How much a website really costs.

Why website prices vary so much

Anyone searching "how much does a website cost" finds every kind of answer: €99 offers, €500 packages, quotes of €5,000 or €20,000. It's normal to feel lost. The reason is simple: the word "website" covers completely different products, as if you asked how much "a car" costs without saying whether you mean a used city car or a fitted-out van.

A website can be a presentation page built on a ready-made template, or a project designed from scratch, with content written to be found on Google, custom features and a strategy to turn visitors into customers. Both are called a website, but they require timelines, skills and results that have nothing in common.

The right question to ask yourself

Rather than "how much does a website cost?", it's worth asking "what is a website that works worth to me?". If the site needs to bring you quote requests, sales or bookings, its value is measured in the customers who arrive. A cheap site that brings no inquiries is an expense; a more carefully built site that brings one customer a month is an investment that pays for itself.

You pay for a website once. You pay for a website that doesn't work every month.

In the next sections we look at what the price depends on, what the main types of website cost and which recurring costs to budget for.

Prices by type of website

To give you a concrete reference, here are the starting prices of our packages. They're real figures, which we also publish on the service pages, excl. VAT.

Showcase website

It's the presentation website: a few carefully crafted pages (usually home, about, services, contact) to get found, build trust and receive inquiries. It's the right choice for professionals, firms and small businesses that want a serious online presence with no special requirements.

Custom website

Here the design is created from scratch around the company's identity, there are more pages and the content is designed to answer customers' questions and rank on Google. It often includes specific features: advanced forms, updatable sections, more languages, integrations with other tools.

E-commerce

An online store needs much more than a website: catalog, product pages, payments, shipping, order management, automated emails, tax matters. The price grows with the number of products, integrations (for example with management software) and the level of customization.

The five factors that change the price

Whatever the type of site, a quote is always built on the same elements. Knowing them helps you understand why two proposals can be so far apart.

1. 01
   Number of pages and structure

   Every page has to be designed, written, built and tested. A 5-page site and a 30-page site take very different amounts of work, especially if every page has its own structure.

2. 02
   Design

   A ready-made theme adapted with your logo and colors costs little; a design created from scratch around the company's identity takes more hours, but makes the site recognizable and more effective.

3. 03
   Features

   Simple contact forms, bookings, a private area, more languages, CRM or management software integrations, configurators: every feature adds development and testing time.

4. 04
   Content

   Copy, photos and video. If you provide them the cost goes down; if we write them, with an eye on SEO, or if a photo shoot is needed, the site's value rises along with the price.

5. 05
   SEO and performance

   A structure designed for Google, speed, structured data, migration from an old site with redirects: invisible but decisive work for getting found.

Other factors that matter

• Urgency: very tight timelines mean reorganizing the work and can raise the cost.
• Number of revisions: a process with clear decisions costs less than one with constant second thoughts.
• Migration: moving content, products or customers from an old site takes dedicated work.
• Accessibility and regulations: privacy, cookies and accessibility must be handled correctly.

Template or custom website: what changes in the price

One of the first choices that affects the cost is whether to start from a ready-made template or design the site from scratch. Both make sense, but for different goals.

A template is a reasonable choice when the budget is very small and the needs are simple. A custom site makes sense when the site needs to set you apart from competitors, rank on Google and bring in inquiries steadily.

Watch out for the hidden costs of budget templates

Some ready-made themes include dozens of features and plugins that slow the site down, need constant updates and can cause security problems. The initial saving can turn into higher maintenance costs over time, or into having to rebuild everything after a few years.

The annual costs to budget for

The project price isn't the only cost. A website also has recurring costs, worth knowing from the start to avoid surprises.

Maintenance is the most neglected item, but it's what keeps the site secure, fast and working. A site that isn't updated gets slower, more vulnerable and, over time, more expensive to fix.

SEO: the invisible item that changes a site's value

Of all the items in a quote, SEO is the least visible and the one that most affects results. A beautiful site nobody finds on Google is like a gorgeous shop on a street with no foot traffic.

Basic SEO should be part of every professional project: a page structure built on real searches, carefully written titles and descriptions, loading speed, a flawless smartphone version, structured data that helps Google understand who you are and what you offer. With us, basic technical SEO is included in the sites we build.

Ongoing work is a different matter: new content, monthly optimization, rank tracking. It's a separate service, useful when you want to grow in competitive industries, and with us it starts at €400 a month (excl. VAT).

• ✓The site's structure comes from your customers' keywords.
• ✓Every page has a unique title and description.
• ✓The site loads quickly, even on smartphones.
• ✓If it replaces an old site, 301 redirects are included.

DIY, freelancer or agency: three different budgets

The price also varies a lot depending on who builds the site. There's no right choice for everyone: it depends on budget, available time and goals.

DIY with a website builder

Platforms like online website builders let you create a site with a monthly subscription. The cost in money is low, but the cost in time is high, and the result depends entirely on your ability to design, write and optimize. It's fine for getting started or for personal projects; it rarely brings significant business results.

Freelancer

An independent professional can offer competitive prices and a direct relationship. The limit is that one person rarely covers design, development, content and SEO well all together. Choose carefully, looking at the work they've done and their real skills.

