind of work well: decks, renovations, small extensions. One strong page with the registration number, a dozen photos, a tap-to-call button and the job-request form. If your work comes through architects and repeat customers and the site is there to confirm you are real, this is enough.

Standard, $2,590. A building business that wants enquiries from outside the suburbs it already works in. A home page, a page for each of three or four kinds of work, a licence-and-insurance page, the gallery, and four suburb pages written for those suburbs: the housing stock, the kind of jobs that come from it, the council you deal with. This is where most builders with a couple of crews sit.

Complete, $3,590. A builder running several projects at once, with subcontractors and a service area worth defending. Ten-plus pages, ten suburb pages, and the full job-request flow so an enquiry arrives with the answers to the first ten minutes of the site visit already in it. When your problem is sorting enquiries rather than finding them, this is the package that saves you the hours.

What each one includes for a building business specifically is on the builders page. The numbers there are the numbers here.

The other ways of paying for it

Every option in the table below works for somebody. The question is who owns what when the money has moved, and for a builder, who owns the customer relationship matters more than for any other trade, because the jobs are big and the referrals are bigger.

Lead platforms are a poor fit for most builders and a reasonable one for a few. A shared enquiry for a bathroom renovation, quoted against three other builders before the customer has met any of you, is a race to the lowest number on a job where the lowest number is usually the wrong builder. If you are new and the diary is empty, take the enquiries and treat them as practice. The sum is in hipages versus your own website.

The marketplace model has the same shape: a fee on each job you win, and a profile with your reviews on it that belongs to the platform. It is honest work for small jobs. It is not a way to be found for a second-storey extension.

What is in the price, and what is not

In every package: the words written for your kind of building, the registration and insurance where a customer looks for them, the gallery built from your photos, the domain registered in your name, and every login handed over on day one. Two rounds of changes are included; anything beyond that is quoted in writing before we start, which is how you quote too.

Three promises come with the number. Live in 21 days from a start date agreed in writing, or you pay half. A Google Lighthouse score of 95 or better on handover, or we keep working on it free. And if you ever want to leave, the domain, the files and every login are handed over within five business days. The start date is agreed after we have your photos and your registration details, so neither of us is guessing.

Not in the price: the yearly domain renewal, in your name, and the care plan, which is $99 a month for hosting, daily backups, updates, uptime monitoring and up to 30 minutes of changes a month. If you stop it, nothing you already paid for switches off.

How to check any quote you are holding

Is the price fixed, or "from"? You know what a "from" price becomes by the final invoice. Fixed price versus "from".
Whose name goes on the domain? Yours, from day one, or it is somebody else's website with your name on it.
Who writes the words? If it is you, the quote is for a layout.
How many days, from what date? A date in writing and a consequence.
Can I see one that is live, with a real business behind it? Ours is a Melbourne locksmith on the work page, and you can ring it.

When you should not buy a website yet

If the work comes through two architects and a developer and you cannot take on more, the site is a business card and the Starter page is plenty. If your Google Business Profile has the wrong category or no photos, fix that first, for free: the five-minute guide. And if you are going to retire in two years, do not let anyone sell you a site built for growth.

If none of that is you, the three prices are on the pricing page and a fixed quote comes back within one business day.

A builder does not quote "from". Neither should the person building the builder a website.

What a website costs for a builder in Australia