What a website costs in 2026 and what should be included

"How much does a website cost?" is the question we hear most often. The answer "it depends" does not help you, so in this article you will find specific numbers, an explanation of what makes up the price, and a list of the costs people often forget when planning a website.

The short answer: three types of websites

Most company websites fall into one of three groups. The difference is not in how "big" the website is, but in what it should do and who will look after it.

If you cannot decide between the first two options, read the article Website with CMS or without? For an online store, it helps to read the comparison custom online store, or a ready-made platform.

What exactly should be in the base price

When you compare quotes, do not look only at the number at the end. Two quotes with the same price can contain completely different things. For a presentation website, the price should include at least this:

• Custom design for mobile and desktop, not a tweaked template that another thousand companies use.
• Fast loading. Our goal is a Google PageSpeed score of 90 or more and Core Web Vitals (the speed and comfort metrics Google tracks) in the green range. More in the article Core Web Vitals in plain language.
• Contact form, that actually delivers the message to your e-mail.
• Traffic measurement, ideally without annoying cookies, so you know how many people visit the site and where they came from.
• HTTPS, backups and launch on your domain. HTTPS is a secure connection (the padlock in the browser).
• SEO essentials, which we break down right below.

What "SEO essentials included" means

SEO essentials does not mean a vague "the website will be optimized". Specifically, it covers these things:

• technical SEO: speed, the mobile version, HTTPS and clean page addresses,
• titles and descriptions for every subpage (what people see in Google results),
• a proper heading structure, so that both Google and the reader understand what the page is about,
• a sitemap, a robots.txt file and a connection to Google Search Console (a free Google tool for monitoring your website),
• schema.org structured data, that is a machine readable description of the company, its services and prices,
• SEO for AI: AI crawler access, clear answers and an llms.txt file, so that ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity know about you too,
• local SEO: linking the website to your Google business profile.

Long-term work on your search rankings (content, keywords, links, watching the competition) is covered by a separate service SEO Complete. Still, every website needs the essentials from day one.

What raises the price of a website

The "from" price applies to a standard scope. You go above it mainly when the website has to do more than just inform. Most often it comes down to these items:

• The number of subpages and language versions. Every language version means translation, proofreading and its own SEO.
• Connections to other systems: booking, inventory, accounting, a CRM (a system for managing customers) or a payment gateway.
• Custom features such as calculators, product configurators, a client area or appointment booking.
• Custom texts and photos. Professional texts and your own photos are the best investment in a website, but they cost both time and money.
• Moving content from the old site including redirects from the old addresses, so you do not lose your rankings in Google.
• For an online store the number of products and variants, shipping and payment methods, automatic invoices and feeds (product lists) for price comparison sites.

An example from practice: with the website for the beauty salon Runway Care & Beauty it was not just a presentation. It also included online booking with available time slots and a client area. That is a different category from a presentation website and the price reflects it.

The hidden costs people forget

The price of a website is a one-time cost, but the website lives on. When you plan your budget, count on these items as well:

For a normal company website, the domain and hosting are small items compared to the price of the website, but they come back regularly. The most underestimated line is the last one: a website breaks quietly (after an update, a change on the server or an expired certificate) and the owner hears about it from a customer. That is why we created Website Guardian, which checks your website automatically every week for 29 € per month. The first 14 days are free.

Why a cheap website often ends up expensive

A website for a few hundred euros does exist. The question is not whether it is cheap, but what it will cost you afterwards. With cheap websites we often see these problems:

• Slowness. A heavy template with dozens of plugins takes a long time to load on a mobile and some visitors leave before they even see the website.
• No SEO. The website looks nice, but Google cannot place it. Titles, descriptions and structured data are missing.
• Lock-in. A website built in an online "builder" often cannot be moved anywhere else. When you leave, you start from zero.
• Nobody takes care of it. After launch no updates are done and in time the website becomes vulnerable.

The result? In two years you pay for a new website again. A cheap website often ends up costing more than a proper one built right at the start. We have written up the problems we find most often when we check websites in the article 10 mistakes we find during an audit.

Questions to ask about the price

For vetting the supplier itself we have a separate list of ten questions: who owns the code, what happens when the work ends, where your data will be. This article is about price, so add these three to them.

1. What exactly is included in the price for SEO? Ask for a specific list, not for "optimization".
2. How fast will the page be on a mobile? Ask about a measurable goal.
3. Will I be able to change the texts myself? If so, how it works and whether training is included in the price.

How to find out what you really need

The best quotes come about when both sides know what the website should achieve. We recommend this approach:

1. Find out how your current website is doing. Our Free audit will show you in a minute what slows the website down on mobile and desktop.
2. Write down the jobs of the website, not the features. Instead of "I want a slider", write "I want people to contact me about kitchen renovations".
3. Compare what the quotes contain, not just the final figure. The list above will help you.
4. Request a free quote. We reply within 1 business day with an estimate of the price and the schedule.

You will find a complete overview of the packages in the price list, details on how we build websites on the page Web design.