How much does a website cost? From €995 in 2026

For a price for your own situation, request a quote.

How much does a website cost?

A simple business website of five pages costs from €995 to have made, excluding VAT. For that you get a ready base design in your colours and with your logo, with a contact form. It costs more once the website has to do more: text you edit yourself, more pages, a design of its own or a link to other software. The amount follows from the number of hours, and the hours follow from what the website has to do.

Each amount is where that type of website starts; a builder’s quote states the exact price. The first two rows are built on a ready base design in which the structure, the legal details, the search engine settings and the accessibility are already done, so the work is mostly your text, your colours and your photographs. The hours per part and the worked example are for a website with a design of its own, so that you can check them against your own website.

Count on about €100 an hour. The hourly rate differs per supplier: at €75 every amount is a quarter lower, at €125 a quarter higher. The hours allow for AI tools in programming, which speed up the building. Design, discussion and deciding what each page should say take as long as they used to. A web shop with a large catalogue falls outside these amounts: a ready-made shop platform suits that better.

Do you need a custom website at all?

A custom website is not always the cheapest choice, and in three situations something else is better:

• One page is enough for you, saying who you are, what you do and how clients reach you. You make that with a website builder in an afternoon, for a subscription of a few tens of euros a month.
• You want to build and move pages around yourself. On a website you manage yourself, you usually edit text and images, not the layout. If you want to change the layout yourself, a website builder or a standard content management system is the better choice.
• You have a web shop with many products. Payments, stock, shipping and returns come with a shop platform, and building those yourself costs many hours and gains little.

In those cases there is no need to have a website made. Want to try it with an AI tool? Here is what it does and does not do for you.

Where do the hours go?

Almost every business website is made of the same parts. You add up the ones you need; this is how many hours each part takes, and what that is at €100 an hour:

A page and a form are smaller than you might think. The time goes into the design and into deciding what belongs on the pages. A link to another system varies most: linking a newsletter service is a few hours, linking a system nobody has documented takes more than twenty.

The same table works for a large website. Fifteen to thirty pages in two languages, with a news section and a few links to other systems, add up to 100 to 200 hours of work, so €10,000 to €20,000.

Want to know which parts your own website needs and what they add up to? Ask for a quote and list the pages you have in mind.

A worked example: the website of a law firm

The law firm wants six pages, a contact form and the ability to edit text itself. From the table above:

69 hours × €100 is €6,900. At €75 an hour it is €5,175 and at €125 an hour €8,625.

The firm could also start small: three pages (what the firm does, for whom, how to get in touch) and no way to edit text itself. That is 19 hours for the structure, the design and the pages, plus 3 for the form, 2 for the legal details, 5 for search engines, 5 for accessibility, 2 for statistics and 3 for going live: 39 hours. With 6 hours of testing and 5 of project management it comes to 50 hours, €5,000. That is a good quarter less, and the firm is online. Start like this if you do not yet know what visitors look for: you add what they actually read and do not pay for pages nobody opens.

The ready base design is cheaper still. Five pages on it take 10 to 15 hours, which is €995 to €1,500, because the structure, the legal details, the search engine settings and the accessibility are already done. What the firm gives up is a design made for the firm: the layout is the base design in its colours and logo. How a firm lays out its pages and what the Bar asks for is in law firm website cost in the Netherlands.

Is your website like the firm’s, or larger, or smaller? Ask for a quote and we will work out the hours for your own pages.

What decides the price of a website?

The hours follow the size of the work, and that size depends mostly on seven things:

• The number of pages and kinds of pages: ten pages that look alike are cheaper than five that each have their own layout.
• Own design or a standard layout: a design made for your business and tested on real phones takes 6 to 24 hours. A standard layout takes less but looks like many others.
• Whether the text is ready: waiting for text and photos is the most common reason a website takes longer and costs more.
• Changing it yourself: an editing environment where your staff change text and images takes 5 to 18 hours. If you change little, it is cheaper to have the builder do it.
• More than one language: the pages themselves cost little extra; the translation and keeping two versions up to date cost your time.
• Links to other systems: a booking system, a newsletter or a till system each has to be linked and tested.
• Moving existing pages: if you already have a website, the addresses of the old pages have to point to the new ones, or you lose your place in search results. That takes hours, and it is worth it.

