Answers

What a website costs

Each of these covers the full cost, not just the headline price, and clearly tells you if the answer is not to buy anything.

• What a Small Business Website Actually Costs in 2026

  Most small businesses pay between $500 and $5,000 to launch a website, then spend $30 to $150 each month to keep it running.

• What It Costs to Leave Squarespace in 2026, and What You Get Back

  Converting a Squarespace site to a static site you own costs $1,500 to $2,500, once.

  When not to buy: At those numbers a conversion pays for itself in about two to three years. On a bare brochure site it does not, and you should stay.

• What It Costs to Leave WordPress in 2026

  WordPress is free, but running it is not, and the maintenance plan most business sites carry is the clearest sign of what the platform actually costs.

  When not to buy: If your WordPress site handles a store, memberships, or logins, switching means a full rebuild, not just a conversion. In that case, it's better to stay with WordPress.

• Squarespace, WordPress, or a Static Site: the Five-Year Cost

  Cost turns out to be the easy part of this decision, and usually not the deciding one.

  When not to buy: Static sites are the cheapest, but they cannot handle logins, shopping carts, or any features where visitors change data.

Working out what is wrong

• Your Website Is Slow. Here Is What That Is Costing You

  Most of the speed statistics you see are based on big e-commerce sites, and they do not apply to small brochure websites.

• Is Your Legacy System Costing More to Keep Than to Replace?

  There isn't a published crossover point.

  When not to buy: There are three good reasons to keep your system, starting with one people rarely mention: age alone isn't a problem.

• What It Costs to Untangle Systems That Do Not Talk to Each Other

  There is also a hidden cost: integrating means relying on someone else's software, and they can change it without warning.

  When not to buy: There are four situations where integration is not recommended, starting with cases where the volume does not justify the effort.

Hiring someone, and judging what they quote

• What a Technical Assessment Costs, and What You Should Get for It

  Most well-known firms do not list their prices.

  When not to buy: There are three situations where you should not buy an assessment, starting with when you already know what the problem is.

• How to Tell Whether an Agency Quote Is Real

  Ask for a written list of what the quote does not include. A real quote will have an exclusions list, showing someone has decided where the work ends. If there isn't one, it's just a guess.

• What to Ask a Technical Consultant Before You Hire One

  Start with the money questions: cost, what is excluded, who covers a wrong estimate, and the cost of changes.

  When not to buy: There are three situations where you should not hire anyone: you already have someone in charge of technical decisions, the work is ongoing and needs a full-time hire, or you are looking for support for a decision you have already made.

Making a product agent-ready

• What It Costs to Make a Product Agent-Ready

  Public estimates range from $3,000 to over $1,000,000 for what is supposed to be the same thing, so none of these numbers reflect a true market rate.

  When not to buy: There are three cheaper options to try first, and two of them do not need any custom code: fix your discovery process, or enable it through a cloud gateway you already use.

• Does My Product Need an MCP Server?

  The key question is whether an agent needs to take action in your product or just read information from it.

  When not to buy: Here are six situations where you do not need an MCP server, starting with the most common: you do not have a good API yet.

Free tools

• Try the Website Grader. Just enter any site you own, and you'll get a report in about a minute using Google's PageSpeed data. No email needed.