Short answer. How much does an author website cost at Clean Page Press? $449 for one page or $849 for five pages, built in WordPress. The domain and hosting are extra and in your own name, so the site stays yours. One page takes 10 business days and five pages take 15, counted from when your text and images arrive.
Key points
- How much does an author website cost? $449 for one page, $849 for five, from us.
- Other designers' prices vary widely, so compare what each price includes.
- You pay for the domain and hosting yourself, so you own the site outright.
- What drives the price is the page count, not the number of books.
- Amazon does not require a website. A site gives readers one page you control.
What does $449 get you?
The $449 author website is one scrolling page. It holds the three things a reader looks for: your books, who you are, and a way to reach you. For an author with one to three books, this is usually enough. The page has a phone layout and a desktop layout.
The book section shows your covers with buy links. Below it sits a short bio with a photo. At the bottom is a contact form or a mailing list sign-up.
Readers who land on your site want to find the next book and the buy button. One page does that.
What does $849 add?
The $849 site adds four more pages. The five-page site splits the same content into home, books, about, a page for one featured book, and contact. If you write a series, or you plan to send ad traffic to one book, the five-page site gives that book a page to land on.
The featured book page is the reason most authors move up. It gives one title room for a longer description, review excerpts you have permission to use, and its own buy links, without crowding the home page.
How much does an author website cost from other designers?
What an author website costs from other designers varies a lot, because "author website" covers very different jobs. The low end is usually a template filled with your details. The high end is custom design, often with copywriting and branding included.
Three questions sort them out. Who owns the domain and hosting? Can you edit the site yourself? What happens if you stop paying the designer?
What is not in the price?
The build price leaves out bio writing, a shop, a blog with posts and monthly care, which we quote separately if you ask. We also do not run ads or promise traffic. A site gives readers somewhere to land. It does not bring them on its own. In detail:
- Writing your bio from scratch. You send the bio; we place it.
- A shop that takes payments on the site. Buy links go to Amazon and other stores.
- A blog set up with posts.
- Monthly care after the build.
Who pays for the domain and hosting?
You pay for the domain and hosting, in your own name, and this is on purpose. If the domain and hosting sit in a designer's account, the site is theirs to switch off. With both in your name, you can hand the login to anyone and nothing has to be rebuilt.
You buy them, add us as a user, and we build inside your account. We never need your email or bank login.
We do not resell hosting, so the domain and hosting cost is between you and the provider you choose. Prices vary by provider and by the first-year discount, so check the renewal price, not just the first year.
Why WordPress?
We build author websites in WordPress because you can leave. WordPress is the system almost any web person can work on. If you outgrow us, or want a friend to update a cover, they log in and change it. You get a short guide to editing text, covers and links yourself when we hand over the site.
A site builder with its own closed system can be cheaper to start. It is harder to move if you ever want to.
What did we learn building our own site?
Building our own site taught us that the phone is where author sites fail, and nobody notices on a desktop. Before it went live on 12 October 2026, we measured the first build on a 390 px phone screen. On 10 of its 11 pages, no button showed in the first screen.
The first button sat between 927 and 2,601 px down. On a desktop every page looked fine.
On a phone, a buy link three screens down sits behind a wall of text. So every site we build is checked at phone width first: the book, the buy link and the form have to show without scrolling past a wall of text.
The fix we do for this: we build the site in your WordPress account and check every page on a phone before you see it. Tell us about your books and we reply with a page plan and the price.
Do I need an author website at all?
You do not need an author website to sell on Amazon, which does not require one. A site gives you a page you control. Your Amazon page follows Amazon's layout and rules; your site follows yours. It is also where your mailing list form lives, and the mailing list is the one channel to readers that no store owns.
If you have one book and no mailing list yet, a one-page site is enough. If you write a series, have a list, or run ads, the five-page site earns its extra $400.
Can I build it myself instead?
You can build an author website yourself, and plenty of authors do. If you are comfortable with WordPress, a theme and a weekend, the cost is the domain, the hosting and your time. Whoever builds it, insist on the domain and hosting in your name.
Hire someone when your time is worth more on the next book, or when you have tried and the phone layout keeps breaking.
If you are budgeting the rest of the book too, our post on what book formatting costs for KDP in 2026 covers the interior side.
How does the build work?
The build starts when you send your covers, buy links, bio, a photo and the page list. You buy the domain and hosting in your own name and add us as a user. We build the pages in WordPress and check them on a phone and a desktop.
You review the site and send your changes. We make them and hand over the editing guide.
The full page plan and order steps are on our author website page.
What else do authors ask about the cost of an author website?
At Clean Page Press, $449 for one page and $849 for five pages, built in WordPress. Domain and hosting are extra and in your name.
10 business days for one page and 15 for five, counted from when your text and images arrive.
Yes. The domain, the hosting and the WordPress login are in your name.
Yes. You get a short guide to changing text, covers and links yourself.
Not in the build price. You send the bio and we place it; writing one from scratch is quoted separately.
What should you do next?
The next step is to send us your book titles and how many pages you think you need. One page is $449 and takes 10 business days; five pages are $849 and take 15. We reply with the page plan and the price: tell us about your books.