Would you like to see what your own website could look like before you decide on an amount? Ask for a free example of your homepage, with no obligation.

What does a website cost after it is delivered?

After the build you pay for the domain name, for hosting (the place where the website runs) and for maintenance:

Maintaining a website costs less than maintaining an app. For an app you count on 15 to 20% of the build cost a year, because it has to follow a new operating system from Apple and Google every year; a website does not. There are updates of the parts it runs on, and there are more of them for a website with many plug-ins. A simple website of plain files needs 2 to 4 hours a year, €200 to €400. The law firm’s website (€6,900), as a website of plain files, needs three to seven hours, €300 to €700, small changes included. For a large website that is about 5 to 10% of the build cost; for a small website the share is higher, because the updates and the check always take a few hours.

With domain and hosting the firm pays about €310 to €965 a year on top of the build cost. Over three years the website comes to €7,800 to €9,800. What maintenance involves and costs has its own article.

Can a website have no monthly costs?

Almost. A domain and hosting always cost something, but that does not have to be a subscription that holds your website hostage. A website of plain files runs for €0 to €20 a month, and you can take it with you. What you want to avoid is a website you pay for every month and cannot move. So ask every supplier three things:

1. In whose name is the domain name registered? Your company’s, not the builder’s.
2. Whose account does the website run in? Your company’s. Then the website stays online even if you and the builder part ways.
3. Do you get the complete source code? Without it, another builder can take the website over only with great effort, and you often start again.

What are cheaper alternatives?

For four situations there is something cheaper than a custom website:

• A website builder: you click the website together yourself with a ready-made design. It costs a monthly subscription plus your own hours, and you are tied to the platform: if it stops or raises its price, you have no website you can take with you. Suited to a simple website whose layout you want to be able to change yourself.
• A standard content management system with a ready-made design: cheaper to start than a custom website. You pay later for updates and security of the plug-ins, and the website looks like many others. Suited if you want to change a lot and spend little.
• A website made with an AI tool: in an afternoon you have something that works. The legal details, accessibility, the domain name and maintenance you have to check yourself, and a website made by AI gives the list.
• Building it yourself with a standard design: count on 20 to 60 hours of your own time. What an hour of yours is worth decides whether that is cheaper.

How long does it take to have a website made?

Count on about 30 productive hours a week for one developer. The law firm’s website (69 hours) is then a little over two weeks of work, the smallest version (50 hours) almost two. On the calendar it is four to seven weeks, because you have to respond to designs and because text and photos have to be there. A business website of five pages on a ready-made base design goes faster: it can be online two weeks after the text and photos are there. Someone who responds within a few days and has the text ready finishes sooner than someone who writes it at delivery.

What should be in the quote?

How to compare quotes applies to a website as well. For a website, four points come on top:

How do you keep the cost down?

Start with the smallest version you can go live with, and extend it with what visitors actually read. Hand over the text and photos before the project starts, because waiting for them is the biggest cause of overrun. Make sure one person on your side can decide and respond within a few days. And keep the number of kinds of pages small: ten pages with the same layout are cheaper than five that each have their own.

Do not save on three things: that the domain name and the account are yours, that the website is accessible and that the legal details are on it. Those are the savings that cost you dearly later.

Frequently asked questions

Having your website made with us

If a website builder or an AI tool is enough, or you want to be able to change the layout yourself, you do not need us. If you want a website that loads fast and works for everyone, and whose domain name, account and source code are yours, we build it, from €995 for five pages on our base design. Ask for a quote and describe what the website has to do. The quote states the hours, the schedule, the price, what is not included and an estimate of the running costs.

See an example website quote first.