How much does a website cost in Europe?

How much does a website cost? In Belgium, a simple site of a few pages costs 500 to 1,500 euros to build, a professional business site of 10 to 20 pages 2,000 to 6,000 euros, and an online store 4,000 to 15,000 euros or more. Domain and hosting add 50 to 300 euros a year, maintenance more. Set those ranges against the day rates in your own market, compared country by country further down.

We build custom sites from Ghent: a one-page site starts at 1,500 euros, and a site with many pages, languages or calculators costs more, at a fixed price agreed after a first call. Every amount on this page is before VAT unless it says otherwise. How VAT works on an invoice from another EU country is explained further down. Prices in pounds for British buyers are in website design cost in the UK.

Website cost by type of site

"A website" is not a product with one price. A five-page business card and a site that ranks for every service, city and language sit a factor of ten apart. This table puts the types side by side with the market prices Belgian builders publish. What WordPress costs year after year is in WordPress website cost, and renting against buying in pay monthly website packages.

Stores have their own guide, ecommerce website cost, and so do apps and platforms: app development cost and custom software development cost.

Why the same site costs more in some countries

Most of a website's price is hours: design, copy, build, testing, launch. So the hourly rate of the people doing it drives the total. A freelance web designer in Belgium bills 30 to 80 euros an hour and an agency 50 to 150 euros. The median day rate of a UK contract web developer is 475 pounds, and senior freelance developers in Germany and the Netherlands quote 80 to 140 dollars an hour. The full comparison per country sits in web developer hourly rate.

A lower rate only helps if the hours stay the same. Ask for a fixed price per site rather than an hourly estimate, and compare what is in it line by line, as in how to choose a web design agency.

What drives the cost of a website?

Number of pages

The biggest factor. A one-pager says who you are, what you do and how to get in touch. That is enough for a starter or a business with one clear offer: the site of Park & Wash is a single page with two routes to a request. If you want to be found for several services, sectors or cities, each search term needs its own page, and every page is design, copy and build.

Languages

A second language is more than a translation. A French-speaking buyer types different search terms than a Dutch or English one, so each language gets its own copy, and Google has to know which page belongs to which language. If you sell across borders, read our approach to a multilingual website.

Copy

Writing it yourself saves money. Having it written on the terms your buyers type costs more, and gives you a site that gets found. You see the difference after a few months in Google; how long does SEO take explains why.

Photos and video

Stock photos are cheap and recognisable, in the wrong way. A shoot of your team, your premises and your work costs more, and you reuse the footage on social media and in ads. What a shoot day costs is in corporate video cost.

Features

A contact form belongs on every site. A quote module, a calculator, an availability calendar or a client portal needs its own build. Such features often pay for themselves: the cost calculator on the site of SN Group draws most of the non-brand search impressions.

Replacing an existing site

If your current site already ranks, every old address must redirect to the right new page, or you lose what you built up in Google. That work belongs in every quote; moving a website to a new host lists what goes wrong.

Legal requirements

In the EU, a site that collects personal data needs a privacy notice, and a cookie banner as soon as you set non-essential cookies. If you sell to consumers, the European Accessibility Act has applied since 28 June 2025. A builder who covers this spends time on it.

Worked example: a website over three years

A contractor wants a site with a homepage, four service pages, projects, about and contact, in one language. He compares three routes. We add the build to three years of running costs, before VAT. The build prices are examples inside the market ranges above; domain and hosting are priced at a typical European host.

What the example shows: if you only look at the build price, you miss half the bill. On shared WordPress hosting the bill rises after year one, when the introductory price of domain and hosting runs out. On a website builder you pay for as long as the site exists. Each yearly item is broken down in website maintenance cost per year.

VAT when your agency is in another EU country

Hiring an agency in Belgium from Germany, the Netherlands or Sweden does not mean paying Belgian VAT on top. For services between two VAT-registered businesses in different EU countries, the place of supply is the client's country: the agency invoices without VAT and states "reverse charge", and you account for VAT in your own return. Outside the EU, for example in the UK, Switzerland, Norway or the US, the invoice carries no EU VAT either. A Belgian client pays 21 percent. So compare quotes from different countries before VAT, and check that your VAT number is on the quote.

Which kind of website fits you?

Pick neither the cheapest nor the most expensive. Pick what the site has to deliver.

Not sure you need a site at all? Start with do I need a website. Wondering about timing: how long does it take to build a website.

Where saving money backfires

Save on the number of pages rather than on their quality. A small site that loads fast, targets the right search terms and has a clear button to a request earns more than a big site nobody finds. Start small and add pages when the first clients arrive.

What you never leave out:

• A site that works on a phoneMost visitors arrive on one.
• SpeedA slow site loses visitors before they read a word. Check yours with the website speed test.
• Your own accessto your domain, your hosting and Google Search Console. They belong to you, not to your builder. Which domain to pick is covered in country domain vs .com.

Mistakes that cost money

• A price without parts"Website: 2,000 euros" says nothing. Ask what you get per item.
• Budgeting with the introductory priceDomain and hosting often cost three to five times more on renewal than in year one.
• No redirects when a new site goes liveYou lose the rankings your old site had, and winning them back takes months.
• Copy that comes "later"A site without copy does not launch. Agree who writes it and when.
• A template you outgrowIf a second language or a calculator does not fit, you start again.
• Choosing on rate, not on workAsk to see live sites the agency built and open them on your phone.

How to get to a fair price

1. Write down in five sentences what the site must deliver: requests, sales, trust, recruitment.
2. List your services, your markets and your languages. That sets the number of pages.
3. Write a short brief; our website brief template is a start.
4. Ask two or three agencies for a fixed price on the same brief, and ask whether they invoice with or without VAT.
5. Compare the quotes item by item and over three years.