How much does a website cost in 2026? An honest answer

It’s probably the most searched question when you need a new website: what does it actually cost? The honest answer is: it depends. But that doesn’t help you, so let me make it concrete.

What you get for €0–500

Website builders like Squarespace, Wix, or a cheap WordPress template. You build it yourself, pay a monthly subscription, and have something live within a day.

Is this bad? Not necessarily. For a very small freelancer who needs something fast and has no budget, this is an acceptable start. But you trade off on three things: speed, findability, and quality of impression. A Wix site looks like a Wix site — and Google knows it too.

For most business owners who want to seriously attract clients through their website, this isn’t enough.

What you get for €299–800 on platforms like Fiverr

Someone fills in a template with your text and you have a website. I regularly see this when clients call me because their “new website” isn’t generating anything.

The problem: templates are built for nobody in particular. No SEO structure tailored to your market, no focus on your customer, no unique story. It looks just professional enough to launch — but too generic to convert.

What a professional website costs

Here’s where it gets concrete. These are the standard price ranges for custom work:

Simple business website — €1,000 to €2,500 A clean, well-built website with five to ten pages. Custom design, solid SEO foundation, contact form, mobile-optimised. Right for freelancers, small businesses and service providers who want a serious online presence.

More extensive website with CMS — €2,500 to €5,000 A website where the client can add or edit content themselves. Think blog, news section or product pages. This involves a content management system, more pages and more alignment upfront.

E-commerce / Shopify webshop — €1,500 to €6,000+ Webshops have their own complexity: product pages, filters, payment integrations, inventory. The price varies widely depending on the number of products and how custom the shop needs to be.

Complex website or web app — €5,000 to €20,000+ Platforms, SaaS products, sites with login, personalised content, AI integrations. This is a different kind of project — more technical, more iterations, more time.

What determines the price

Three factors make the biggest difference:

1. How custom the design is. Adapting an existing template costs less than a design built from scratch around your brand and audience.

2. How many pages and how much content. Ten pages with good copy and SEO takes more time than a simple one-pager. But it delivers more too.

3. Functionality. A static site is cheaper than a site with a login environment, CMS, form handling, third-party integrations or e-commerce.

My rates

I work as an independent web designer and developer. No agency, no overhead, no middlemen.

• Hourly rate: €60 excl. VAT
• Websites from: €1,000
• Webshops from: €1,500
• UI/UX design (Figma): from €300

What you get: one point of contact for strategy, design and development. I think with you about your audience, structure and findability — not just about how it looks.

Agencies charge €150 to €250 per hour for comparable quality. The difference is overhead, not the work itself.

What is your website worth?

The right question isn’t “what does a website cost?” — it’s “what does a good website deliver?”

A massage practice runs full. A law firm ranks for the keywords their clients use. A well-built website pays itself back — sometimes within weeks.

A bad website costs you clients without you even noticing.

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Want to know what a website would cost for your specific situation? Get in touch — I’ll give you an honest estimate within a day. Or explore my web design services to see what’s possible.