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“How much does a website cost?” The honest answer starts with another question: over how many years? Two quotes for the same site can differ threefold, and the cheapest at signature is not always the cheapest after three years. This article separates what you pay once from what you pay every year, so that you compare like with like. If your current site is ageing and you are wondering whether to rebuild it, our guide to migrating to a static site with Astro sets the scene.
In short
A website is paid for twice: the build, then every year hosting, maintenance, licences and content.
The build price depends less on the number of pages than on the number of templates, languages, integrations, and the existing site to carry over.
The yearly bill depends mostly on the technology: a site that runs code on every visit needs upkeep that a static site does not.
Compare two quotes over three years, with the same questions: who owns what, who maintains it, what a change costs.
Two bills, not one
A build quote mostly describes the left-hand column. It is often the right-hand column that makes the three-year total.
What the build costs
Scoping: your offers, your customers, the pages that matter
Template design, then the build
Carrying over the existing site: content, addresses, redirects
Integrations: form, CRM, booking, measurement
What it costs every year
Hosting and the domain name
Maintenance: updates, backups, security
Licences: theme, plugins, third-party tools
Content: writing, translating, updating
What moves the build price
Templates, more than pages
What you pay for is each page model to design, build and test: the home page, an offer page, an article, the contact page. A forty-page site built on four templates needs less construction than a twelve-page site where every page is different. One more page on an existing template is mostly content.
Languages
Each language adds text to translate and review, and a structure to maintain: one address per language, reciprocal hreflang tags, one sitemap per language. The cost of translation itself has dropped sharply with AI models: on Palmora Property, a six-language real estate portal we operate, it was divided by 60 by switching to an AI model, and 95% of segments now come from the cache after the first translation. The cost lines are detailed in our article on website translation costs.
Integrations
A form that stores every request before sending the email, a push to the CRM, booking, an internal search: each is priced separately, because each is tested separately. On a static site they plug in page by page, as our article on forms and search on a static site shows.
The existing site to carry over
A new site starts from a blank page. A site with ten years of history has addresses that still receive visits and links: listing them, deciding their fate, redirecting them and checking the switchover is a project in its own right. Our method for sorting pages before a redesign details it. It is also what separates our two offers: the business website starts from scratch, the migration carries over what exists.
Content
Who writes? A provider who delivers empty pages for you to fill does not do the same work as one who starts from your offers and your customers. And if part of the copy is produced with AI, it gets reviewed and signed: should you disclose that a text was written by AI? covers the transparency question.
What a website costs every year
Hosting
A site that builds its pages on every visit pays for a server or for every request. A static site is served as files: at Cloudflare, according to the Workers static assets documentation, requests to those files are neither billed nor limited. This site has been served there since 18 October 2026; our Cloudflare, Netlify or VPS comparison details what each host counts.
Maintenance
WordPress runs 39.6% of all websites according to W3Techs: it is the most common case, and its maintenance revolves around plugins. The yearly report from Patchstack, a WordPress security vendor, puts numbers on what that maintenance has to absorb:
new vulnerabilities recorded in the WordPress ecosystem in 2025
of them were in plugins
had no fix from the developer when they were made public
This is not a flaw specific to WordPress: it is the cost of a site that runs code from dozens of authors. It is paid in hours of updates and monitoring, every month. Our article on hacked WordPress sites explains where attacks come from and what stops them.
Licences
Premium theme, paid plugins renewed every year, third-party tools for forms, cookies or backups: each line is small, their sum is not always. Ask for the complete list before signing, with the renewal price of each.
Content, speed and accessibility
The site lives on after delivery: pages to update, articles to publish, sometimes one more language. Two items are often added after the fact although they are better handled during the build: speed on mobile, which weighs on the requests you receive, and accessibility, an obligation since 28 June 2025 for businesses that sell online to consumers, microenterprises excepted.
Comparing two quotes: the five questions
- Who owns what?
The domain name in your name, the code and content retrievable, an administrator account in your name.
- What does a change cost?
Editing a text, adding a page, adding a language: who does it, and how fast.
- Who maintains it, and at what price?
Updates, backups that are actually tested, monitoring, over three years.
- What happens to the existing site?
The list of addresses carried over, the redirects, the check after the switchover.
- What is measured at delivery?
Mobile speed, accessibility, the form tested end to end.
A quote that answers these five questions can be compared with another. A quote that covers only one leaves you to discover the other four on the following invoices.
What we publish
Our prices are public. The business website starts at €3,900 for five pages designed from your offers, in three weeks, training included. The migration to a static site starts at €5,900 excluding VAT for up to a hundred pages, addresses kept; with a Sanity content editor, when several people publish, it starts at €8,900 (see who edits what in a headless site). After that, hosting costs a few euros a month, and what remains to pay for is the content you choose to publish.
Frequently asked questions
How much does a business website cost for an SME?
The price depends on the number of templates, languages and integrations, and on the existing site to carry over. With us, a five-page business website starts at €3,900. Add the yearly cost: hosting, any maintenance, licences and content, which vary mostly with the technology chosen.
Why do two quotes for the same site differ so much?
Because they do not describe the same work. One counts design and build, the other adds scoping, carrying over addresses, tested integrations and training. Ask both the same five questions, then compare the totals over three years, maintenance and licences included.
Is a WordPress site cheaper?
To build, often, thanks to ready-made themes and plugins. Over three years, add updates, monitoring, renewed licences and hosting for a server that runs code. A static site sometimes costs more to build and less to keep: run the numbers over the full period.
Do I need a yearly budget?
Yes, even a modest one: hosting, domain name, content, and maintenance if the site runs code. For a static site, hosting is a few euros a month and technical maintenance is minimal. For a dynamic site, plan hours of updates and monitoring every month.
Sources
- Cloudflare, static assets billing and limitations (new tab)developers.cloudflare.com
- W3Techs, WordPress market share, October 2026 (new tab)w3techs.com
Jim · founder of Brain Plus AI
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