“How much does a website cost?” is one of the most-searched questions in web design — and also one of the hardest to answer honestly. Ask five agencies and you’ll get five different numbers, from a few hundred euros to five figures. Nobody’s necessarily lying. They’re just answering a different question than the one you asked.
Why “It Depends” Is Actually the Honest Answer
A website isn’t one product — it’s a category, the same way “a vehicle” covers both a bicycle and a truck. A five-page brochure site for a local business and a custom e-commerce platform with inventory sync are both “websites,” but they have almost nothing in common in terms of the work involved. Price follows scope, every time.
What Actually Drives the Price
- Template vs. fully custom design. A well-chosen premium theme, customized to match your brand, is faster and cheaper to build than a layout designed from a blank canvas. Both can look great — they just take different amounts of time.
- Number of pages and complexity per page. Five straightforward pages cost less than five pages each packed with custom sections, animations, and interactive elements.
- Functionality beyond “just a website.” Online ordering, reservation systems, multilingual content, inventory management, custom booking calendars — each of these is its own scope of work layered on top of the base site.
- Content creation. Do you already have professional photography and written copy, or does that need to be produced as part of the project? Content work is frequently underestimated and is often where budgets quietly expand.
- Ongoing needs vs. one-time build. A site that needs regular updates, SEO work, or a growth-focused strategy is a different commitment than a “build it and forget it” project.
What This Actually Looks Like in Practice
Rather than speak in abstractions, here’s how we structure it for our own clients — not as the only right way to do it, but as a concrete example of how scope maps to price:
- Starting around €700 — a premium theme customized to your brand, up to five pages, mobile optimization, and basic SEO setup. Ideal for a business that needs a clean, professional presence without a from-scratch design process.
- Starting around €3,000 — a fully custom design built from scratch, tailored layout and user experience, advanced animations and interactions, and a structure built to scale as the business grows.
- Starting around €4,500 — everything in the custom tier, plus an ongoing growth-focused relationship: continued SEO, content, and optimization after launch, not just a one-time handoff.
These are starting points, not fixed prices — a site with heavy custom functionality will land above its tier’s base, the same way a smaller, simpler project might land below it.
The Real Question Isn’t “How Much” — It’s “What’s Included”
Two quotes with the same number on them can represent completely different amounts of actual work. Before comparing prices between agencies, compare scope: How many pages? Is the design template-based or custom? Is content creation included or separate? Is there SEO setup, or just a site with no visibility plan? Is there a support period after launch, or does the relationship end at handoff?
A cheap quote that excludes half of what you actually need isn’t cheaper — it’s the same project with the real cost hidden until later.
A Quick Way to Sanity-Check Any Quote
If a quote is dramatically lower than everything else you’ve seen, ask specifically what’s included — pages, revisions, content, SEO, post-launch support. If a quote is dramatically higher with no clear explanation of added scope, ask what specifically justifies the difference. Good agencies can answer both questions clearly and immediately.
Not Sure What Your Project Actually Needs?
That’s normal — most business owners aren’t supposed to know web development scope by heart. We’re happy to walk through what your specific site would actually require, with a clear breakdown of why, before you commit to anything.
We’ll tell you honestly what your site needs — and what it doesn’t.
