What's an hour of your time worth? Type it, and the whole market reprices.
cash + your hours × your rate = true costCash they invoiceYour weekends & evenings, priced
Priced from what the market actually charges. AI builders and weekend DIY count too.
Tap to add or remove. Each feature adds real production hours, not a flat fee.
Adapting a proven structure costs less than original art direction built around one business. Neither is wrong; they're different amounts of work.
The biggest hidden driver. Waiting on words and photos delays more launches than any technical problem. Watch the launch estimate move when you change this.
Every bar adds the invoice to your own hours, priced at your rate. Raise your number up top and watch the cheap routes grow.
Bars plot the midpoint of each route's range; the printed figures show the full range. Hover any segment for the exact numbers.
| Route | Cash price | Your hours | Time to launch | True cost |
|---|
Three equations, no black box. If a number surprises you, you can see exactly which input moved it.
Wage data for web developers and digital interface designers anchors the labor math.
Publicly visible freelance marketplace rates. Rates vary widely by experience and specialty.
Published agency hourly-rate bands and the scope factors that move them.
AI tools genuinely lower the cash price of getting a page online, and they're part of the market this calculator prices. What they don't remove is your side of the work: deciding what the site says, writing it, gathering photos, revising, and living with the result. The build was never the expensive part. The hours are.
No. It's a market-planning estimate showing what similar scope can cost through different provider types. Studio O'Brien recommends scope and pricing after learning what the business needs.
Every website takes real human time. “Your hours” is the slice of that work you personally carry — decisions, writing, gathering photos, revisions, and, on the DIY route, the building itself. A low cash price with 80 of your own hours attached isn't actually cheap.
Because your time isn't free. When you price your own hours honestly, the “$300 website” often costs more in evenings and weekends than hiring someone would — and takes far longer to launch.
Provider experience, creative depth, content readiness, technical requirements, geography, process, and overhead all affect cost. A single instant number would create false precision.
Copywriting, photography, content migration, accessibility, integrations, analytics, training, hosting, maintenance, and internal review time are commonly left out of early estimates.
Send your calculator scope and a short note on what the site needs to accomplish. You'll get a specific recommendation back, not a sales pitch.
Get a project recommendation