What does a website cost? The quote, itemized
The honest answer is "it depends", and that helps nobody with a budget to plan. So here it is the other way round: what the price is actually made of, what recurs every year, and the eight questions that make two quotes comparable.
Ask ten shops what a website costs and you get ten versions of "it depends". That is even true, and it is useless to anyone trying to set a budget.
So here it is the other way round. What the price is actually made of, which part is one-time and which part recurs every year, and the eight questions that pull two quotes close enough together that a comparison becomes possible. Our own numbers are at the end, so you know which corner we are arguing from.
The short answer
These are the ranges quoted in the US market for each scope.
| What you get | Typical range | When it fits |
|---|---|---|
| DIY builder, you do the work | $15 to $99 a month | You have time and trust your own eye |
| One page, one purpose | $800 to $3,000 | A calling card, one offer, one way to reach you |
| Business site, four to eight pages | $1,500 to $8,000 | The normal case for solo businesses and small teams |
| The same site in two languages | Add 30 to 60 % | A second language means a second version of every page |
| Site with booking or a calculator | $6,000 to $20,000 | The moment something calculates, books or charges |
| Online store | from $8,000 | Products, shipping, payment, tax |
| Platform or a product of your own | from $20,000 | User accounts, data, continuous development |
The ranges are wide, and that is the point. They narrow the moment you answer the questions in the next section.
What the price actually hangs on
That is the most common wrong assumption. Design is one line item among several and rarely the largest. Six decisions move the price.
How many pages. Not the count alone, but the number of different pages. Twelve product pages built from one pattern are a fraction of the work of three pages that are each built differently.
Where the copy comes from. The most expensive sentence in many projects is "we will send the text later". Having copy written costs money, writing it yourself costs time, and copy that never arrives costs the whole project. Who supplies the content belongs in the quote.
How many languages. A second language nearly doubles everything: every page, every menu, every error message, every legal notice. Plus the markup that tells search engines which version is meant for whom.
Whether anything calculates. A contact form is a form. A form that checks availability, computes a price and starts a payment is software. That is the largest single jump on this list.
Whether you are migrating. A new site on an empty domain is straightforward. A new site replacing an existing one needs a list of the old addresses and a redirect for each, or it loses its visibility in Google. How that runs is in our post on the website relaunch.
Who maintains it afterwards. A site only a specialist can change is cheaper to build and more expensive to run. A site you maintain yourself needs more care up front and a proper handover.
Where the hours go
Convert every quote into hours once. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the median wage for web developers and digital designers at $47.85 an hour (May 2025). That is an employee wage. A freelancer billing their own overhead, insurance, downtime and taxes lands roughly at double, an agency higher still, which is how the familiar $100 to $200 an hour comes about.
So a $4,000 quote is somewhere around 30 to 40 hours of actual work. Anyone promising you eighty hours for $4,000 has either miscalculated or means something different than you do.
Here is how those hours split across a two-week project at our shop. Other shops slice it differently, the orders of magnitude are similar.
| Step | Share | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| Kickoff and structure | 15 % | Goals, page plan, what belongs on which page |
| Design | 25 % | Draft, one round of notes, image preparation |
| Build | 30 % | Pages, form, phone layout |
| Content | 15 % | Copy in, trimmed, headings ordered |
| Technical pass | 10 % | Speed, accessibility, search, legal pages |
| Handover | 5 % | Walkthrough, credentials, backup |
The last two rows are the ones missing from cheap quotes. Together they are a sixth of the work, and they decide whether the site is still being found six months later and whether you can maintain it yourself.
One-time and recurring
The number in the quote is one part. The other rarely sits next to it.
| Line item | One-time | Per year | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Domain | $0 to $20 | $12 to $40 | Must be registered in your name |
| Hosting | $0 | $60 to $360 | A small plan covers a business site |
| TLS certificate | $0 | $0 | Let's Encrypt is free and standard |
| Design and build | $800 to $20,000 | $0 | The number in the quote |
| Copywriting by the vendor | $100 to $400 per page | $0 | Drops out if you write it |
| Images | $0 to $600 | $0 | Own photos, stock, or a shoot |
| Privacy policy and terms | $0 to $500 | $0 to $150 | Included with ours, see below |
| Updates and backups | $0 | $0 to $1,800 | Depends on how it is built, ours runs on a care plan |
| Changes while running | $0 | by the hour | Or you make them yourself |
The line with the widest spread is the second to last, and it turns on a single question: how many moving parts does the site have?
A site on a popular content system with fifteen add-ons has fifteen places where updates land and vulnerabilities appear. That is manageable, but it is work, and somebody has to do it. A site with no database and no add-ons does not have those places. Why we built our own site that way is in our post on leaving WordPress.
Three ways to bill
| Model | Upside | Downside | Fits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fixed price | You know the number up front | Scope has to be settled first | Business sites, relaunches |
| Hourly | Changes are possible any time | The total is only known at the end | Platforms, ongoing support |
| Monthly rental | Small number at the start | It keeps running, and you usually own nothing | Only on a short term |
With a fixed price the risk of a bad estimate sits with the vendor, and that is the real value to you. For it to work for both sides, the scope has to be written down. A fixed price with no description is not a fixed price, it is an opening number that gets corrected later.
