How much does a website cost in 2026?
“How much does a website cost?” opens almost every first conversation I have, and the honest answer — it depends — is useless on its own. It depends on things you can actually check: what the site has to do, who builds it, and what the price includes. So here are the real ranges, what moves them, what most quotes leave off the first page, and how to compare two proposals that look identical and differ by €3,000.
I’m a freelance developer and I build websites for small businesses — brochure sites, online shops, and custom tools when the ready-made ones don’t fit. The figures below are the ones I quote and the ones I read on competing quotes, not a survey. They are in euros, because that is what I invoice in: convert at the day’s rate and read the order of magnitude rather than the exact number.
The short answer
- Do it yourself with a website builder: €0 to €400 a year, plus a great deal of your own time.
- A simple brochure site built by a professional — who you are, what you sell, a contact form: €1,000 to €4,000.
- A polished brochure site, with the texts written for you, a design adapted to your business and real work on how you appear in search results: €3,000 to €8,000.
- An online shop: €4,000 to €15,000, depending on the number of products and on how payment and delivery work.
- A custom site or web application — bookings, client accounts, internal tools: from €8,000, and often €15,000 to €50,000.
Those are freelancer and small-studio prices. A large agency often quotes two to three times more for a comparable result, because you also pay for its offices, its account managers and its sales team. Where you buy matters too: the same brochure site quoted in London, in Paris and in Lisbon will not land on the same number, and none of the three is dishonest.
What actually moves the price
1. The number of pages — and who writes them
Five pages is not thirty. But the real variable is the words. If you hand over your texts and your photos, you save money. If the person building the site has to interview you, write each page and find the images, that is billed time: count €100 to €300 per page written for you, and €300 to €600 for a half-day with a photographer. Content is also what makes projects run late — the build is rarely the bottleneck, the text is.
2. Design: template or drawn for you
Starting from an existing template adjusted to your colours, your logo and your photos costs far less than a design drawn from a blank page. For a small business, a well-adapted template is usually the best value in the whole quote: your visitors will never know, and it saves €1,500 to €3,000 you can spend on content instead.
3. What the site has to do
Every function is extra work: online booking, payment, a client area, a quote calculator, a second language. A simple one is a few hundred euros. A full client area, on its own, can be several thousand. This is the strongest argument for starting small and adding later — the most expensive line on any quote is the feature nobody ends up using.
4. Being found in search results
A site can be beautiful and invisible. Being found takes specific work: how the pages are organised, texts written with the words your customers actually type, speed on a phone. Some quotes include it, many say nothing at all. That single silence often explains a €1,000 to €2,000 gap between two proposals that look the same — so ask what is planned for it before you compare totals.
The costs that start the day after launch
- Your domain name, the address people type: €10 to €20 a year. Check it is registered in your company’s name, not your builder’s.
- Hosting, where the site actually lives: €40 to €180 a year for a brochure site, €15 to €50 a month for a shop.
- Upkeep — updates, backups, security, someone noticing when it breaks: €25 to €60 a month for a brochure site, €80 to €250 a month for a shop.
- Email on your own domain: often included with hosting, otherwise €4 to €7 a month per mailbox.
- Changes after launch: either a small monthly allowance of edits, or an hourly rate. Settle it in writing before you sign, not the day a price on your site is wrong.
Over three years those lines usually add €1,000 to €2,500 to a brochure site. That is not a hidden cost — it is what owning a site costs, like a phone line or an accountant. What is dishonest is a quote that pretends they don’t exist, then invoices them in month two.
Builder, freelancer or agency: what you are really paying for
- A website builder is the cheapest in cash and the most expensive in your hours. It works for a simple site if you enjoy doing it — and you should know you are renting: stop paying and the site goes off.
- A freelancer is the usual answer for a small business: €1,000 to €8,000 for a brochure site, and you talk directly to the person doing the work. The question to ask is whether they will still be reachable in two years, when you need a page changed.
- An agency costs two to three times more and earns it when a project needs several specialists at once, or when a brand has to be rolled out across many pages and countries. For a five-page site, you are mostly paying for the structure around the work.
A simple rule: below €5,000, a freelancer or a small studio will almost always give you more site for the money. Above that, compare on what is written in the quote, never on the shape of the company.
How to read a quote without being technical
- The list of pages, one by one, and what each one contains.
- Who writes the texts and who supplies the photos — the single biggest source of price differences.
- Whether the design is a template or drawn for you, and how many rounds of changes are included.
- Whose name the domain and the hosting account are opened in. Yours should appear, in writing.
- What is done so the site can be found in search results, in plain words rather than three initials.
- What happens after launch: how you make small edits yourself, what is trained, what is billed and at what rate.
- The payment schedule, the deposit, and what you keep if the project stops halfway.
