Sure the question makes sense. At least I think so. We'll know the question made sense if my answer makes sense.

A "server" is the computer running one or more Web sites (and possibly also other useful stuff like an email system or database). I emphasize "or more" because many people think that a "site" and a "server" are the same thing, but they're not. One server could be home to hundreds of sites (and the other stuff).

Financial arrangements vary. If you want to set up just one site, you can rent the space for it on somebody's server for under $10/month (and share the server with those hundreds of other sites); google "Web hosting services". At the other extreme, you can rent an entire server starting for a couple of hundred bucks and going up to thousands if you use a lot of bandwidth and need it tricked out with stuff like large disk drives. (google "server rental"). Or, if you supply the server yourself, you can rent space in an Internet Service Provider (ISP) for approx $100-200/month.

I'm currently doing that last deal, renting space for a server I own, but I'm working to switch to something new and cheaper and possibly better, called a "virtual private server". That's where I rent a "slice" of a server computer, getting the use of, say, one-quarter or one-eighth of its power, to set up and use as I wish. It's like renting a wimpy server, instead of renting space for each site; like pizza, you pay by the slice. A one-eighth-size slice (VPS) might cost about $50/month, and most services will sell you multiples of that (for example, one-fourth for $100/month, one-half for $200, etc.).

One other consideration your son should uh, consider, is that there are two types of server, Windows and Linux, and they're different in ways that can impact his Web design work. My current server (the one I own) is Windows, but the VPS will be Linux, and to make the change, I'm going to have to redo all the Web sites I host to accommodate the different environment. Bummer. If it makes no difference to your son (no investment in Windows already), I'd recommend Linux. The future is Linux; I'm getting out of Windows as soon as I can.

Hope that helps, Jody. Your son's welcome to post questions here if he'd like advice from an old fart (or two or three).