How much does a professional website cost in 2026?

It's the first question every business asks, and rightly so: how much does a professional website cost in 2026? The honest answer fits in one sentence: it depends on the scope. But "it depends" helps no one budget. So here are realistic, qualified orders of magnitude by project type — and, above all, an explanation of what places a site at €2,000 or at €60,000.

Price ranges by project type

None of these figures is a universal rate. They're benchmarks to position your project and prepare a healthy budget conversation. The same label — "brochure site" — can cover a three-page project or a thirty-page one, with or without copywriting, translation, animation or an SEO strategy.

Brochure site — typically €2,500 to €8,000

A few pages presenting the business, the offer and the contact details. It's the most common project for an SME, a firm or an independent. The low end means a polished design on a proven structure; the high end adds a dedicated visual identity, copywriting, local SEO and custom animations.

Custom site — typically €8,000 to €25,000

A site designed specifically around your brand and your user journeys, with no imposed template: original design, interactive components, technical performance, content structured for search. This is where a site becomes a genuine commercial asset rather than an online business card.

E-commerce site — typically €6,000 to €40,000

The price depends mostly on the number of products, pricing and stock rules, shipping options, integrations (payment, ERP, logistics) and how much the checkout funnel is customised. A shop with a few dozen references is nothing like a multi-brand catalogue wired to a management system.

Web app or platform — from €20,000

Customer area, dashboard, internal tool, SaaS: you leave the website behind and enter software. User accounts, database, business logic, security, testing: the functional scope drives everything, and these projects are priced case by case, often in phases.

What actually moves the price

Two five-page sites can cost four times apart. The gap almost never comes from a hidden margin: it comes from the real work the project involves. Here are the main levers.

• Functional complexity: a contact form takes nothing like the effort of a configurator, a member area or an online booking flow.
• Design: reusing an existing framework costs less than a visual identity and mockups built from scratch for your brand.
• Content: copywriting, translation, photos, videos. A site "delivered empty" that you have to fill yourself often hides a real cost — and a real delay.
• Integrations: payment, CRM, ERP, scheduling, marketing tools. Every connection to a third-party system adds development and testing.
• SEO: structuring a site so it can rank is work done from the design stage, not a sprinkling of keywords at the end.
• Maintenance: a site isn't frozen. Updates, security, evolutions: to budget for, not to discover later.

A website isn't a finished product on a shelf, it's a service answering a precise need. The price measures the size of that need, not a catalogue.

Fixed price or time-and-materials: two pricing models

Beyond the amount, the way you're billed matters. Two models coexist, each with its own ground.

1. 01Fixed price: a defined scope, a fixed amount. Ideal when the need is clear and stable — most brochure and e-commerce sites. You know where you're going, and the agency carries the estimation risk.
2. 02Time-and-materials: you pay for the days actually worked. Suited to evolving projects, applications, scopes that sharpen as you go. More flexible, but it requires disciplined budget tracking.

Many serious projects combine both: a fixed price for the well-scoped foundation, time-and-materials for later evolutions. What matters is that the model is spelled out in the quote.

The recurring costs people forget

The build price isn't the total cost. A site lives, and living costs a little each year. These amounts are modest but real, and an honest quote names them.

• Domain name: generally €10 to €50 per year depending on the extension.
• Hosting: from a few euros a month for a static brochure site to several dozen for a busy app or e-commerce store.
• Maintenance: security updates, fixes, backups, small evolutions. Often offered as a monthly or annual package.
• Licenses and third-party services: depending on tools — payment gateway, emailing, certain plugins or software subscriptions.

The traps of the "cheap website"

A very low price isn't a bargain in itself: it's a signal to read. Apparent savings are often paid back later, and at a higher cost.

• The throwaway template: a bought theme barely adapted, shared by thousands of sites, hard to evolve and rarely optimised for performance or SEO.
• The site delivered "empty": an appealing design, but with no content or structure designed to convert and rank. The real work is still ahead.
• Hidden costs: maintenance not included, changes billed per item, lock-in to a proprietary tool you can no longer leave.
• Opaque subcontracting: a contact reselling work they don't master, unable to explain the technical choices.

If you're as unsure about the provider as about the price, we wrote a guide to choosing a web agency without missteps. And if your site already exists, the question may not be starting over: see our website redesign guide.

How to estimate the return on investment

A site isn't judged by what it costs, but by what it brings back. The right question isn't "how much does it cost?" but "how much must it earn me to pay off?". A simple line of reasoning is enough to frame the budget.

1. 01Estimate the value of a customer acquired through the site (average order, lifetime value of the relationship).
2. 02Define what one additional customer per month — or per week — would represent over a year.
3. 03Compare that gain to the cost of the site, maintenance included, over 2 to 3 years: that's the real payback horizon.

Seen this way, a well-designed brochure site that brings one customer a month often pays for itself within a few months. And a poorly ranked site, however cheap, brings nothing: its real cost is 100%.

Why a serious quote starts from the need

Our motto is "understand before building," and it applies first to pricing. A provider who quotes a price before understanding your business, your goals and your constraints isn't selling a site: they're selling a standard product and hoping it fits. A reliable quote requires a prior conversation — about your customer journeys, your existing content, your integrations, your SEO ambition.

That framing is what turns a range into a figure, and a figure into a controlled investment. You can browse our services to position your project, but a fair estimate always goes through a conversation.