How Much Does a Website Cost in 2026? Complete Pricing Guide
You want to create a website and you want to know how much it's going to cost. The bad news: there's no standard price. The good news: there are clear ranges depending on what you want to accomplish — and this guide will help you make sense of them.
In 2026, the website creation market is more segmented than ever. No-code solutions have made "acceptable" websites accessible to everyone, while bespoke projects reach levels of complexity and performance that templates simply cannot match. Understanding where you sit in this spectrum is the first step to budgeting intelligently.
Here's an honest overview of market prices, with the real factors that drive the cost up — or down.
Price Ranges by Project Type
Showcase Website: €500 to €3,000
This is the most common case for sole traders, tradespeople, liberal professions and local businesses. A well-built showcase site includes 5 to 10 pages (home, services, about, contact), a design adapted to your brand, a contact form and basic SEO optimisation.
The range is wide because "showcase site" covers very different realities:
- €500 to €800: a simple 5-page site, responsive, without advanced features. This is what Nervure offers with its Basic package — sufficient for a clean professional presence.
- €800 to €1,500: a site with integrated blog, advanced forms, gallery, simple appointment booking. Our Standard package sits in this range.
- €1,500 to €3,000: a premium showcase site with custom design, polished animations, third-party integrations (CRM, calendar, payment). Our Advanced and Premium packages cover this category.
E-commerce Website: €800 to €15,000
An e-commerce site with cart, secure payment and up to 50 products can be built from €800–1,500. Beyond that — complex stock management, product variants, customer portal, subscriptions, merchant dashboard — budget €2,000 to €5,000. For an advanced e-commerce platform with ERP synchronisation and multi-channel feeds, budgets exceed €10,000.
Bespoke Website (Web App, Client Portal, SaaS): €3,000 to €30,000+
These projects involve complex business logic: authentication, dashboards, third-party APIs, real-time data management. Timelines are measured in months, not weeks.
Summary Table by Project Type
| Project Type | Indicative Budget | Estimated Timeline |
|---|---|---|
| Simple showcase site (5 pages) | €500 – €800 | 2 – 3 weeks |
| Showcase site + blog + advanced features | €800 – €1,500 | 3 – 5 weeks |
| Premium showcase site | €1,500 – €3,000 | 4 – 8 weeks |
| Basic e-commerce (≤ 50 products) | €800 – €1,500 | 3 – 5 weeks |
| Intermediate e-commerce | €1,500 – €5,000 | 6 – 12 weeks |
| Advanced e-commerce (ERP, B2B) | €5,000 – €15,000 | 3 – 6 months |
| Web app / SaaS platform | €5,000 – €30,000+ | 3 – 9 months |
| No-code solution (Wix, Squarespace) | €0 – €600/year | A few days |
Freelancer vs Agency vs DIY: The Real Comparison
The choice of provider is as important as the budget. Here are the concrete differences between the three approaches:
| Criterion | DIY (Wix, Squarespace) | Freelancer | Web Agency |
|---|---|---|---|
| Upfront cost | €0 – €600/year | €500 – €5,000 | €800 – €30,000 |
| Timeline | A few days | 2 – 8 weeks | 3 – 16 weeks |
| Technical quality | Basic | Variable | Consistent |
| Customisation | Limited | Good | Maximum |
| SEO | Functionally basic | Variable | Integrated and optimised |
| Post-launch support | Online documentation | Depends on contract | Structured maintenance |
| Code ownership | No (platform) | Yes | Yes |
| Future adaptability | Limited | Good | Maximum |
When DIY Is the Right Option
No-code solutions are appropriate if:
- Your budget is under €400 and you accept a generic solution
- You're testing an idea without immediate commercial stakes
- You have time to invest and an appetite for learning
- Your sector doesn't require strong visual differentiation
When a Freelancer Is the Right Option
A freelance developer suits you if:
- Your project is clearly defined and unlikely to evolve
- You already have a precise brief and can self-manage
- You're seeking an optimised quality/price ratio on a one-off project
Platforms like Malt and Codeur.com let you find verified freelancers with portfolios and client reviews.
When an Agency Is the Right Option
An agency is justified if:
- Your site is a critical prospecting or sales tool
- You need a professional result within defined timelines
- You want a fast, well-ranked, maintainable site for the long term
- You don't have time to manage the technical back-and-forth
- Your project is likely to evolve in the next 12 to 24 months
What Really Drives the Price: Detailed Breakdown
| Factor | Price Impact | Recommendation |
|---|---|---|
| Number of pages (5 → 20) | +40% to +150% | Start with the essentials, expand later |
| Custom design vs template | +50% to +200% | Bespoke if your image is central |
| E-commerce (cart + payment) | +€400 to +€3,000 | Shopify to start, bespoke if > 500 products |
| Member area / login system | +€500 to +€2,000 | Justified if exclusive content or B2B |
| Multilingual | +€200 to +€500 | Essential if international clientele |
| On-page SEO optimised | +10% to +20% | Always pays off long-term |
| CRM / third-party API integration | +€300 to +€2,000 | Calculate time saved vs cost |
| Logo creation | +€150 to +€600 | Delegate if visual identity isn't defined |
| Monthly maintenance | +€15 to +€100/month | Include in budget from day one |
What You're Actually Paying For
Brief and Discovery (2 to 4 hours) — €100 to €200
Understanding your business, your competitors, your targets, your objectives. This is the foundation of everything. An agency that doesn't ask you questions before proposing a quote doesn't understand your project.
