How Much Does a Wedding Website Cost?

Somewhere between "free" and "$40 a month forever," there's what a wedding website should actually cost. Here's the honest landscape — including the costs that don't show up on the pricing page.

The three pricing models

Free (ad-supported or upsell-supported). The big-name builders offer free sites because the site is the top of their funnel — they monetise you through registry commissions, vendor advertising, and constant upgrade prompts. Free is real, but you (and your guests) are the product being marketed to. The tell: check what your guests see. If the RSVP page carries the platform's branding, promotes their registry, or asks your guests to create accounts, the "free" is being paid for by the people you invited.

Subscriptions. Some builders charge monthly, typically in the $10–30 range. Weddings are a terrible fit for subscriptions: planning takes a year or more, you want the site up for months afterwards for photo sharing and thank-yous, and the meter is always running. A "$15/month" site quietly becomes $270 by your first anniversary — and the pressure to shut it down early is built into the pricing. Worse, cancelling usually means the site disappears, taking the gallery and guestbook with it.

One-time pricing. You pay once for the plan you need, and the price is the price. This is what we chose for Shared Beginning — a free plan that's genuinely useful (site, guest list, RSVPs), and one-time paid tiers when you want more, never a subscription. The economics work because a wedding is a project, not a service: it has a beginning and an end, and your website should be priced like it.

The hidden costs to check for

• Custom domain. Is it included, extra, or "bring your own and figure out DNS yourself"? Domain registrations genuinely renew annually — roughly $15–25/year depending on the ending, and that's a registry cost, not a markup — but the connection shouldn't cost extra, and your domain should be your site's real address, not a redirect that bounces guests to a longer link.
• RSVPs per guest. Some platforms cap guest counts on lower tiers or charge per RSVP collected. A 150-person wedding is not a premium use case; check before you build your list.
• Privacy. Password protection and staying out of search engines shouldn't be premium features. Your wedding details — names, date, venue, and by implication an empty house that weekend — are not SEO content. If hiding your site from Google costs extra, that's a red flag about the whole relationship.
• After the wedding. Does your gallery vanish 30 days after the big day? Does the site expire silently? Look for what the hosting term really is, in months, in writing.
• Printed matter. Save-the-dates and invitations from the big stationery platforms run $400–$800 for a hundred guests once you've added envelopes and postage. Digital invitations sent from your website cost approximately nothing and land with an RSVP button attached. Even doing paper save-the-dates and digital everything-else halves the bill.

What "expensive" buys you elsewhere

A custom-designed site from a freelance designer runs $1,500–$5,000, plus hosting, plus someone to update it every time the schedule changes. Gorgeous, and for most couples unnecessary — modern builders' themes cover the ground for a fraction of that, and your guests care about the date, the directions, and the RSVP button. The honest case for a custom build is a wedding that's also a brand event — 400 guests, sponsors, a livestream. If that's not you, the money does more in the photography budget.

The real comparison: total cost to the last thank-you

Price the whole arc, not the sticker. A typical timeline runs fourteen months from "we're engaged" to "thank-you cards sent." Over that span:

• Free ad-supported builder: $0 cash, paid for in registry commissions, guest data, and upgrade prompts — plus your guests' patience.
• Subscription builder at $15/month: roughly $210 by the wedding, $270+ by the time photos are shared and thank-yous done.
• One-time pricing: the price on the tin, once. Ours runs from free to a low-hundreds single payment at the top tier — see pricing for the current numbers in your currency.

Questions to ask any platform before you commit

1. What exactly does the free tier include, and what's the catch?
2. Is there a subscription anywhere, or is every price one-time?
3. What do my guests see — ads? registry upsells? account walls?
4. Can I password-protect the site and keep it out of search engines, at every tier?
5. How long does the site stay up after the wedding?
6. Is a custom domain included, and is it my site's real address?
7. If I export my guest list and RSVPs, do I get everything?

Any platform worth your wedding answers all seven in plain language. While you're budgeting, the same discipline applies to the rest of the plan — our 12-month checklist flags which costs land in which month, so nothing arrives as a surprise.

The bottom line

A fair wedding website in 2026 costs $0 to start and a one-time double-digit-to-low-hundreds price for premium features — custom domain, full design control, planning tools. Every dollar past that is paying for someone's ad inventory, someone's subscription model, or someone's assumption that you won't do the math. You just did.