What a business website actually costs in 2026

Most answers to this question are useless on purpose. “It depends” protects the person saying it. So here are the numbers I actually quote, what moves them, and what nobody tells you until the invoice arrives.

The ranges

• Landing page — 500 to 900 €. One page, one goal: a form, a call, a booking. Copy, design, mobile, basic technical SEO, analytics.
• Corporate website — 1,200 to 2,500 €. Several sections, a service catalogue, contact form, structured data, a blog if you want one.
• Online store — 2,500 to 6,000 €. Everything above plus catalogue, cart, payment, tax and shipping rules, and order handling.
• Second language — 400 to 900 € on top, per language.
• Redesign and migration of an existing site — 800 to 2,000 €.

A range is not indecision. It means the final number depends on scope, and scope is settled before anything is signed. Whoever gives you a single figure before understanding what you need is either guessing or planning to bill the difference later.

What actually moves the number

Content. This is the biggest one, and it is almost never in the quote. If you hand over texts and photos, a site moves fast. If someone has to write the texts for you, that is a separate job with its own cost — and it is the job that decides whether the site works, not the design.

Number of distinct page types. Ten pages built from the same template cost barely more than one. Three pages that each look different cost like three designs, because they are three designs.

Integrations. A contact form is nothing. A form that writes into your CRM, a booking system with real availability, a payment gateway with invoicing — each of those is real work, and each can fail on its own.

Languages. Not the translation itself, which is the cheap part. The expensive part is that every language multiplies the URLs, needs correct hreflang, its own sitemap entries and its own search-engine setup. A badly built multilingual site ranks worse than a good single-language one.

The three costs quotes leave out

1. Hosting and domain. Small, but not zero, and recurring. A domain is 10 to 15 € a year. Hosting for a static site can be free and for a site with a real backend starts around 5 to 20 € a month. Anyone quoting “hosting included forever” is including one year.

2. Maintenance. A site is not furniture. Dependencies get security patches, integrations change their APIs, certificates expire, and forms break silently — you only find out through the enquiries that never arrive. Plans start at 49 € a month. If you would rather not pay it, fine, but then decide who checks the site and how often, and write it down. “Whenever we notice” means “when a customer tells us it has been down for a week”.

3. Changes after launch. Every site gets them, because you only really see what you need once it is live. Either you budget for a bundle of hours or you will negotiate each change under pressure. Hours run 35 to 60 € depending on volume.

What it costs when it goes wrong

The cheapest quote is rarely the cheapest project. Three things I keep seeing:

• A site nobody can update. Built on something exotic, or with the content hardcoded. Every text change becomes a paid job. Over three years that costs more than the difference you saved.
• No technical SEO from day one. No sitemap, no structured data, no canonical URLs, search console never set up. It is an hour of work at the start and a rebuild six months later, when the question “why don’t we show up on Google” finally gets asked.
• No access to your own stuff. The domain registered in the developer’s name, the hosting in their account, the code nowhere you can reach. Ask for this before you pay the first invoice: the domain in your name, the code in a repository you own, the hosting in an account you control. A professional hands these over without blinking.

How I quote

The price is fixed before any work starts, and it comes after understanding what you need, not before. 50% at the start, 50% on delivery. The range in the catalogue is real: where inside it you land depends on the scope we agree, and once it is agreed it does not move.

If what you need is outside what I do, I will tell you. That is cheaper for both of us than finding out halfway through.