Design (Wireframes, Visual Identity Applied) — €200 to €400
Creation of wireframes (structure), then high-fidelity mockups for 2 to 3 key pages (home, services, contact). Validation with the client before moving to development.
Development and Integration — €400 to €600
Responsive design integration, feature development (forms, CMS, gallery), performance optimisation, mobile and browser testing.
Basic SEO and Launch — €100 to €200
Title and meta tag configuration, sitemap.xml, Google Search Console, 301 redirects if migrating from an existing site, indexation verification.
Training and Documentation — €100 to €200
CMS training, procedure documentation, access handover (hosting, domain, Analytics).
This breakdown varies between providers — some bundle everything into a package, others detail each line item. Both approaches are legitimate as long as the result is clearly defined.
Why Cheap Is Rarely Inexpensive
A website at €150 delivered by an unknown provider on Fiverr typically has a lifespan of under 18 months. The typical problems are documented and recurring:
Poorly structured code. Without quality conventions, code becomes impossible to maintain or evolve. The next developer who touches the project will charge for a partial rebuild before even being able to add a feature.
No performance optimisation. A slow site loses visitors. According to web.dev, each additional second of load delay reduces conversions by 7%. A €150 site will systematically fail on this criterion.
No security. Uncorrected security vulnerabilities expose your site (and your customers) to real risks. A poorly configured WordPress site can be infected within weeks.
Provider disappearance. Without documentation, without code transfer, without hosting access, you end up owning a site you cannot modify.
The total cost of a bad website very often exceeds that of a good site built properly from the start — not counting the customers lost during periods of malfunction.
According to Kinsta, 36% of unmaintained WordPress sites have active security vulnerabilities. Maintenance is not optional.
The Hidden Costs Nobody Tells You About
Here are the line items many quotes don't explicitly include, which cause budgets to spiral:
Content management. Who writes the texts? Who selects and prepares the photos? Who creates videos or infographics? If you provide all the content yourself, fine. If not, budget €500 to €2,000 additionally for a copywriter and art director.
Third-party tools. Professional email (Google Workspace from €5/month/user), advanced forms (Typeform, Tally), GDPR-compliant cookie banner (Axeptio, Cookiebot at €5–30/month), live chat — these tools accumulate quickly.
Post-launch corrections. Even with a rigorous validation process, adjustments occur after launch. Check whether post-launch corrections are billed additionally and at what rate.
Migration from the old site. If you already have a site and want to rebuild it, content migration (blog articles, pages, images, redirects) represents significant work that's systematically underestimated.
Additional training. If multiple people in your team need to manage the site, an additional training session may be necessary.
Always ask for a list of what is NOT included in the quote — it's as revealing as the list of what is.
How to Read and Compare Quotes
Faced with several quotes, here's the method for comparing them objectively:
Step 1: Normalise the scope. Verify that each quote covers the same features, the same number of pages, the same SEO level, the same hosting. Often, a lower quote simply doesn't cover the same services.
Step 2: Calculate total cost over 24 months. Add creation cost + hosting + maintenance + third-party tools over 2 years. A launch quote of €800 with hosting at €60/month exceeds over 2 years a quote of €1,500 with hosting included at €20/month.
Step 3: Evaluate what's not in the quote. The questions providers answer badly (code rights, transfer procedure, post-launch support) often tell you more than the questions they answer well.
Step 4: Evaluate trust. The professional who took time to understand your project, asked the right questions and structured their quote clearly is probably more reliable than the one who sent a generic PDF in 10 minutes.
How to Budget Intelligently for Your Web Project
Step 1: Define the Site's Primary Objective
Before talking budget, ask yourself: what is this site for? Attracting prospects? Selling online? Presenting a portfolio? Managing bookings? The objective determines which features are essential and which can wait for a V2.
Step 2: Separate Creation Budget from Recurring Budget
Many entrepreneurs only plan for the creation cost. Yet a website generates inescapable recurring costs:
- Hosting: €10 to €100/month
- Domain name: €10 to €20/year
- Maintenance and updates: €0 (DIY) to €100/month
- Third-party tools (email marketing, advanced analytics, CRM): €0 to €200/month
Plan your budget over 24 months, not just the launch cost.
Step 3: Request Comparable Quotes
To compare quotes, ensure they cover the same elements. A quote at €1,200 that doesn't include hosting or SEO is less competitive than a quote at €1,500 that includes them.
Line items to systematically verify:
- Design (included or optional?)
- Responsive/mobile (standard today, but verify)
- Basic SEO (tags, speed, sitemap)
- Hosting for the first year
- CMS training
- Post-launch support (duration and terms)
Step 4: Budget for Contingencies
In any web project, adjustments arise during execution. Budget an additional 10 to 15% to absorb revisions, brief changes or unanticipated integrations.
