What a direct booking website costs in 2026

Prices for a vacation rental website run from under a hundred dollars to well over ten thousand, and the build price is rarely the number that matters. What you pay every month afterwards, and who owns the site when you stop paying, decide the real cost. These are the bands I found in published pricing in October 2026.

Templates and do-it-yourself

Website templates made for rentals cost roughly $49 to $95. They're a good option if you're comfortable building and writing it yourself, and you'll still pay for hosting and your time.

Website builders inside your booking software

Most property management platforms include a website builder. Some come with the software, and dedicated builders like CraftedStays run about $90 a month. They're quick to set up. The trade-off is that the site lives inside the platform, so it usually goes with you only as far as that subscription does.

One-time studios

This is the busiest band. Published prices from studios that sell a site for one payment run from about $799 to $3,500, with most single-property builds between $1,000 and $2,500. Read the fine print: several of them add a required monthly hosting or care fee, from $25 to $175 a month.

Specialist agencies

Agencies that focus on vacation rentals publish setup fees from about $3,000 to $12,500, plus a monthly subscription that usually runs from about $100 to $750. One published example puts the first year at $11,000. These firms often bundle marketing, and the larger ones serve property managers with dozens of units.

Whichever website you choose, a booking still runs through your booking software, so its direct booking fee and card processing apply the same way. They’re a cost of taking the booking, not of the website.

The three questions to ask

Whoever you hire, ask who the domain is registered to, whose name the hosting account is in, and what happens to the site if you stop paying. If the answer to the last one is that it goes offline, you're renting it.

I build for one payment, with the site, the domain and the hosting account in your name. Hosting is billed to you directly at about $10 to $15 a month, and nothing comes to me after launch.