The cheapest way to build a client website in 2026: what each builder really costs

The cheapest way to build a client website is not the plan with the lowest monthly price. Three builders, three completely different ways of charging you for the same client site. Astro is free to run and costs you time. Carrd charges a flat yearly fee per site. Wix charges a monthly subscription that scales with the plan, not the project. If you’re picking a stack for the next twelve months of client work, the plan price is the least useful number on the page.

Here’s how each one actually bills a freelancer, and where the cheap option turns expensive.

Astro: free to run, paid in hours

Astro‘s own release notes are the clearest evidence of what you’re buying. The Astro 7.3 release adds an --ignore-lock flag to astro preview so you can run more than one preview server at once — the notes name Playwright tests as the case it’s for. It also passes Astro’s runtime logger into custom image services and cache providers, so their warnings respect your log level and --silent flag instead of writing straight to the console.

That’s a developer-tooling release, and it tells you who Astro is for. You don’t pay per site. You pay in the hours you spend wiring up a build, a host and a deploy pipeline. For a freelancer billing £50–£80 an hour, a two-day setup on the first client site is £800–£1,280 before the site earns anything.

The break-even is volume. If you build one site a year, that setup cost never amortises. If you build eight sites off the same starter, the second through eighth sites cost you almost nothing but content.

Carrd: the flat fee, and what it doesn’t include

Carrd‘s changelog shows a product that keeps adding small, useful things rather than changing its model. On 2 October 2026 it launched Carrd Analytics, a cookie-free analytics service that reports inside the dashboard. Earlier entries added an Elements Panel for navigating a site’s elements, and a Framing option under Publish → Settings that controls when and where a site can be embedded in an iframe — that one requires Pro Plus or higher.

That last detail matters for client work. If a client wants their Carrd site embedded in a larger site, or wants to embed something into it, you’re on the higher tier. Check that before you quote.

Carrd’s model is the simplest to cost: a flat yearly fee per site, no per-seat maths, no usage meter. For a freelancer running a handful of small brochure sites, it’s the easiest line in a quote. The trade-off is ceiling — the moment a client needs a CMS, a login area or real application logic, you’re rebuilding somewhere else, and that rebuild is unbilled.

Wix: subscription pricing and the AI draft problem

Gizmodo’s September 2026 comparison of AI website builders put Wix at the top of its list and then listed the catches. In its test, the AI-generated design “looked dated”, and the cheapest paid plan carries only 2 GB of storage. Gizmodo’s own advice is to pick a template for the final site rather than ship the AI draft.

That’s the honest shape of the AI-builder pitch. The prompt-to-site step is real and fast. The output still needs a designer. If you’re charging a client for a site, the AI draft is a starting point you’ll spend time correcting, not a finished deliverable.

Wix also has a free plan with no time limit, which is genuinely useful for pitching. Just don’t confuse a free pitch with a free build — the client’s live site sits on a paid plan, and that’s a recurring cost you either absorb or pass on.

Cost per client site, side by side

Read that table as three different risk profiles, not three prices. Astro front-loads cost and rewards repeat work. Carrd is predictable until the client asks for something it can’t do. Wix is cheap to start and hands the client a dashboard they’ll use without you.

The decision rule

Count the sites before you count the price. One or two small sites a year: Carrd, and quote the yearly fee as a pass-through line. Five or more, or anything with a login: Astro, and charge the setup as a one-off build fee on the first project. Clients who will edit their own content: Wix, and budget an hour of handover training.

The trap is choosing per-month. A builder at a low monthly rate that you abandon after two projects cost more than a flat yearly fee you kept for three years. Work out your cost per delivered site, not your cost per month.

One more thing to verify before you commit: run the same client brief through two of these and compare the finished site, not the demo. Gizmodo’s finding that the AI draft looked dated is the kind of thing that only shows up when you put real content in.

Sources

• Astro 7.3 release notes — astro.build
• What’s new in Astro — September 2026 — astro.build
• Carrd changelog — carrd.com
• Best AI Website Builder 2026 — Gizmodo, 30 September 2026