Pricing Guide · Updated July 2026
How Much Does a Website Cost in 2026? An Honest Freelancer's Guide
Ask five developers what a website costs and you'll get five wildly different numbers — anywhere from €10 a month to €50,000. All of them can be "right." Here's how the pricing actually works, from someone who writes these quotes for a living.
The three price tiers
What follows is about business websites — a site whose job is to bring in customers. A one-page personal site for an individual is a smaller product priced separately, from €900. And tier 2 is defined by what you receive, not by the number: a bought theme with your logo swapped in is a template job at any price.
1. DIY builders — €10–45/month
Wix, Squarespace, Shopify and friends. If you have more time than money and just need something online this week, this is a legitimate option — I'll tell you that even though I sell websites.
The catch is the ceiling. You pay forever (that €30/month is €1,800 over five years), the site looks like everyone else's, page speed is out of your hands, and serious SEO work hits walls the platform won't let you climb. When your business outgrows it, you can't take the site with you — you start over.
2. Template freelancers — €300–850
A freelancer buys a €55 theme, swaps in your logo and text, and delivers "your" website. Fine for a simple brochure site — but know what you're buying. The hidden costs show up later: bloated themes that load slowly on phones, plugin licenses that renew annually in your name (or worse, in theirs), and small changes that require paying the same freelancer again because nobody else wants to touch the setup. If the quote seems too cheap, the difference is usually hiding in year two.
3. Custom development — €1,400 and up
A site designed and built around your business: your customers, your content, the specific action you want visitors to take. It costs more upfront because someone is doing actual design and engineering work — not configuring a theme.
When does it pay off? When the website is supposed to produce something: leads, bookings, orders, calls. A custom site that loads fast, ranks on Google, and converts even a handful of extra customers per month usually pays for itself inside the first year. If you just need an online business card, don't buy this tier.
What actually drives the price
- Number of pages. A 5-page site and a 25-page site are different projects. Each page needs layout, content, and SEO attention.
- Custom design. Adapting a template is hours; designing from scratch is days. You're paying for the difference between "looks fine" and "looks like you."
- Features. Contact forms are cheap. Booking systems, payments, multi-language support, and customer accounts are not — each adds real engineering time.
- SEO. "SEO-friendly" should mean concrete things: semantic markup, structured data, meta tags, sitemap, fast Core Web Vitals, indexing configured at launch. That work takes time and shows up in the price.
- Content. Who writes the text and supplies the photos? If the answer is "the developer," expect the quote to reflect it.
Side-by-side comparison
| DIY builder | Template freelancer | Custom development | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Upfront cost | €0 | €300–850 | €1,400+ |
| Ongoing cost | €10–45/month forever | Plugin/theme renewals | Hosting only (~€5–18/month) |
| Time to launch | Days (your time) | 1–2 weeks | 2–4 weeks |
| Unique design | No | Rarely | Yes |
| Page speed | Platform-limited | Often poor | Built for it |
| SEO ceiling | Low–medium | Medium | High |
| You own everything | No | Sometimes | Yes |
| Best for | Testing an idea | Simple brochure site | A site that must generate business |
Red flags when comparing quotes
- No staging link. If you can't watch the site being built at a live URL, you'll see it for the first time when it's "done" — and too late to steer.
- No ownership transfer. Domain, hosting, and code should be registered to you. If the developer keeps them, you're renting your own website — and every future change goes through them.
- "SEO included" with no specifics. Ask what exactly that means. If the answer isn't a concrete list (structured data, meta tags, sitemap, indexing), it means nothing.
- A price with no scope. A number without a written list of pages, features, and revisions isn't a quote — it's an opening bid.
Questions to ask any developer before paying
- What exactly is included at this price — pages, features, revisions?
- Will I get a staging link to follow progress?
- Who owns the domain, hosting, and code when we're done?
- What does "SEO" specifically include?
- What will this cost me per year after launch?
- What happens if I want changes six months from now?
A good developer answers all six without flinching. For what it's worth, here's how I handle them: you get a fixed quote within 48 hours of our first conversation, a live staging link from the first week of the build, and full ownership of everything — domain, hosting, code — registered in your name at handover. That's not a premium option; it's the baseline I'd demand if I were the one paying.
The honest bottom line
There's no universal "right" price — there's the right tier for where your business is. If you're testing an idea, use a builder. If you need a simple online presence, a template is fine, eyes open. If your website needs to bring in customers, custom development is the tier that pays for itself.
Not sure which one you need? Tell me about your business and I'll tell you honestly — including if the answer is "don't hire me yet."
Price is only half the decision. The other half is whether to hire a freelancer or an agency at all — compared fairly, including when an agency wins.