--- title: "How Much Does a Website Cost in 2026? Real Prices | Sweet Lava" description: "Realistic website price ranges in 2026 – from a simple site to a corporate platform. What drives the cost and how to compare agency quotes." url: https://sweetlava.eu/en/blog/how-much-does-a-website-cost/ lang: en alternate_pl: https://sweetlava.eu/pl/blog/ile-kosztuje-strona-internetowa/ --- Development # How much does a website cost in 2026? A realistic pricing guide Sweet Lava Team · Published 12 May 2026 · 3 min read **Key answer:** In 2026 a company website costs from roughly €800 (a simple template-based site) through €2,500–6,000 (a typical custom-designed company site), €6,000–18,000 (a larger site with CMS and language versions), up to €18,000–40,000+ for corporate platforms. Price is driven mainly by the scope of custom design, the number of unique page templates, features and content. Table of contents 1. [01The short answer](#the-short-answer) 2. [02Price ranges – what to expect](#price-ranges--what-to-expect) 3. [03What actually makes up the price](#what-actually-makes-up-the-price) 4. [04How to read agency quotes](#how-to-read-agency-quotes) 5. [05When a website pays for itself](#when-a-website-pays-for-itself) ## The short answer A company website in 2026 costs anywhere from about €800 to over €40,000 – and that range is not absurd. "A website" is as capacious a word as "a car": there's the city hatchback and there's the articulated truck. Below we break the price into its components so you know what you're actually buying. ## Price ranges – what to expect **€800–2,500 – a template-based site.** A ready-made theme (usually WordPress), your content and colours dropped in, a handful of pages. Sensible when the site just needs to exist and clients come by referral anyway. The limits: you look like thousands of other companies, and performance plus SEO basics are usually weak. **€2,500–6,000 – a typical company website.** Custom visual design, 5–10 unique page templates, a CMS for self-service editing, sound technical optimisation and SEO foundations. For most small and mid-sized companies, this is the right shelf. **€6,000–18,000 – a larger site.** Client-specific information architecture, a dozen-plus templates, language versions, a blog, integrations (CRM, newsletter, maps), structured data, tuned performance. This is where a website starts actively winning clients from search. **€18,000–40,000+ – a corporate or product platform.** Research, content strategy, dedicated features, a design system, advanced integrations, multilingualism, high security and accessibility requirements. ## What actually makes up the price 1. **Design:** the biggest variable. A template costs pennies; from-scratch design with typography and micro-animations is days or weeks of a designer's work. 2. **Number of unique templates:** every distinct page "matrix" (home, service, article, contact…) is a separate design and build. 3. **Features:** forms are standard; search, filtering, client zones, booking or configurators raise budgets in steps. 4. **Content:** copywriting and photography are often missing from quotes yet can be 20–30% of a sensible budget. A site without good content neither sells nor ranks. 5. **SEO and performance:** clean structure, structured data, loading speed. In good studios this is standard; in cheap offers, a costly add-on or an omission. 6. **Technology:** classic WordPress can be cheaper to build but dearer to maintain (updates, security). Modern static approaches (e.g. Astro with a headless CMS) reverse that ratio. ## How to read agency quotes Compare scopes, not totals. Ask every bidder to itemise: how many templates are designed, is the design custom, what about content, what exactly does "SEO optimisation" include, what are the maintenance costs. Two quotes "for a company website" differing threefold usually describe two different products. Red flags: a price given without a conversation about your business, "free SEO", no named technology, no staging environment, silence about copyright transfer. ## When a website pays for itself A €7,000 site that generates two enquiries a week is cheap. A €1,200 site nobody finds is expensive. Start the budget conversation not with "what does a website cost" but with "what is an acquired client worth to us" – and design the site as an investment with measurable return: analytics, conversion goals and a content plan. Want concrete numbers for your company? [Write to us](https://sweetlava.eu/en/contact/) – we'll work them out together. Our price ranges are on the [custom website design and development](https://sweetlava.eu/en/services/websites/) service page. ## Related services - [ Custom website design & development → ](https://sweetlava.eu/en/services/websites/) ## Related articles Development · 1 June 2026 ## [ GEO/AEO – how do you make your website visible to AI search? ](https://sweetlava.eu/en/blog/geo-aeo-website-visible-to-ai/) More and more buying decisions start with a question to an AI assistant rather than a classic Google search. See what this changes for your business and what to fix first. Development · 3 March 2026 ## [ Core Web Vitals and site performance – why speed sells ](https://sweetlava.eu/en/blog/core-web-vitals-why-speed-sells/) A slow website loses customers twice, in Google (lower rankings) and after the visit starts (abandonment). We explain LCP, INP and CLS, and how to genuinely improve them. ## Related terms - [CMS & headless CMS](https://sweetlava.eu/en/glossary/cms-headless-cms/) - [Core Web Vitals](https://sweetlava.eu/en/glossary/core-web-vitals/) - [SEO](https://sweetlava.eu/en/glossary/seo/) ## Frequently asked questions Why do website quotes differ so much? Because "a website" is as broad a term as "a car". Differences come from design scope (template vs from-scratch design), the number of unique page templates, features (search, language versions, integrations), build quality, and whether the price includes content and SEO. Are the ongoing costs after launch significant? The minimum is a domain (€10–35/year) and hosting (€50–300/year). Realistically, add technical care (updates, backups, security) – €50–250 monthly depending on the technology – plus a content budget if the site is meant to grow in search. ## Planning a new company website? Design and code grow in one team, so what you approve in the mock-up reaches production with no surprises. Scope and quote within a few days. [ Get in touch ](https://sweetlava.eu/en/contact/?source=blog-website-cost)