Key takeaways
- Price follows scope: the number of service and area pages, original copy and photos, integrations with your field software, and migration.
- Pay for pages that produce calls, such as panel upgrades, EV chargers and generators, not for design hours or a monthly post count.
- Ongoing costs are hosting, domain, updates, tracking numbers and new pages. Get them itemized.
- Before signing, confirm you own the domain, code, content, analytics and phone numbers, and that you can leave.
How much a website costs an electrical contractor depends on scope more than design. A basic template can cost a few hundred dollars, while a custom site with pages for each service and town, booking from your field software and call tracking runs into the thousands. The number that matters is cost per booked service call once the site is live, and whether you own it.
What a website costs an electrical contractor
A website costs an electrical contractor whatever its scope demands, and the useful comparison is scope against scope, not total against total. Two quotes that look far apart often describe different products. One is five pages on a builder platform with your logo dropped in. The other is twenty pages, written from interviews with your techs, connected to ServiceTitan, Housecall Pro or Jobber, with tracking on every call.
The trap many owners have already fallen into is paying for activity. A vendor bills for "design hours", "monthly updates" or "four blog posts", and none of it is tied to whether the phone rings. When you compare quotes, ask each vendor to show which pages are meant to produce which calls. A panel upgrade page, an EV charger page and a standby generator page each earn their keep in a way a refreshed homepage slider never will.
Owned site vs rented site
| Question | Owned site | Rented site |
|---|---|---|
| The domain | In your name | Often in the provider's |
| Content and photos | Yours to move | Can stay with the provider |
| If you leave | The site goes with you | You may start over |
| What you pay for | The build, then hosting and care | A fee for as long as it runs |
What changes the price
The price moves with five or six choices, and you control most of them.
| Factor | Toward the low end | Toward the high end | The electrician version |
|---|---|---|---|
| Service pages | A single services page | A page per line of work | Repairs, panel upgrades, EV chargers, lighting, generators, inspection repairs, commercial |
| Area pages | None | One per town you dispatch to, with real local detail | Older housing stock in one town, new builds with EV-ready garages in another |
| Copy | You write it, or it is generic | Written from interviews with you and your techs | How you handle permits, the utility disconnect, inspection deadlines |
| Photos | Stock images | A shoot of your vans, crew and finished work | Labeled panels, chargers on garage walls, generators on pads |
| Integrations | A phone link and a contact form | Booking and requests flowing into your field software, plus call tracking | Requests landing as jobs in ServiceTitan, Housecall Pro or Jobber |
| Migration | A brand-new domain | An existing site with rankings to protect | Redirects for every old page that brings calls today |
A commercial section adds cost too. Property managers and general contractors expect capability statements and project examples, which take time to gather and write.
Ongoing costs
The ongoing costs of an electrician's website are small next to the build, but they add up and they are easy to hide inside a monthly fee. Expect these:
- Hosting and the domain renewal, billed by the host and the registrar.
- Security updates and backups, usually part of a care plan or done by whoever manages the site.
- Call tracking numbers, priced per number and per minute by the tracking vendor.
- Booking, normally already part of your field software subscription.
- New pages and updates, for example a generator page before storm season, a new service, or a fresh insurance certificate and license renewal date.
- Measurement, which costs nothing in tools: Google Search Console and Google Analytics are free, as long as they are set up in your accounts.
Worked example (hypothetical, for illustration). Quote A is a "free website" for a monthly fee on a 24-month term. Quote B is a fixed-price build with low monthly hosting. Quote A looks cheaper in year one. But under Quote A, the vendor owns the domain and the site lives on their platform, so leaving means starting from zero: new domain, lost rankings, every van and yard sign pointing to a site you no longer control. Under Quote B, you can change vendors next month and keep everything. Price the exit before you price the build.
Ownership and contract terms
- Whose name is the domain registered in? It should be your business, at a registrar account you can log into.
- Who owns the design, code and copy? Get it in writing that they transfer to you on payment, including photos taken for the site.
- Can I move the site to another host? A site that only runs on the vendor's platform is a site you rent.
- Who owns the phone numbers on the site? Tracking numbers should be portable or replaceable, and your main line should be the one on the vans.
- Are Analytics, Search Console and the tag manager in my accounts? Ask to be the owner, with the vendor added as a user.
- What is the term, and what does it cost to leave? Look for cancellation fees, auto-renewals and "free site" clawbacks.
- What is in scope, and when does it launch? A page list and a launch date, not "approximately 8 to 12 pages, timeline TBD".
- What will you report? Calls and booked jobs by page, not hours worked or tasks completed.
If you are deciding between a rebuild and repairs, the conversion checklist for electrician websites shows what to fix before you spend. To see the full page list a build should cover, read website design for electricians.
How VETS Growth Marketing helps
We quote websites as fixed-price projects with a page list and a launch date, and every account, file and phone number stays in your name. We report what the site produces in booked calls by page, so you can judge the spend on results. Book a growth consultation and bring any quotes you have. We will tell you what each one actually buys.
Sources
- Google Search Console, Google
- Set up Analytics for a website and/or app, Google Analytics Help