A local business that wants a custom website and someone to run its marketing has usually faced two bad options. Hire an agency and pay tens of thousands of dollars a year. Or build it yourself on a template and run the marketing at night, which in practice means it does not get run.
We charge $500 a month for both, or $400 a month billed annually. The build is included, with no setup fee. At the monthly rate that works out to $16.44 a day, or $6,000 for the first year. Billed annually, it is $4,800. This article explains what that covers, what the same work costs elsewhere, how the number is possible, and who should not hire us.
What the same work costs elsewhere
The figures below come from published 2026 pricing guides and surveys. Every one of them was published by a company that sells these services, so read them as the market describing itself. We built the comparison from the low end of each range, on purpose, so that it holds up against any quote you get.
| Market low | Market typical | Maai® | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Custom website build | $3,000 | $5,000 | Included |
| Hosting and maintenance | $50 a month | $100 a month | Included |
| Social content and posting | $500 a month | $1,500 a month | Included |
| Local SEO and Google Business Profile | $500 a month | $1,200 a month | Included |
| Year one | $15,600 | $38,600 | $6,000 |
Sources for each line: small business website builds run $3,000 to $8,000 from a freelancer and $8,000 to $15,000 from a boutique agency; custom sites carry ongoing costs of $50 to $200 a month; social media management retainers run $500 to $5,000 a month; and local SEO retainers run $500 to $3,000 a month, with single-location service businesses often quoted $800 to $1,500.
The year-one sums leave out design refreshes, which agencies typically bill as a new project every few years. With us, the site is updated continuously, and there is no refresh fee.
Most small businesses never buy that whole stack. They buy a website once, let it age, and skip the rest, because the monthly numbers are out of reach. That is the real problem we set out to solve: the full marketing operation of a larger company has been priced for companies with marketing budgets.
What $500 a month covers
The website. Custom design and build, no templates. Copywriting. Hosting, security, backups, and monitoring. Forms, booking, and calendar integration. Your Google reviews displayed on the site. Updates as your business changes.
Search. Technical SEO, a page for every service and location, Google Business Profile management, and the structure that helps AI assistants find and recommend you.
Content. Regular articles written from facts about your business, and a content calendar built around your seasons and events.
Reporting. A monthly report in plain English: what was published, what moved, what comes next.
Ownership. The domain, the site, the content, and the accounts are yours.
Terms. Month to month. The $2,500 build is included over the first 12 months, so if you leave earlier, the remaining balance of the build is due. Annual plans are refundable in full within the first 30 days.
How the number is possible
An agency’s price is mostly the cost of its people’s hours. A designer, a developer, a writer, a social media manager, an SEO specialist, and an account manager to coordinate them, each billing time against your account. That is a legitimate model, and good agencies are worth it for the clients who need what they do.
We built a different model. I design and build every site myself, here in Savannah. The recurring work after launch runs on MOCO, the marketing operations company I founded alongside the studio. MOCO drafts the content, keeps the Google profile current, tracks performance, and assembles the report. A person reviews what it produces, and nothing publishes that states something you have not told us is true.
Design is where the judgment goes, so it stays human. The weekly operations are where the hours go, and that is where a system does the work better and at a fraction of the cost. The savings go to the price, not to margin. Nothing about the work is smaller. Every site is still designed and built from scratch.
Who should not hire us
Businesses that need a team in the room every week. If you want weekly strategy meetings, a dedicated account manager, and bespoke campaigns built by a full creative team, hire an agency. That is what they are built for.
Businesses happy where they are. This plan is built for owners who want to grow. If the phone rings enough and the business is where you want it, keep your money.
Businesses that want to do it themselves. If you enjoy building and running your own site, a builder like Squarespace or Wix is a sound choice. We wrote an honest comparison.
Nonprofits and churches
Nonprofits pay $300 a month for the same work, which is $9.86 a day, or $250 a month billed annually.
What happens next
The model works for the businesses already on it. Best Cleaners & Laundry now ranks for 261 organic search terms, more than five times as many as any of five other Savannah dry cleaners, according to Semrush estimates from October 2026. A local golf association doubled its membership. A bakery’s search impressions rose 30% within two weeks of launch.
If the math works for your business, book a call. It takes twenty minutes. You tell me about the business and where you want to take it, and I tell you what I would build and exactly what it costs.