How much does a website cost in 2026?

Every quote you receive sits in one of four brackets. The difference is not mainly quality of design — it is how much human time is billed, and how much of the ongoing work is included.

• Agency (3,000-15,000 EUR): strategy, custom design, copywriting, project management. Worth it when the site is central to a large revenue stream, or when you need someone accountable. Timeline: 6-12 weeks.
• Freelancer (800-3,000 EUR): usually a template customised for you. Good value, but the outcome depends heavily on the individual, and support after launch is often thin.
• DIY builder (150-400 EUR/year): Wix, Squarespace, WordPress + theme. Cheap in cash, expensive in your hours — the real cost is the 20-40 hours you spend, plus whatever you fail to finish.
• AI builder (monthly subscription): the site is generated from your existing content in minutes, then you refine it. Cheapest total cost of ownership and the fastest way to get online — but you need to check the result rather than trusting it blindly.

Page count matters far less than people assume; a five-page site and a nine-page site cost nearly the same to produce. Four things genuinely move the price.

• Custom design vs. template: bespoke visual design is the single largest line item in any agency quote.
• Content: who writes the text and sources the photos. Copywriting is frequently quoted separately, and it is where projects stall for months.
• Functionality: a brochure site is cheap. Bookings, e-commerce, logins, payments and integrations each add real engineering.
• Ongoing work: hosting, updates, security, and — the one everybody forgets — publishing new content so the site actually ranks.

The build price is the part you can see. The recurring costs are what decide whether the site was a good investment: domain (10-40 EUR/year), hosting (50-300 EUR/year), SSL (usually free now), maintenance and updates (200-1,000 EUR/year if outsourced), and content.

Content is the big one. A beautiful site with five pages that never change will sit on page four of Google forever. Whether you pay an agency 300-600 EUR per article, do it yourself at three to five hours each, or automate it, budget for content — it is the difference between a brochure and a customer-acquisition channel.

Match the spend to what the site must do. If it is a credibility page people visit after meeting you, do not spend 8,000 EUR on it — spend the minimum and put the rest into being findable. If the site is your primary sales channel, an agency can be worth every euro.

For most small and local businesses the honest answer in 2026 is: get a professional site up fast and cheaply, then invest the savings into content that brings traffic. That is precisely the ordering the AI route makes possible — you can see what your rebuilt site looks like before spending anything.