Agency or network of professionals

Several skills work together: strategy, design, development, content, SEO. The price is higher than a beginner freelancer's, but the result is more complete. A network like Nalu tries to combine the best of both worlds: different specialists, coordinated by a direct contact, without the costs of a heavy structure.

Price ranges on the market: what to expect

Beyond our own packages, it helps to know how offers are spread across the market. The ranges below are indicative and show what you can reasonably expect at each level of spending.

Under €300

In this range you'll mostly find ready-made templates, set up in a few hours, often with no copy or optimization. They can do for having an online address, but they rarely help you get found or convince a potential customer. Also watch who owns the site and domain: in some offers they're registered to the provider.

Between €400 and €1,500

This is the range for professional showcase websites and redesigns: a few carefully crafted pages, design adapted to your identity, basic copy, a smartphone version, essential technical SEO. For many professionals and small businesses it's the sweet spot between cost and result.

Between €1,500 and €5,000

This is where custom websites and essential online stores sit: design created from scratch, more pages, content written to rank, dedicated features, managed migrations. It's the right range for companies that want a site that works as a sales tool.

Over €5,000

Complex projects: online stores with large catalogs and integrations, multilingual sites with many sections, platforms and web apps, or projects that include brand strategy, photo shoots and campaigns. The price reflects the number of skills involved and the length of the work.

The mistakes that make you spend more

Paradoxically, the most common way to overspend on a website is trying to spend as little as possible. Here are the mistakes we see most often, which end up costing double.

1. Choosing on price alone. A cheap site that needs rebuilding after a year costs more than a site done right the first time.
2. Not defining the goal. Without a clear goal you add useless pages and features, and change your mind mid-project.
3. Putting off the content. Delays on copy and photos stretch timelines and can push up costs.
4. Ignoring the SEO migration. Losing the Google traffic of the old site means losing customers, and getting it back costs time and money.
5. Not putting the domain and accounts in your name. If the provider disappears, regaining control of the site can be complicated and expensive.
6. Neglecting maintenance. A site that's never updated sooner or later breaks or gets attacked, and the emergency fix costs more than years of maintenance.

Avoiding these mistakes doesn't take a bigger budget: just a few decisions made at the start, with the right information.

How to read a quote

A good quote isn't just a number: it's a clear description of what you'll get. Here are the items you should find and the questions to ask if they're missing.

• ✓List of pages or sections included.
• ✓Type of design: custom or theme-based.
• ✓Content: who writes the copy, who provides the photos.
• ✓SEO: structure, headings, speed, structured data, any redirects.
• ✓Features planned, one by one.
• ✓Number of revisions included.
• ✓Timeline build and phases of work.
• ✓Training to update the site yourself.
• ✓Post-launch support: what's included and what it costs.
• ✓Ownership: domain, accounts and content in your name.

Questions to ask before signing

1. Will the site be 100% mine, including domain and accounts?
2. What happens if I want to change provider after launch?
3. Will the site be fast and optimized for smartphones?
4. How do you handle SEO and, if needed, migration from the old site?
5. How much does maintenance cost after launch?

How long it takes (and why it affects the price)

Time and cost are linked: more hours of work mean a higher price. But the factor that stretches projects the most isn't technical: it's waiting for content and approvals.

Meeting these timelines takes content that's ready and a contact who can make decisions. Every week of waiting stretches the project and sometimes raises its cost, because the work has to be reorganized.

How to save without giving up quality

Having a limited budget doesn't mean settling for a site that doesn't work. Some choices keep costs down while still delivering a professional result.

• ✓Start with fewer pages, but done well: better five complete pages than fifteen empty ones. The site can grow over time.
• ✓Preparing the content: if you provide basic copy and photos, the work shrinks.
• ✓Postpone non-essential features: bookings, a customer area or more languages can come in a second phase.
• ✓Deciding in a hurry: a single point of contact and orderly revisions shorten timelines.
• ✓Choosing the right maintenance: it costs little per month and avoids expensive emergency fixes.

Where it doesn't pay to cut corners

Some items are expensive to cut over time: site speed, the smartphone version, basic SEO and, if you already have a site, the migration with redirects. These are what decide whether the site will be found and whether visitors will stay long enough to contact you.

The website as an investment: a simple calculation

To see whether a quote is sustainable, think about the return. Three numbers are enough: what a new customer is worth to you, how many extra customers the site can bring you in a year, and what the site costs (project plus annual expenses).

In this example the site pays for itself in the first year and, from the second, generates almost pure value. The figures are hypothetical: try replacing them with your own. It's an exercise that helps you see the site for what it is: a sales tool, not an image expense.

Checklist before asking for a quote

To get precise, comparable proposals, prepare your answers to these questions.

• ✓What's the site's main goal: inquiries, sales, bookings, trust?
• ✓Which pages do you need, at least roughly?
• ✓Who will prepare the copy and photos?
• ✓Do you need special features: bookings, languages, a customer area, integrations?
• ✓Do you already have a site with Google traffic you don't want to lose?
• ✓Who will manage the site after launch?
• ✓What's your rough budget and the date you'd like to be online by?

With this information, any serious professional can give you a clear quote. And you can choose not on the lowest price, but on the proposal that brings you closest to your goals.