I think what your average web designer charges for a small business website is within reason. They are designing web sites from scratch and trying to build a business that is based around a serial linear billing model. They have to maintain a steady stream of customers and they typically have to be ready to design for anything and everything that comes their way. All of that takes time and creativity and that means that the expense of the business website design goes up.

That also means that a lot of small businesses get left out of the loop. It is hard for a micro business (sole proprietor) to spend $2- 5k for a static business website. We fully support the typical model for independent web designers. We just wanted to try something different that we were in a unique position to try (being retired building trade professionals) and create a business website design service for building trade pros that offers affordable high quality business websites and fast.

Making a small business website is specialized work.