How Much Does a Website Cost in 2026?

"How much would a website cost?" is one of the first questions every client asks — and it's also one of the hardest to answer honestly without more context. The price of a website can range from a few hundred to tens of thousands of euros, and the reason isn't arbitrary.

What actually drives the price

Scope — a five-page brochure site and a custom web application are not the same category of work
Custom design vs. a template — a unique, on-brand design takes real design time; a template doesn't
Backend complexity — user accounts, payments, bookings, or admin dashboards all add real engineering time
Content and CMS needs — whether the client needs to manage content themselves changes the architecture
Integrations — payment providers, CRMs, email marketing tools, and third-party APIs each add their own cost
Ongoing maintenance — hosting, updates, monitoring, and support aren't one-time costs

Why "just give me a number" rarely works

A landing page built from a template with no backend can reasonably cost a few hundred euros. A custom-built platform with user accounts, a database, payment processing, and an admin panel is an entirely different project — often ten to fifty times the cost — because the underlying engineering work is fundamentally different, not just "more of the same."

This is why a responsible developer will always ask questions before quoting a price, rather than giving a number off the top of their head. A quote given without understanding the scope is either a guess or a trap.

How to get an accurate estimate

The most useful thing you can do as a client is write down what the site actually needs to do — not how it should look, but what actions a visitor should be able to take, and what you need to manage behind the scenes. That single document turns a vague pricing conversation into a concrete, comparable estimate.

And if a quote seems suspiciously low compared to others for the same scope, it's worth asking what's being cut — because in web development, corners that get cut early almost always show up later as bugs, security gaps, or a site that can't be extended without a rebuild.

Rough price ranges (as a starting point, not a quote)

Simple template-based landing page, no backend: a few hundred euros
Custom-designed business website with a CMS: low to mid four figures
Web application with accounts, database, and custom features: mid four to five figures
Complex platform with payments, integrations, and an admin system: five figures and up

These ranges vary a lot by market and by developer experience, and they're meant only to calibrate expectations, not to replace an actual quote based on your specific scope.

Don't forget the ongoing costs

A website isn't a one-time purchase. Hosting, domain renewal, SSL, dependency updates, and security patches are recurring costs, and skipping them is how a modern site quietly turns into a security liability within a year or two. Any serious quote should account for what happens after launch, not just the initial build.