April 12, 2026

How Much Does a Professional Website Cost in 2026? – The Honest Price Guide

From WordPress starting at €990 to premium solutions: What a website really costs, which factors determine the price, and where hidden costs lurk.

The question comes up in almost every first conversation, usually phrased carefully, because nobody likes admitting they have no idea. That is hardly surprising: search for "website cost" and you will find figures from €300 to €50,000, and all of them are true in some sense. So let me write down what my work costs and why. Not a range broad enough to hide in – the actual prices I work with, and the reasons behind the differences.

The Number Depends on a Question That Comes Before the Price

Before you can compare quotes, it has to be clear what the website is supposed to do. A digital business card for a trade business, one that builds trust and puts the phone number where people can see it, is a different project from a shop with 500 items, stock synchronisation and shipping logic. That sounds obvious, but it is exactly where quotes stop being comparable. When two providers say €1,200 and €6,000, they are usually not describing the same outcome.

What I Charge

WordPress, €990 to €2,490. The pragmatic route. You get a design that works on phone, tablet and desktop, a clean SEO foundation, the legally required pages and ways to get in touch – and afterwards you can maintain text and images yourself without asking me. The difference between €990 and €2,490 is essentially scope: number of pages, how much of the design is genuinely custom, and whether features go beyond the standard. What that figure does not include: hosting between €5 and €30 a month, and regular updates. WordPress lives on extensions, and third-party extensions are the usual way security holes get in. That is not an argument against WordPress – it is a line item that belongs in the calculation. Premium with Next.js, from €1,490 plus €29 a month. Here the site is custom-built and runs on infrastructure I operate myself, in Germany. No public login, no plugin chain, no database reachable from the internet. Any publicly reachable application can in principle be attacked; there are simply far fewer ways in here, because there are fewer moving parts. The €29 a month is not pure hosting. Framework, runtime, container and operating system still need updating – I just do it, and it is priced in. "Maintenance-free" would be a lie. "You don't have to deal with it" is accurate. Shop with WooCommerce, €1,490 to €3,990. If you actually intend to sell, WooCommerce on WordPress is a proven foundation. The range depends almost entirely on how much special logic is needed: shipping rules, tiered pricing, connections to inventory systems.

What the Differences Actually Rest On

| Factor | Effect on price | |---|---| | Number of pages | Every distinct page needs design and construction | | Custom design | Adapted theme or made to measure – the single biggest lever | | Features | Form, shop, booking, calculator | | Technical SEO | Structure, load time, markup – cheaper upfront than retrofitted | | Content | Text and images are work, whoever does them | That last point is the one most often underestimated. A quote without copywriting is not cheaper – it just moves the work onto you.

The Most Expensive Mistake Is Not Paying Too Much

Three patterns come up again and again, and all three cost more than they save. The first is the €300 website. It exists, it looks acceptable at first glance, and it has neither a workable structure for search engines nor anyone who feels responsible when something stops working. What gets expensive is rarely the site itself, but starting over two years later. The second is having no picture of what happens after launch. A website is not a finished project but something that runs. If maintenance is not planned for, it does not happen – until an outage brings it up. The third is treating SEO as a later addition. Structure, load time and clean markup are part of the build. Retrofitted, the same thing costs several times over.

Three Projects, Worked Through

Ranges help you place things, but not plan them. So here are three examples of the kind I actually encounter. These are illustrative calculations, not a price list – your project gets its own quote. Trade business, five pages, WordPress. Home, two service pages, about, contact. Adapted theme rather than a bespoke build, copy comes from the business and is edited by me, photos already exist. | Item | Amount | |---|---| | Build | €990 | | Domain, first year | around €15 | | Hosting, 12 months | €60 to €360 | | First year total | around €1,065 to €1,365 | | From year two | €75 to €375 per year | Service provider who cares about speed, Premium. Custom-built, eight pages, blog, contact flow with pre-qualification. | Item | Amount | |---|---| | Build | from €1,490 | | Server, 12 months | €348 | | Domain, first year | around €15 | | First year total | from around €1,853 | | From year two | around €363 per year | Small shop, WooCommerce. 40 products, two shipping rules, payment integration, no inventory sync. | Item | Amount | |---|---| | Build | €1,490 to €2,400 | | Hosting with shop load, 12 months | €180 to €360 | | Domain, first year | around €15 | | First year total | around €1,685 to €2,775 | What stands out in all three cases: the running costs are the smaller part, but they never stop. Comparing only the build means comparing half.

What a Quote Must Contain for You to Compare It

When two quotes are far apart, it's rarely the hourly rate. It's that they describe different things. These seven points make quotes comparable – if one is missing, ask:

Number of pages, named rather than "approx. 5–7".
Who writes the copy. The most expensive invisible item.
Who supplies the images, and whether licences are included.
What happens after launch: updates, backups, a named contact – or explicitly none of it.
Running costs, split into domain, hosting and support.
Who owns the code and the credentials, and what a handover looks like.
What a later change costs – hourly rate or fixed price.

A quote that addresses all seven may legitimately be more expensive than one that stays silent. The silence gets invoiced later.

Why Online Calculators Usually Miss

There are plenty of website cost calculators, and as a first orientation they're fine. Their problem is structural: they ask what is easy to ask – page count, shop yes/no, languages – and those are precisely not the factors that drive the price. The two biggest swings are things no form can capture. First, the state of your content: whether copy and images exist or still have to be created easily shifts a project by a four-figure amount. Second, the number of decision-makers. A project with one contact runs differently from one where three people have to agree on the homepage – not worse, but longer. So take a calculator for the order of magnitude. For the number, you need a conversation.

Where to Start

Take what your business needs now, not what might be necessary in three years. A well-made WordPress presence beats a badly executed custom build every time – and the reverse holds just as well. If you are unsure which of the three directions fits: describe briefly what the site should do and what range you have in mind. You will get an honest assessment, even if it says a cheaper route is enough. Describe your project