Cost calculator
How much does Website Killer save you per year?
Adjust the inputs to match your situation. Override the defaults if your rates are different.
Compared to
Mid-tier freelancer building a marketing site to spec — discovery, design, build, light copy, hand-off.
Website Killer Pro
$168/ year
$14 / month × 12. Includes 5 projects, 5 custom-domain slots with SSL, 25,000 AI tokens / month.
Freelance designer + developer
$22,000/ year
4 × $2,500 per site + 120 hrs of your time.
Methodology
How we calculate
We pick mid-range conservative benchmarks for each path. The "Edit benchmarks" panel inside the calculator lets you override every number with your real quotes and your real hourly rate. The math is transparent — no black-box ROI claim.
Freelance designer + developer
$2,500 per site. Mid-range North American rate for a freelancer who handles design + build of a small marketing site to spec. Some freelancers charge $800–1,500; top freelancers charge $5,000–10,000+. We picked the middle. 30 hours of your time per site on briefing, feedback rounds, revisions, QA, and hand-off — assuming you stay meaningfully involved (which you usually do).
Boutique marketing agency
$12,000 per site. Boutique agency packaging a discovery workshop, design system, build, QA, and project management. Standard range is $8,000–25,000; top brand agencies charge $50,000–200,000+, but at that point you're buying brand strategy, not just a site. 15 hours of your time per site — less than the freelance route because the agency runs project management for you, but more than zero.
DIY on Webflow / Wix / Squarespace
$600 / year for the tool subscription (Webflow CMS, Wix Studio, Squarespace Commerce all sit in the $30–60/month range). Plus 40 hours of your time per site doing design, copy, setup, and integration yourself.
Website Killer Pro
$168 / year ($14 / month × 12 on monthly billing; the annual plan is cheaper still). Includes 5 projects, 5 custom-domain slots with SSL, full AI generation, chat editing, 25,000 AI tokens per month, and source-code export.
What's NOT counted on any side: domain registration ($10–50 / year, identical everywhere), email hosting, ongoing maintenance retainers. Add those separately if your situation needs them.
Honest caveats
When the calculator favors the other option
- You need a one-of-a-kind brand identity. A great agency builds a logo system, type system, visual language, and tone of voice you reuse for years. AI builders ship the marketing site; they don't replace brand work. If you're at the brand-build stage, hire the agency.
- Your business is on the agency's specific niche. A B2B SaaS agency who builds for your exact category every day will out-perform a generalist AI on conversion architecture, especially for your second site iteration after launch. Pay for the specialization.
- You want a 6-week strategy engagement, not a site. Agencies sell strategy; AI builders sell production. Different jobs. The calculator only models the production cost.
- You're an agency. Use Website Killer to drop YOUR per-site production cost. Keep your billed rate, multiply margin.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
How do you arrive at $2,500 for a freelance designer?
That's a mid-range North American rate for a freelance designer plus developer to build a small marketing site to spec — discovery call, design, build, light copy support, and hand-off. Top freelancers charge $5K–10K+. Below-market freelancers charge $800–1,500. The calculator lets you override the number with your actual quote.
Isn't $12,000 high for an agency?
For a boutique agency packaging a small marketing site — discovery workshop, design system, build, QA, project management — $8K–25K is the standard range. We picked $12K as the conservative middle. Top brand agencies charge $50K–200K+ for the same scope; their differentiator is brand strategy, not site engineering. Adjust the benchmark to whatever quote you've actually received.
Why do DIY tools cost 'just' $600 a year if the real cost is your time?
$600 is the tool subscription only (Webflow CMS, Wix Studio, Squarespace Commerce, etc. — all in the $30–60/month range, $360–720 per year). The other line item, 'your time per site,' captures the 40 hours of design + copy + setup the calculator assumes you spend per site. Together they're the honest total cost.
Does Website Killer really cost $168 / year, no surprises?
$14 / month × 12 = $168 per year is the Pro plan billed monthly. The annual plan is even cheaper. Pro includes 5 projects, 5 custom-domain slots with SSL, full AI generation, chat editing, and 25,000 AI tokens per month. Past 5 projects you'd upgrade to Premium ($39 / month). Past Premium limits or with team-seat needs, Enterprise pricing is custom.
What's NOT in this calculator?
Three things: (1) domain registration (typically $10–50 / year, same on every option). (2) Email hosting (same on every option). (3) Long-term maintenance time once a site is live — we treat all four options as equivalent here. If your freelancer or agency charges a monthly retainer for ongoing changes, add that separately.
I'm an agency or freelancer. Won't I always lose this calc?
If you charge clients per site, yes — for the client, the AI builder is cheaper. But agencies and freelancers use Website Killer to drop their per-site cost themselves and increase margin: build the site in two hours instead of two weeks, charge the client your normal rate, keep the difference. See the agency program page.
What does my hourly rate actually represent?
It represents what your time is worth in the opportunity-cost sense — the work you're NOT doing while you're managing a freelancer's revisions, sitting in agency check-ins, or pushing pixels in Wix. Founders often set this between $100–300 / hour; consultants set it to their billable rate; employees can set it to their fully-loaded salary cost.
Keep exploring
Related tools and pages
- → See Website Killer pricing in full (Free, Pro, Premium, Enterprise plans + token allowances)
- → Free AI website builder — what the $0 tier includes
- → All comparisons — Website Killer vs Lovable, v0, Bolt, Webflow, Wix, and others
- → Enterprise plan — SSO, audit logs, custom MSA, seat-based pricing
- → All free tools
Stop quoting projects in weeks. Ship them in minutes.
Free forever for one project. $14/month when you want a custom domain.