Do you still need a website if you have a Facebook page?
A lot of one-man trades run entirely off a Facebook page, and it works better than most web designers admit. The real question isn't whether you need a website, but what a website does for you that a Facebook page just can't.
By the TradeLaunch Digital team · Updated 5 November 2026
What Facebook genuinely does well
It is free and social. People see your work, message you, leave recommendations. For a business built on word of mouth, that is real value. For a business with more work than it can handle, a Facebook page and a phone number is genuinely sufficient.
Where it falls short
You do not own it. Your reviews, photos and followers sit on a platform you do not control. Rules change, reach drops, accounts get restricted.
It cannot rank for services. Someone searching for emergency drain cleaning in your city is looking at websites and map results, not Facebook pages.
It has no structure. A customer wanting to know whether you handle water heaters, what areas you cover, and whether you are licensed has to scroll and infer.
The honest middle ground
You do not have to choose. Keep the Facebook page for social proof and messaging, add a simple website for search visibility and credibility, and point both at the same phone number.
What a small site needs
- Say what you do in the words customers use
- Say where you do it
- Make the phone number impossible to miss
- Load fast on a phone
Three pages covers that. No blog, no booking system, no chatbot required.
What adding a website would actually cost
Two prices, and they are not the same product. Shared hosting is space on a server that you build, edit and maintain yourself. The managed plan is the website, the hosting and the ongoing changes, for one monthly total. Most one-person trades who add a website are usually choosing between those two, not between a website and nothing.
| Option | Monthly | Who maintains it |
|---|---|---|
| Shared hosting, you run the site | $5.99 to $18.99 | You (DIY) |
| TradeLaunch managed website | $79 total | TradeLaunch (Fully Managed) |
Shared hosting comes in three sizes: Launch at $5.99/month for one website with 10 GB NVMe storage and one database, Grow at $10.99/month for up to three websites with 30 GB NVMe and three databases, and Scale at $18.99/month for up to ten websites with 75 GB NVMe and ten databases. Storage, website count and database count are allowances for the whole plan, and the server capacity underneath is shared. If you already have a site and only need somewhere to put it, that is the honest comparison — we have set the two side by side in our shared hosting versus managed websites guide.
The managed plan is $79 per month total, with hosting and SSL included, up to five pages, two pre-launch revision rounds and three routine content updates a month of up to 30 minutes each. What that plan covers is set out on the managed websites page, and the hosting plans themselves are on the hosting page.
Two things are the same on both routes. There is no setup fee, and neither route promises a position in search. Search rankings and enquiry volumes are not guaranteed. All TradeLaunch plans are month-to-month, and you can cancel at any time — cancellation becomes effective at the end of the current paid billing period, and there are no prorated refunds for partial months.
How to add a website without abandoning Facebook
Keep the page. The Facebook page keeps doing the job it is good at — showing recent work, answering messages and collecting recommendations. The website does the job Facebook cannot: being findable when someone searches for the service you sell, and answering the questions a customer wants answered before they pick up the phone. Point both to the same phone number so it's a seamless move for the customer.
You do not have to move your photos, your recommendations or your customers across. What you are adding is a small, fast site that says what you do, where you do it and how to reach you. That is a three-page build, not a rebuild of how you work.
When Facebook alone is fine
If work comes from referrals only, you do not want to rank in search, and you are not chasing larger jobs, you can wait. No shame in it. But the moment you want to grow past word of mouth, the website becomes the cheaper of the two growth options.
Reviews matter more than the platform
Ask happy customers to review you on Google, not just Facebook. Facebook recommendations feel good; Google reviews get you found in map results.
Related: what a plumbing website actually costs in 2026.
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