Agency Platform Comparison: What Thirteen Platforms Actually Cost
Thirteen platforms, their real published prices, and the one question that decides between them. Short answer: under ten client sites, pay monthly per site. Past thirty, you are renting work you already finished.
Every shop that builds websites for other people ends up in this comparison eventually. Usually at the worst moment, when a client has just said yes and something has to start on Monday.
So here is the version you can read in five minutes, with prices read off each vendor's own page on 9 October 2026.
What the thirteen platforms actually cost
| Platform | What it costs | Shape |
|---|---|---|
| Framer | $10 to $30 a month per site, plus editors | Per site |
| Webflow | From $15 a month per site yearly, plus $16 a seat | Per site |
| Wix Studio | $19 to $159 a month per site | Per site |
| Squarespace | $19 to $99 a month per site yearly | Per site |
| Duda | $149 a month yearly for 4 sites, $17 each after | Per site |
| WordPress | Free software. You pay hosting and plugins | Flat |
| Statamic | $349 once per site, then $99 a year | Once per site |
| Craft CMS | $279 to $399 once per project, then $99 a year | Once per site |
| Ghost | Free self-hosted, or $18 to $199 a month hosted | Flat or per site |
| HighLevel | $97 to $497 a month for the agency | Flat |
| Vendasta | $99 to $999 a month, plus onboarding | Flat |
| AgencyAnalytics | $20 per client a month | Per client |
| AI Website Systems | $7,500 to install, then $495 a month total | Flat |
Three pricing shapes, not thirteen prices
Comparing those headline numbers straight across is a trap, because they are not the same kind of number. There are only three shapes here.
- Per site, every month. Cheap to start and it grows with you. Twenty client sites on a $19 plan is $380 a month, every month, and you own none of them.
- Once per site, then updates. Craft and Statamic sell a licence instead of a subscription. More on day one, far less by year three.
- Flat, whatever your client count. One bill that does not move when you add client twenty one. WordPress is the free version of this. Ours is the paid one.
Pick the shape first. The individual prices only matter after that.
Where each shape stops making sense
Run your own number. Take what you are paying per site, multiply by the client count you expect in three years, and look at the yearly total.
A shop with eight client sites on Wix Studio Basic is paying about $1,824 a year. That is fine and nobody should change anything.
The same shop at forty sites is paying $9,120 a year, forever, for sites it does not own and cannot move. That is the moment the shape stops working, and it arrives quietly.
The crossover sits somewhere between twenty and thirty client sites for most shops. Below it, per site monthly genuinely wins. Above it, you are paying rent on work you already delivered.
Where we fit, said plainly
AI Website Systems is the most expensive thing on that table to start. $7,500 to install is a real number and we are not going to dress it up.
What you get for it is a flat $495 a month that does not grow with your client count, every site as plain files you own outright, and a data layer that tells you what each site did after it launched. Most of the options above build the site and stop there.
If you have six clients and no plans for forty, one of the per site platforms is the better buy and we would tell you so on a call. If you are heading past thirty, or you want a monthly client fee with real numbers behind it, that is the conversation worth having.
Read the full records before you decide
Each platform above links to its own record, with the same four questions answered in the same order. How it is sold, who it fits, what you own, and what happens the month you stop paying.
Ours is in there too, filed the same way, including the four places it is weakest.