TL;DR: A typical Webdimonia-class site costs $20–$120/month to run after launch. Hosting on Vercel Hobby or Cloudflare Pages is usually $0 (Pro is $20/mo if you need it). Domain $9–25/yr at Cloudflare or Porkbun. Email forwarding $0–6/mo. Headless CMS like Sanity or Payload $0–99/mo depending on tier. Analytics $0–20/mo. Monitoring $0–10/mo. Transactional email (Resend, Postmark) $0–20/mo at low volume. Total recurring: $250–$1,500/year for a $1–10k site. The bills founders forget: domain renewal, premium TLDs (.io, .ai at $30–120/yr), and the moment you cross a free-tier limit.
The build cost is the loud number. The recurring cost is the quiet one. Most founders budget for the site itself and discover the running cost in month two, in the form of a Vercel bill, a Sanity bill, an email forwarding bill, and a domain renewal that lapsed before they noticed.
This is what a typical small-business website actually costs to run after launch, broken down by line item with real 2026 prices.
The full stack, by category
A typical Webdimonia site uses some subset of this stack. Most sites don't need every line.
Hosting
| Tool | Free tier | Paid |
|---|---|---|
| Vercel Hobby | $0 (most sites fit) | — |
| Vercel Pro | — | $20/mo per member |
| Cloudflare Pages | $0 (generous limits) | — |
| Netlify Free | $0 | — |
| Netlify Pro | — | $19/mo per member |
Most $1–10k sites fit Vercel Hobby or Cloudflare Pages free tier. The Pro upgrade earns its weight when you cross 100GB bandwidth/mo or need analytics features beyond Hobby.
Domain
| Registrar | Typical price |
|---|---|
| Cloudflare | $9–$12/yr (.com) |
| Porkbun | $8–$12/yr |
| Namecheap | $12–$20/yr |
| Vercel domains | $15–$25/yr |
| Premium TLDs (.io, .co, .ai) | $30–$120/yr |
Cloudflare wins on price and DNS quality. Avoid GoDaddy. Don't pay $50+/yr for a .com you can get for $10.
Email and forwarding
| Tool | Cost | When |
|---|---|---|
| Cloudflare Email Routing | $0 | Forwarding hello@yourdomain to a Gmail. Most small sites |
| Google Workspace Starter | $7.20/mo per user | A real inbox at hello@yourdomain |
| Fastmail Standard | $5/mo per user | Privacy-conscious alternative |
| Microsoft 365 | $6/mo per user | If you're already in MS world |
If you're a solo founder and just want to receive contact form submissions, Cloudflare Email Routing is free and works. The moment you want to send from your domain, you need a real inbox.
CMS
| Tool | Free tier | Paid |
|---|---|---|
| Sanity | Generous free | $99/mo (Growth) |
| Contentful | 25 content types | $300/mo (Lite) |
| Payload (self-host) | Free | $35/mo (Cloud Hobby) |
| WordPress (self-host) | Free | $35/mo (Kinsta starter) |
Most sites we ship with a CMS land on Sanity free. Contentful is rare unless the client requested it.
Form backend
| Tool | Cost |
|---|---|
| Resend (free tier) | $0 (3,000 emails/mo) |
| Resend Pro | $20/mo (50,000 emails/mo) |
| FormSubmit | $0 (free, basic features) |
| Basin | $12/mo |
| Formspark | $9/mo |
If you have a Next.js site and Resend, you don't need a third-party form backend. The contact form posts to your own API route and emails out via Resend. Free for most sites under 3,000 submissions/mo.
Analytics
| Tool | Cost | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Vercel Analytics (Hobby) | $0 (limited) | Basic page views, referrers |
| Vercel Analytics (Pro) | Included with Pro | Custom events, more depth |
| Plausible | $9/mo | Privacy-first, cookieless |
| Fathom | $15/mo | Privacy-first, cookieless |
| Google Analytics 4 | $0 | If you can stand it |
| PostHog | $0 (free tier) | Product analytics with replay |
Vercel Analytics free is enough for most marketing sites in year one. Move to Plausible or paid tier when you want event tracking depth.
Error and uptime monitoring
| Tool | Cost |
|---|---|
| Sentry (free tier) | $0 |
| Sentry Team | $26/mo |
| Better Uptime | $0 (free) or $24/mo |
| Cronitor | $0 (free) or $19/mo |
Free tiers cover most $1–10k sites for the first year. Add paid monitoring once you have real traffic and can't tolerate a silent outage.
What a typical small site actually costs per year
A small-business site at the $2–5k build tier usually runs:
| Line item | Year-one cost |
|---|---|
| Domain | $10–$15 |
| Vercel Hobby | $0 |
| Cloudflare Email Routing | $0 |
| Resend free tier | $0 |
| Vercel Analytics free | $0 |
| Total | $10–$15 |
That's the floor. Most founders pay roughly this if they're disciplined about what they add.
What a typical mid-size site costs per year
A site at the $5–10k build tier with a CMS, a real inbox, and proper analytics:
| Line item | Year-one cost |
|---|---|
| Domain | $12 |
| Vercel Pro | $240 |
| Google Workspace Starter (1 mailbox) | $86 |
| Sanity Growth | $1,188 (only if you outgrow free) |
| Plausible | $108 |
| Sentry Team | $312 |
| Total | $650–$2,000 |
The big variable is whether you're on the Sanity paid tier yet. Most sites we ship stay on free for year one.
The line items that actually surprise founders
Three things go wrong in month two.
1. Domain expiration. Set auto-renew on every domain. We've seen sites go dark because someone moved jobs and the credit card on file expired. Cost of a lapsed domain: a panic email and sometimes a $60 redemption fee.
2. Vercel Pro upgrade triggered by traffic. Hobby tier is free but has limits. Hit them on a viral moment and you'll get a notice to upgrade. Budget for it if your traffic is unpredictable.
3. Email deliverability if you DIY. Sending from yourdomain.com without configuring SPF, DKIM, and DMARC means your contact-form receipts land in spam. Resend handles this if you use them. Skipping setup costs you replies you'll never know about.
How to keep ongoing costs low
Three rules.
Use free tiers until they hurt. Vercel Hobby, Sanity free, Resend free, Plausible's $9 plan. You won't outgrow these in year one for a typical small business.
Don't add tools you can't justify in one sentence. Every line item should answer "what does this prevent or enable that's worth $X/mo." If you can't, cut it.
Audit annually. Once a year, list everything you're paying for, why, and whether it earned its keep. Drop the ones that didn't.
Three questions to decide what to cut
- Is this tool replacing manual work or generating revenue? If neither, cut it.
- Could a free tier handle our actual usage? If yes, downgrade.
- Has this tool been used in the last 90 days? If no, cut it.
If you're inheriting a site with a tangled stack and want a 15-minute audit of what to cut, send us your monthly tooling spend. We'll tell you within a day what's load-bearing and what's not.