With rental, do the arithmetic. 99 dollars a month over 48 months is 4,752 dollars, and in many contracts the renewal starts right after. That can pay off when maintenance, hosting and changes really are included and the term is short. It does not pay off if you end up with no domain, no content and no website.
Five items quotes routinely leave out
- Legal pages. Privacy policy, terms, and depending on your market an accessibility statement. A generator subscription runs around 10 to 20 dollars a month, a review by counsel costs more once. Ask whether they are in the quote. With us they are included, see below.
- Image rights. Stock images are often licensed for one project. A vendor who does not buy the license in your name leaves you the problem.
- The migration. Old addresses, redirects, mailboxes, DNS. On an existing site that is its own work step.
- The walkthrough. An hour at the end where you learn to change your own text. Without it you call for every small thing, and that costs more than the hour.
- Accessibility. For stores and bookable services this is increasingly a legal requirement rather than a nicety. What that means in practice is in our post on accessible websites.
How to spot a weak quote
- A single line with a single number. Nothing to compare, nothing to check.
- The domain is registered to the vendor. Your presence on the web then hangs on somebody else's invoice.
- No word about export. Ask how you get your content if you part ways. The answer tells you a lot.
- A rental term over twelve months. 36 or 48 months with no exit is financing with a website attached.
- A monthly retainer with no report. Anyone selling maintenance can say what happened last month.
- A price with no questions asked. A vendor who does not ask how many pages and who writes the copy is estimating on assumptions that become change orders later.
Eight questions that make two quotes comparable
Ask both vendors word for word and put the answers side by side. After that you are comparing scope instead of totals.
- How many pages are included, and what does one more cost?
- Who writes the copy, and how many rounds of notes are included?
- Where do the images come from, and in whose name is the license?
- Is migrating the old addresses included?
- In whose name are the domain and the hosting account?
- What does year two cost to run?
- Can I change my own text, and is there a walkthrough?
- What happens to my content and my domain if we part ways?
What we charge
So you know where we are arguing from: with us a website starts at 1,900 euros and is live after fourteen days. That covers design, build, technical work, guidance on the copy and the walkthrough at the end. You supply the content, we put it in shape. The process is laid out on Website in two weeks.
The legal pages come with it. Imprint, privacy policy and terms ship with every website we hand over, produced in collaboration with eRecht24, the German legal-text specialists. You go live without chasing a generator subscription or booking time with a lawyer first.
Keeping them current runs on an optional care plan (in German: Wartungsvertrag). It covers three things: the legal texts get updated when the law moves, small changes to the website happen as you need them, and maintenance including security updates runs alongside. Anyone who prefers to look after it themselves can leave it out.
Photography and anything that calculates, books or sells stay separate items. We name those before we start.
If you have a quote in front of you and are unsure whether the number fits, send it over. We will tell you what is missing and what the total actually hangs on, even if you stay with the other vendor afterwards.
Sources
How current this post is
Legal pages produced with eRecht24 ship with every website we hand over. The section on the optional care plan is new.
Common questions about cost
What does a simple website for a solo business cost?
For four to six pages, a custom design, a contact form and sound technical work, US shops typically quote 1,500 to 8,000 dollars. Below that sits the do-it-yourself builder, where you do the building and pay only the subscription. Above it sits everything that needs more pages, more languages or custom functionality.
What does a website cost to run?
Domain and hosting together run roughly 100 to 400 dollars a year for an ordinary business site. On top of that come the items that depend on how the site is built: licenses for a theme or add-ons, backups, and keeping updates current. A site on a popular content system with many add-ons should budget for maintenance. A site with no database and no add-ons needs far less.
Fixed price or hourly, which is better?
A fixed price fits when the scope can be described up front, which covers most business websites. You know what you will pay, and the risk of a bad estimate sits with the vendor. Hourly fits when the scope only reveals itself during the work, such as a platform or ongoing support. Either way the same question decides it: what exactly is included, and what costs extra?
Why does the same website cost 2,000 at one shop and 25,000 at the next?
Because the word website covers very different things. Price hangs on the number of decisions: how many pages, how many languages, who writes the copy, is there a migration with redirects, does anything need to calculate, book or charge. Two quotes only become comparable once both answer those points the same way.
Is a rented website at 99 dollars a month cheaper?
For the first few months, yes. After that, rarely. At 99 dollars a month over 48 months you have paid 4,752 dollars, and at the end you usually own none of it. Three clauses decide it: the term, who holds the domain, and whether you can take your content with you. A 36 or 48 month term with no exit is financing with a website attached.
Are the privacy policy and imprint included in the price?
With us, yes. Imprint, privacy policy and terms are produced in collaboration with eRecht24 and ship with every website we hand over. Across the market this is far from standard, so the question is worth asking of every quote. Keeping the texts current runs on an optional care plan, the German Wartungsvertrag, which also covers small changes to the website plus maintenance and security updates.
Who owns the website once it is paid for?
Put it in the quote or it becomes a matter of interpretation. Sensibly handled means the domain is registered in your name, you hold the hosting and CMS credentials, and you can export your content at any time. With images, check the license: some stock libraries license for one project only and not for transfer to you.