---
title: What an architecture studio website costs in 2026
canonical: "https://elliotli.dev/blog/architecture-studio-website-cost/"
pubDate: "2026-10-16T00:00:00.000Z"
author: Elliot Li
description: "Most studios spend $0–$15,000 on the site itself — templates from $79–$129, freelancers from $2,000, agencies from $4,800 — plus $10–$25/month to host it."
tags: [framer, studio, pricing, guide]
---

import ProsCons from '../../../components/blog/ProsCons.astro';

**An architecture studio website costs between $0 and about $15,000 to build.** At the low end, a template plus a $10–25/month plan. At the top, an agency build. Photography and project writing sit outside that number — and matter more than the platform.

That is the whole budget for most studios. Here is what drives it — and where studios overspend.

## What a studio site actually needs

Clients arrive with three questions. The site exists to answer them fast.

1. **Is the work good?** A work index that proves it, filtered by typology or year.
2. **Can they do my project?** Services, scale, and a project story that shows process.
3. **How do I start?** An inquiry that arrives with a brief — site, program, budget, timeline.

Everything else — press, awards, team — supports those three. Notice what is not on the list: a client login, a materials library, a shop. Those are phase-two conversations.

## What drives the price

- **Photography.** The portfolio is the product. A full project shoot runs into four figures, and it recurs.
- **Project writing.** Process, constraints, decisions — the words that turn photos into credibility.
- **CMS setup.** Projects, materials, team, awards as structured content, not pages.
- **Motion.** Cinematic scroll and transitions, done well, are engineering. Done badly, they are a liability.
- **Design and build.** The biggest line, and the one templates remove.

## The four routes

### 1. A template, published yourself

The [Southward template](/templates/southward/) is built for exactly this: seven page templates — home, work index, project detail, about, services, contact, and a 404 — with a Sanity CMS behind them. Projects, materials, team members, awards, and publications are structured content. It is $99 one-time, it is mine, and it deploys to Cloudflare Workers by default.

- **Cost:** $99 for the template, plus hosting (near-free on Cloudflare's free tier).
- **Time:** a weekend to wire your content in — longer if you are writing project stories from scratch.

<ProsCons name="Template, published yourself"
	pros={[
		'A complete site — not a mockup — with SEO wired in',
		'Sanity Visual Editing: click the live page, edit the content',
		'Domain-driven schema for projects, materials, awards, and team',
		'Cinematic scroll on GSAP and Lenis, dependency-light',
	]}
	cons={[
		'You need basic dev comfort to deploy and customize',
		'You supply the photography and project writing',
		'No subscription — but also no platform support desk',
	]}
/>

### 2. A template plus finishing help

You keep the template economics and hand over the parts that eat weekends: content migration, photo sequencing, copy editing, deployment. Freelancers commonly charge **$1,000–$3,000** to finish a studio site. The template removes design and construction; you pay for the last stretch.

### 3. A freelancer build

Custom design on Framer or Webflow, from **around $2,000–$3,000** for a small studio. Worth it when the studio's brand genuinely needs a bespoke grid — and when the portfolio is already shot and written.

### 4. An agency build

Agency builds start around **$4,800 for a homepage** and run **$15,000 for a full site**; complex B2B builds land between $10,000 and $30,000. Worth it when the content operation is large. For a five-person studio with twelve projects, it is usually more than the job needs.

## What the platforms cost

As of **October 2026**:

| Platform | Plan | Price (yearly billing) | Notes |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Framer | Free / Basic / Pro | $0 / $10 / $30 per month | Free publishes on a subdomain; Pro adds redirects |
| Webflow | Basic / Premium | $15 / $25 per month | Premium replaced the CMS plan in May 2026; domain extra |
| Astro + Sanity (Southward) | — | $99 one-time + hosting | Cloudflare Workers free tier covers most studios |
| Squarespace | Basic | From about $16 per month | Simplest route; lower design ceiling |

Two notes worth knowing. Webflow's CMS and Business site plans no longer exist — older guides still list them. And Framer's free plan cannot connect a custom domain, so the real entry price is $10/month.

## Where studios overspend

1. **Custom motion before the portfolio is edited.** Twelve great projects beat one animated page. Edit first.
2. **An agency before the photography exists.** Design amplifies images; it cannot replace them.
3. **Rebuilding what a template covers.** Work index, project detail, CMS, SEO — solved. Spend the budget on content.
4. **A new site when the problem is the work.** If the projects are thin, a rebuild changes nothing.
5. **Paying twice.** A "portfolio" on a directory is a listing. Your site is the practice.

## How to decide in five minutes

1. Write down what the site must **do** — prove the work, explain services, start briefed inquiries.
2. If that is the list, start from [Southward](/templates/southward/). It is the shortest route to a real site.
3. Budget for photography before design. The work is the argument.
4. Keep phase-two ideas — logins, libraries, shops — out of v1.

Still weighing platforms? [Compare the builders](/blog/best-website-builders-for-architecture-studios/) or [read the honest Framer review for studios](/blog/is-framer-good-for-architecture-studios/). You can also browse [all the studio templates](/best/studio-framer-templates/). For the general version of this guide, see [what a website costs in 2026](/blog/website-cost-template-vs-custom/).