How long is a piece of string?  Different startups have different budgets.  Some designers are expensive to some budgets but still cheap for other budgets.  If you are working out of your home or a small office you are still likely spending much less on your business front (website) than a brick and mortor business which has to buy a building and spend money on signage.<p>Do what you can.  If you have no budget for design, then do the design yourself or use a free template.  If you have no time and a tiny budget, get someone cheap off a site like Elance or Odesk.  Getting the business off the ground is more important than starting out with a world class design by a high end design studio.  Go take a look at what the first versions of some of your favorite sites looked like when they first got started.  ;)