The Technologies That Affect Your Price
The technology choice has a direct impact on creation cost, maintenance cost and your site's future performance.
WordPress: The Popular Standard
WordPress powers approximately 43% of websites worldwide. Its popularity is justified: large community, thousands of themes and plugins, an admin interface familiar to many providers. For a standard showcase site with blog, WordPress remains a relevant solution.
Its limits: security (frequent target of automated attacks if not maintained), performance that requires serious configuration (cache, CDN, image optimisation) and technical debt that accumulates with plugins.
Next.js / React: The Modern Reference
Modern JavaScript frameworks like Next.js offer natively superior performance, maximum architectural flexibility and a seamless user experience. They're more expensive to develop (rarer skills) but produce significantly better results in terms of Core Web Vitals.
At Nervure, we use Next.js for all our projects — the same stack as world-reference sites like Vercel, Linear, and Stripe. Benefits for our clients: maximum performance, optimal SEO, limitless scalability. See web.dev for performance benchmarks on modern frameworks.
Shopify: The SaaS E-commerce Standard
For online shops, Shopify is the global reference. Easy to launch, feature-rich, hosting included. The trade-off: a monthly subscription (€32 to €430/month), transaction fees, and limited customisation outside Shopify Plus. Read more at shopify.com.
WooCommerce: Open-Source Flexibility
WooCommerce is free at installation, extremely flexible through the WordPress ecosystem, and gives you full control over code and data. Costs accumulate through plugins, and maintenance requires active security management.
What a Good Website Actually Returns
A well-designed site is not an expense — it's an investment. The real question is not "how much does it cost?" but "how much am I losing each month without a high-performing site?"
To illustrate: if your site generates 3 new clients per month, and each client is worth €500 in revenue, your site generates €1,500/month. A €1,500 site pays for itself in one month. Over 24 months, that's €36,000 of revenue generated for a €1,500 investment — a 2,300% ROI.
These figures vary enormously by sector and your ability to convert visitors. But the principle is immutable: a professional website is the best salesperson you can hire, available 24/7.
According to Semrush, sites with long-form content (1,500+ words) generate an average of 3.5x more backlinks and 4x more traffic than sites with short content. The blog is one of the best SEO investments available.
Real Project Examples at Nervure
Here are representative examples of completed projects, without naming clients:
- Plumber tradesperson, Loire-Atlantique: 6-page showcase site, local SEO, contact form + online quote. Result: €800, 3-week timeline, 12 new inbound contacts in the first month.
- Architecture firm, Nantes: portfolio site with project gallery, blog, FR/EN bilingual version. Result: €1,800, 5-week timeline.
- Clothing boutique, Saint-Nazaire: 80-product e-commerce, Stripe integration, stock management. Result: €2,200, 6-week timeline.
Browse our recent work to see the quality level we deliver.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does a simple showcase website cost in 2026?
A 5-page showcase site (home, services, about, contact, legal), responsive and with basic SEO, costs between €500 and €1,500 with a serious freelancer or small agency. Below €500, be wary — these are generally templates quickly configured or offshore projects without follow-up. At Nervure, our Basic package starts at €500 for a professionally built bespoke showcase site.
Why are agency prices so different from each other?
Price variability reflects very different service levels. A 20-person agency with a dedicated project manager, UX designer, senior developer and SEO manager cannot charge the same price as a junior freelancer working alone. The question isn't "who is cheapest?" but "who offers the best quality/price ratio for my specific project?".
Is hosting always an option in quotes?
No, but it's often poorly indicated. Some providers include the first year; others charge separately from the start. Always verify this in your quote. Shared solutions (OVH, Ionos) cost €5 to €15/month but can have variable performance. Managed solutions like Vercel or local agency hosting packages cost €15 to €100/month but offer speed, security and included support.
Can a no-code site (Wix, Squarespace) be enough?
For simple presence needs, yes. These tools allow you to create a functional site in a few hours for €10 to €30/month. Limitations appear when you need performance (Lighthouse scores often mediocre), advanced customisation, independence from the platform, or complex integrations. As your business grows, no-code solution constraints become real barriers.
Do I need to pay for maintenance and who does it?
Maintenance is essential, not optional. It covers security updates, backups, uptime monitoring and small corrections. You can do it yourself (if you have the skills and time) or delegate it to your agency. Budget €20 to €80/month for serious maintenance. Without maintenance, a WordPress site accumulates security vulnerabilities within months.
Can you create a professional website for under €500?
Technically yes, with Wix or WordPress on low-cost hosting. But for professional use, results are generally disappointing: generic design, mediocre performance, non-existent SEO. The risk is spending €300–400 and having to rebuild the site within 18 months. Better to save a little more and invest in something durable.
How do I get an accurate estimate for my project?
The best approach is to contact one or more providers directly with a clear brief (number of pages, desired features, timeline). At Nervure, you can also contact us directly — response within 24 hours.
Further reading:
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