What does a website
actually cost?
A website starts at € 1,500: your own design, your own domain, copy in place and live. If you want to sell from it, a webshop starts at € 2,250, and if clients need to log in to see their own data you are looking at € 3,450 and up. Below is what you get per kind of site, the six things that move the amount, and what falls outside the project price.
Six things set the price. The number of pages least of all.
Scope
Not how many pages there are, but how many of them need their own design. Ten text pages on the same layout are one design; a product overview next to a narrative page are two.
Functionality
A contact form is included. A quotation tool that calculates, a calendar people book into themselves, or an integration with your bookkeeping is each a separate piece of building, with its own testing.
Content
If copy and photos already exist, it moves fast. If I have to write along, or rewrite the existing copy so it also works for Google, that counts towards the price.
Migration
Replacing an existing site is more work than starting from nothing. Old URLs have to move across with redirects, otherwise you lose the rankings you already had.
Multiple languages
A second language is not twice the price, but it is not free either: every page gets its own URL, a language switch and hreflang, and either you supply the translation or I arrange it.
Design or existing branding
If you already have branding, I follow it and it costs nothing extra. If the design has to be drawn and thought through with you first, that is design time sitting separately in the amount.
How an indication becomes an amount.
A thirty-minute conversation
We walk through what the site has to do and who for. Usually half the page list turns out to be one template, and something that was not on it turns out to need its own screen.
One fixed amount, no range
Within two working days you get the amount for the whole thing: design, build, copy in place, CMS and launch. No 'from', no billing by the hour, no reconciliation afterwards.
Paying per milestone
Usually three instalments: on agreement, on delivery of the design and at launch. You pay a part only once that part is there and you have seen it.
If the scope changes, you hear it first
Think of an extra page or feature halfway through and you get a separate amount for it before I start on it. Not hidden on the final invoice afterwards.
- ✓Your own design, not a theme off the shelf
- ✓Copy put in place, not an empty CMS handed over
- ✓Findability built in: speed, structure, redirects
- ✓The domain and the hosting are in your name
- ✓An explanation of how to change text and photos yourself
- ✓Thirty days of warranty after launch
Your own design, up to roughly five pages, copy in place, a form and launch. What moves the amount above that is listed above.
Want to know where your site lands without going through a whole quotation process first? Describe it in the form or email me a link to your current site, and you hear an amount within a day. Including when the answer is that your current site is fine and your money is better spent elsewhere.
Three kinds of site, three amounts
The question 'what does a website cost' is really three questions, because three different things hide behind that one word. Here they are, with the amount they start at. All amounts exclude VAT and include launch.
If you recognise your own situation, the wider story sits on its own page: website development, ecommerce development or a client portal. If it is an internal system rather than a site, work it out on what custom software costs.
Website · from € 1,500
A site that explains what you do and sends visitors to a form or a phone number. Own design, a handful of pages, copy in place and delivered findable. For most businesses this is the whole question.
Webshop · from € 2,250
Everything above plus products, a cart, payments through Mollie or Stripe and the orders landing in your admin. The extra work sits in the product structure and the payment flow, not in the design.
Site with a login · from € 3,450
Everything above plus a private area where clients see their own file, quotes or invoices. From here on it is no longer a website but software with a website in front of it.
And where does it usually land?
Most websites I build land between two and four thousand euros. Above five thousand there is almost always functionality in there you could have built separately: a portal, an integration or a second language.
Why the same amount is double elsewhere
Ask for three quotes and you get fifteen hundred, five thousand and twelve thousand euros for what on paper is the same site. That difference rarely sits in the site and almost always in who builds it.
At an agency your project carries an account manager, a project lead, a designer and a developer, plus an office. That is not a scam, that is their cost structure, but you are the one paying for it, including the meetings you were not in. At the bottom end the opposite happens: a five-hundred-euro site is a theme off the shelf with your logo in it, and two years later you pay again because there is nobody keeping it up.
I build alone. Less coordination, no handover between people who do not know each other's code, and a price that matches. It also means I cannot take on a six-month project with eight people; you are better off at an agency for that. Which of the three routes fits you is written out on agency, freelancer or building it yourself, and the full rate structure on pricing.
What the price covers, and what it does not
The project price is the build: from empty screen to a site that is live with your copy in it. What comes after sits deliberately separate, because it is recurring work with its own cost and not a percentage of your project.
Domain, hosting and any licences are passed on at cost, so without a markup. Maintenance is optional and costs € 50 a month: certificates, updates, backups and small copy changes. What exactly falls under it sits on maintenance and support. If you already have a WordPress site and just need someone to keep it running, see WordPress maintenance.
- ✓Design, build and launch: in the price
- ✓Putting the copy in place: in the price
- ✓Redirects from your old site: in the price
- ✓Explaining how to make changes yourself: in the price
- ✓Thirty days of warranty: in the price
- ✓Domain and hosting: passed on at cost
- ✓Maintenance: optional, per month
- ✓Photography and ad budget: you arrange those
Paying once or paying monthly
A monthly amount sounds friendlier than an invoice all at once, and sometimes it is. The difference sits in what you have at the end: with a one-off amount the site is yours, with a monthly amount you are usually renting it, and your site stops when the payments stop.
I do both, but I say what you actually get in either case. What a monthly model looks like with me sits on paying monthly; what to check with other providers before you sign is laid out in this article. If you are wondering how long it takes before you see anything, the timeline sits step by step in how long does building a website take.
What gets built for amounts like these in the real world
Clients rate me
5 stars on average.
Translated from the Dutch originals on Google.
I am Bas Voets. Since 2021 I have been building websites, client portals and business software for small and mid-sized companies, from Hazerswoude-Dorp in the Netherlands. From first call to launch you talk to me, not to an account manager.
What does having a website built cost?
Can it be cheaper than that?
What does a webshop cost?
What does a website cost per month?
Are the domain and hosting included?
What does maintenance cost per year?
Why do quotes for the same site vary so much?
Can I pay in instalments?
How long until the site is live?
Tell me what you
want to build.
A half-hour call. You get an honest answer about what it costs, how long it takes and whether building it is smart at all.