What a Real Estate Website Costs — and Why the Listings Often Cannot Be Found
Quotes run from $200 to $25,000, and the line item that breaks most of them is IDX. Worse, the way IDX is usually installed hides your listing pages from Google entirely.
Most articles about this quote a range and stop. The range is real — published 2026 guides span roughly $200 to $25,000 — but it is not the useful part. The useful part is that the single biggest line item is usually IDX, that it carries monthly costs the build quote rarely mentions, and that the standard way of installing it can make the largest section of your site invisible to search.
A real estate agent website typically costs $4,000 to $12,000, or $3,000 to $8,000 for a solo agent site with IDX plus $100 to $300 a month. IDX integration adds $1,500 to $5,000 to the build, and because IDX widgets usually render as iframes or JavaScript, the listing pages they produce are frequently not crawlable.
The Ranges, Separated by What You Are Actually Buying
Published 2026 guides converge once you split the tiers. A template platform — Placester, Real Geeks and similar — starts around $99 a month with no upfront build. A solo agent site with IDX built on it lands at roughly $3,000 to $8,000 plus $100 to $300 a month. Most agent websites sit in the $4,000 to $12,000 band. Fully custom work starts near $5,000 and can pass $25,000 for teams and brokerages with multiple MLS integrations. Those are honest ranges. What they hide is that the same site can appear at either end of them depending on one decision, which is the next section.
IDX Is the Line Item That Breaks the Quote
IDX is the feed that pulls live MLS listings onto your own domain instead of sending buyers to a portal. It is also, consistently, the most underestimated item in a real estate quote. Integration adds somewhere between $1,500 and $5,000 to the build. Then the recurring costs begin: $50 to $200 a month for a single MLS region, $30 to $100 for each additional region, and separately your MLS board dues at $30 to $100 a month per board, paid directly rather than through the developer. Named vendors sit in that band — IDX Broker at $69 to $199, iHomeFinder at $50 to $150. There is usually also a one-time configuration charge of $100 to $500 to set up MLS access, which one industry breakdown notes is "rarely advertised". An agent working three boards can be paying $300 a month before the website platform fee.
“The listing pages are the biggest part of a real estate site. They are also, on most of them, the part Google cannot read.”
And This Is the Part Almost Nobody Mentions
IDX widgets are commonly delivered as an iframe or rendered in JavaScript. Both cause a specific, checkable problem: an iframe is not crawled by Google, and JavaScript rendering delays your largest contentful paint. So the listing pages — usually the biggest section of a real estate site and the one you are paying most for — are frequently the part search engines cannot read, and pages carrying embedded IDX widgets score measurably worse on mobile. You can test this yourself in about a minute: open a listing page on your site, view the page source, and search for a property address you can see on the screen. If it is not in the source, Google is not seeing it either. Our page on Core Web Vitals covers why the JavaScript half of that matters beyond crawling.
If You Are Not in the United States, You Probably Do Not Need It
IDX is a framework established by the National Association of REALTORS, and it is essentially a US arrangement. There is no direct equivalent in most markets. The nearest thing is API integration with whichever regional portal dominates — Property Finder in the UAE, Idealista in Spain, SeLoger in France — or simply syncing listings from the CRM the agency already runs. This matters because a good deal of the pricing advice online is written for US agents and quietly assumes IDX is a given. If you are in Toronto, Dubai or London and a supplier is quoting IDX integration, the first question is which feed they mean and whether your market has one at all.
What Actually Decides Whether the Site Earns
Not the platform. Every comparison in this category eventually admits it, usually near the end: the gap between a site that generates enquiries and one that simply exists has little to do with which product it was built on. It comes down to whether the listing pages are readable by search engines, whether the search itself is fast on a phone, and whether contacting the agent takes one tap rather than a form with nine fields. Those are build decisions rather than platform decisions, and they cost about the same either way.
Where We Sit
Our real estate builds start at $1,199 and run to $2,999 with booking and payment integration, one-time, with the site transferring to you on completion. IDX or portal integration is quoted separately, because the cost genuinely depends on which feed and how many regions — and we would rather scope it than fold a guess into a headline price. If your leads come mostly from referrals and portals rather than from your own site search, it is worth asking whether you need a feed at all before paying for one.
Key Takeaways
- Agent websites commonly run $4,000–$12,000; a solo agent site with IDX lands around $3,000–$8,000, and full custom builds start near $5,000 and can pass $25,000.
- IDX integration adds roughly $1,500–$5,000 to the build on top of that.
- Then monthly: $50–$200 for one MLS region, $30–$100 for each extra region, plus $30–$100 a month in MLS board dues paid directly.
- A one-time IDX configuration fee of $100–$500 is common and rarely advertised.
- IDX widgets usually render as iframes or JavaScript — iframes are not crawled at all, and JavaScript rendering delays your largest contentful paint.
- Outside the United States, IDX mostly does not exist. Ask what your market actually uses before paying for it.
Quick Answers
Most agent websites run $4,000–$12,000. A solo agent site with IDX is commonly $3,000–$8,000 plus $100–$300 a month; template platforms start near $99 a month with no build cost; fully custom work starts around $5,000 and can exceed $25,000 for teams.
Roughly $1,500–$5,000 on the build, then $50–$200 a month per MLS region, $30–$100 for each additional region, and $30–$100 a month in board dues paid directly. A one-time setup fee of $100–$500 is common and rarely quoted.
Most often because the IDX widget renders in an iframe or in JavaScript. Iframes are not crawled, and JavaScript rendering delays the page. Open a listing page, view source, and search for an address you can see — if it is not there, Google is not seeing it.
Usually not. IDX is a US framework with no direct equivalent in most markets. The nearest option is API integration with the dominant regional portal, or syncing from the CRM the agency already uses.
Often yes, particularly if most of your leads arrive from referrals or portals. The honest test is whether your own site search is a real acquisition channel. If it is not, you are paying monthly for a feature that is decorating the homepage.
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