What does a website really cost? The honest pricing guide

Anyone commissioning a website for the first time is in for a small shock when comparing quotes: one offer says €349, the next €4,900 — and both promise "a professional website". How can that be?

The short answer: you are not comparing the same product. The long answer is this article.

The three price tiers — and what's behind them

Roughly speaking, the market splits into three worlds, and each one answers a different question.

DIY website builders (€0–30 per month). Wix, Squarespace and friends sell you tools, not a website. The price looks unbeatable — until you honestly count your own working hours. Twenty or thirty hours of learning curve are normal, and the result ends up looking like a thousand other sites from the same kit. Perfectly fine for a hobby. Rarely fine for a business that wants its website to win customers.

Template providers (€300–1,000). Here a ready-made design template is filled with your logo and your texts. It's fast and cheap — but the structure of the page was never thought through for your business. Whether a visitor becomes a caller is a matter of luck on these sites, because exactly that path — from first glance to enquiry — is not part of the product.

Custom development (from roughly €1,500). Here the first questions are: who are your customers, what do they search for, what should the site achieve? Design, copy and structure follow that answer. It costs more because real work goes into it — and it is the only one of the three worlds optimised for enquiries rather than for the purchase price.

The cheapest website is the one that brings customers. Everything else is expensive — no matter what it cost.

A real-world calculation

A trades business with a €300 template site received exactly three enquiries through its website in twelve months. After a relaunch with a clear structure, real project photos and well-crafted copy, it was three per week.

Let's calculate conservatively: if only one in five enquiries becomes a job and a job brings in €800 on average, the "expensive" website pays for itself within a few weeks. The "cheap" one quietly cost revenue for three years.

The hidden costs nobody talks about

• Your own time. Every hour spent in a website builder is an hour not spent running your actual business.
• Ongoing fees in the small print. Some agencies only rent websites out — after three years of instalments you still own nothing.
• Missed enquiries. The biggest item of all, and it never appears on any invoice.

How to recognise a fair offer

1. A fixed price instead of an open hourly rate — you know what it costs before you start.
2. The provider asks about your goals, not just your favourite colours.
3. Ongoing costs are stated transparently in the offer — hosting and domain are a small, honest monthly amount, not a surprise item.
4. The website belongs to you in the end — including domain and content.

If you want to know where your project lands price-wise: our packages and starting prices are public — and in the free intro call you'll get an honest assessment, even if the answer is that you don't need a new website at all yet.