If a quote is one line and a total, it is not a quote, it is a number. Ask for the detail in writing — anyone serious sends it back within a few days, and the request itself tells you a lot about how the next three months will go.
Five signals worth a second thought
- “Guaranteed first place on Google.” No one controls that ranking, so no one can promise it.
- A price given before anyone has asked what your business does and who your customers are.
- A very low monthly fee tied to a three or four year commitment: multiply it by the full term before you compare it to a purchase.
- Nothing in the documents about who owns the domain, the hosting and the site itself at the end.
- A quote three times below every other one. Something is missing from it — usually the content, the search visibility work, or both.
How to spend less without regretting it
- Start with five pages that are genuinely useful rather than twenty half-written ones. Pages get added later; a bad first impression doesn’t get taken back.
- Write your own texts, even badly. A rough version to correct costs far less than a blank page, and no one knows your customers’ questions better than you.
- Take a good template rather than a bespoke design, and put the difference into photos and content.
- Postpone the features you are unsure about. They will cost the same in a year, and by then you will know whether anyone wants them.
- Give real photos of your own work instead of buying stock images: they cost nothing and they convince far more.
What is not worth cutting: hosting and backups, the upkeep, and the work that makes the site findable. A cheap site nobody ever sees is not a saving, it is a write-off.
How I can help
I build and look after websites for small businesses, and I quote in the same detail I have just described. Concretely, I take on:
- brochure sites, from the five-page version to the fully written one;
- online shops, including payment, delivery options and stock;
- custom sites, applications and internal tools when the ready-made products don’t fit the way you work;
- redesigns of an existing site, without losing the place it already holds in search results;
- monthly upkeep for a site already online: updates, checked backups, an eye on it.
Tell me what your business does, what the site has to achieve and roughly what you had in mind, and I will tell you which of the ranges above yours falls into — including when the honest answer is that a builder you run yourself would do the job.
Frequently asked questions
How much does a website cost for a small business?
For a professional brochure site that works properly on a phone and is set up to be found in search results, budget €1,500 to €4,000. Below €1,000 you get a very standard template with little adapted to you, and usually no work on the texts. Above €4,000 you are paying for written content, a design closer to your business and deeper search work — all of which can be worth it, provided the quote says so line by line.
How much does a website cost per month?
Once it is live, count €10 to €20 a year for the domain name, €40 to €180 a year for hosting a brochure site, and €25 to €60 a month if you want it kept up to date, backed up and watched. A shop costs more on every line: €15 to €50 a month for hosting and €80 to €250 a month for upkeep. Anyone quoting a build price without mentioning any of this has left part of the bill for later.
Is a website builder cheaper than hiring someone?
In cash, yes, and by a lot. In hours, rarely. A builder subscription runs €0 to €400 a year, but you write everything, arrange everything and fix everything, and most owners underestimate that by a factor of three. It is a good choice for a simple site when you have time and enjoy it. It is a poor one when your days are already full, or when the site has to sell, book or calculate something.
Why are two quotes for the same site so far apart?
Because they are not for the same site. The gap is almost always in four places: who writes the texts, whether the design is a template or drawn for you, whether anything is done to make the site findable, and whether upkeep is included. Compare the details rather than the totals — the more expensive quote that includes the writing and the search work is often the cheaper deal after a year.
How long does it take to build a website?
A brochure site takes two to five weeks once the content is in hand; an online shop rather one to two months. The build itself is rarely what sets the pace — the texts, the photos and the approvals do. If you need the site live for a specific date, work backwards from it and set a deadline for the content, not for the code.
Do I own the website once I have paid for it?
Only if the paperwork says so, which is why it deserves a line in the quote. Three things are owned separately: the domain name, the hosting account and the site itself. Ask for all three to be in your company’s name, and ask for the ownership of the finished site to be transferred to you on final payment. With a monthly rental offer, the usual answer is that you own nothing — check before signing, not when you want to leave.
Do you take on this kind of project?
Yes, that is my work: brochure sites, online shops, custom tools and redesigns. The first conversation is free and comes with no obligation — you describe your business and what the site should do, and you get a detailed quote, line by line, within 24 hours. If a simpler and cheaper route would serve you better, I will tell you that instead.
In short
In 2026, a professional brochure site for a small business costs €1,500 to €4,000, an online shop €4,000 to €15,000, and custom work starts around €8,000. Add €1,000 to €2,500 over three years for the domain, the hosting and the upkeep — real costs, not surprises. The rest is method: define what the site must achieve before asking for prices, compare detailed quotes rather than totals, keep the domain and the site in your own name, and start smaller than you think. A site you can afford to keep alive beats a bigger one you abandon after a year.
I build websites, online shops and custom tools for businesses. Got a project in mind? Let’s talk it through — reply within 24 h, free quote, no commitment.