What a website really costs in 2026
Search for "build a website" and you'll find offers from €99 to €50,000. Understanding why that gap exists is the first thing to do, before you ask anyone for a quote.
Across most European markets, 2026 breaks down roughly like this:
- DIY builders (Wix, Squarespace): nothing to build it, then €20–40 a month for the subscription. What you get is a generic site with real technical limits.
- Junior freelancer or Fiverr: €200–600. Unpredictable. Sometimes fine, often not.
- Experienced freelancer or a specialist studio: €600–3,500. This is where most professional sites for small and medium-sized businesses sit.
- Mid-sized agencies: €3,500–15,000. For projects with complicated features, or a marketing team behind them.
- Large agencies and corporate projects: €15,000 and up. Integrations, custom systems, a whole team of specialists.
These are general ranges, not quotes. Local rates and currencies move the numbers around, but the shape of the ladder is much the same wherever you are.
What pushes the budget up (or down)
The price of a site isn't only about its size. It's a handful of factors, and they're worth understanding before you compare two quotes:
Number of pages and how complex the content is
A five-page site with plain text is not the same job as 20 pages with a blog, image galleries that change, and product pages.
Custom design vs. an off-the-shelf template
A design drawn from scratch around your brand can be 30 to 60% of the total budget.
Extra features
Booking forms, a CRM connection, more than one language, a client login area — each one adds development time.
Technical SEO and speed
A site optimised for Google from the code up takes extra work, and plenty of quotes quietly leave it out.
"The price of a site shouldn't be your first question. What matters is what it costs you not to have one, or to have one that doesn't convert."
The cheap website trap
One story comes up again and again. A business picks the cheapest option, somewhere around €200–400. The site is mediocre, it loads slowly, it doesn't turn visitors into customers, and two years later the whole thing has to be redone. Total cost: double the original budget.
Be wary if the quote doesn't spell out the domain name and hosting, if there's no agreed process for revisions, if technical SEO isn't mentioned at all, or if you can't see examples of earlier work.
Sites that look cheap often carry hidden costs: paid templates nobody renews the licence for, premium plugins that expire, or maintenance you have to buy separately at a steep price.
Before you accept a quote, ask what happens to the domain name, the hosting and any software licences after the first year. That's what gives you the real picture of the total cost.
First Day Online plans and prices
At First Day Online we work with fixed prices and no nasty surprises. You see a preview of your site before you pay anything. Here are our five plans, built to cover what most freelancers and small businesses need:
Prices are one-off, not a subscription. Tax is added at checkout where it applies. Renewing your domain name costs around €15 a year, and hosting is around €80–120 a year from the second year onwards. A care plan is optional and runs from €29 to €149 a month, depending on how much looking after your site needs.
Every First Day Online project includes a responsive design (it works on phones), an SSL certificate, speed optimisation, registration with Google Search Console, and 30 days of support after launch.
