Almost nobody in this industry publishes prices, which is exactly why this post exists. Here’s what fishing guide websites actually cost at every level, including ours, and what you get and give up at each price.
DIY Builders: $150–$400/year
Wix, Squarespace, and GoDaddy builders run roughly $12–$35/month after the first-year teaser pricing. Add a domain and you’re at $150–$400/year, plus your own time, which for most working guides is the most expensive part.
What you give up: the SEO work. A builder gives you pages; it doesn’t give you keyword targeting, schema markup, local search structure, or content written to rank. DIY sites that rank in competitive ports are rare, and it’s usually because the guide spent off-seasons learning SEO instead of tying leaders.
Template Sites: $500–$2,000 One-Time
This is a pre-built site framework filled with your content. Quality varies enormously. A generic template from a marketplace is just DIY with a head start. A template built specifically for fishing operations, set up by someone who does the local SEO configuration for your market, is a different product at a similar price.
Ours is $1,750: our fishing site framework, your trips, photos, and pricing, local SEO setup for your water included.
Custom Sites: $3,000–$10,000+
A custom build starts from your operation instead of a framework: structure designed around your trips and seasons, content written from an onboarding process, full on-page SEO, booking integration. We charge $3,500 flat for guides and charters. Lodges and marinas with bigger programs run $5,000–$10,000 depending on scope.
Generalist agencies charge similar numbers, sometimes much more. What you’re paying any of us for is the same: someone else does it right while you fish.
The Costs Nobody Mentions
Hosting: $10–$50/month wherever you go. Ours is $39.99/month with maintenance and an hour of content updates included, and it’s optional.
The monthly retainer trap: some agencies price the site cheap, then require $200–$500/month for “SEO and maintenance” forever. Over three years that’s $7,200–$18,000 on top of the build. Ask any agency for the total three-year cost before signing. Ours: $3,500 plus optional hosting, about $4,940 over three years. No retainer.
Your time: every option costs some. DIY costs the most of it.
The Bottom Line
| Option | Year 1 | 3-Year Total | Ranks in Local Search? |
|---|---|---|---|
| DIY builder | $150–$400 | $450–$1,200 | Rarely |
| Fishing template (ours) | $1,750 | $1,750 + hosting | Yes, set up for it |
| Custom (ours) | $3,500 | $3,500 + hosting | Built for it |
| Agency with retainer | $2,000–$5,000 | $9,000–$20,000+ | Usually |