WordPress, honestly
WordPress website development for companies selling in Europe
A WordPress site your team runs, with only the plugins that earn their place, and a yearly cost you know upfront.
The editor is the reason, the plugins are the bill
WordPress website development services make sense when your team publishes often. WordPress runs close to four in ten websites, and the reason is its editor: anyone who posts an article, a case study or a job opening every week can do it without a developer.
The cost of that freedom shows up in the years after launch: premium plugins licensed per site per year, hosting that runs PHP and a database, and updates somebody has to follow. For a site in several languages, that bill grows with every language you add.
We are a studio in Ghent, Belgium. We build WordPress where it fits, static sites where they fit better, and once a custom WordPress plugin for a client who wanted to keep his WordPress site. Below: how to choose, what WordPress costs a year next to a static build, and how we handle languages.
WordPress or a static build for the same site
Same pages, same design, two languages. The difference sits after launch.
- Editing
- WordPressYour team in the editor, any time
- Static buildThrough us, or a headless CMS that rebuilds the site
- Languages
- WordPressA multilingual plugin, licensed per year
- Static buildBuilt in, one address per language with hreflang
- Speed
- WordPressDepends on hosting, theme and plugins
- Static buildHTML from a CDN, fast without tuning
- Upkeep
- WordPressCore, theme and plugin updates every year
- Static buildNo database or plugins to update
- Yearly cost without the build
- WordPressAbout 813.50 euro in our example
- Static buildAbout 300 euro in our example
WordPress wins when your team publishes weekly. A static build wins when speed, languages and low upkeep come first.
Three years of WordPress next to three years static
- Hosting
- Domain
- Premium plugins
- Upkeep
WordPress
Theme, four premium plugins, managed hosting
- Year 1652 euro
- Year 2814 euro
- Year 3814 euro
Three years2,279 euro
Static export
The same pages as HTML on a CDN
- Year 1300 euro
- Year 2300 euro
- Year 3300 euro
Three years900 euro
Worked example excluding VAT and the build. Plugins: multilingual, forms, SEO and backups. Upkeep at the low end of the Belgian market, 200 euro a year, for both.
What WordPress costs a year
These costs come back every year, excluding VAT, for a business site in two languages with a contact form. Prices as the vendors list them, dollars converted at the ECB rate.
| Item per year | What it is | Per year |
|---|---|---|
| Hosting | Managed WordPress hosting, 5.99 euro a month in the first year, 19.49 euro after | 71.88 euro, then 233.88 euro |
| Domain | A country domain after the first year | 46.99 euro |
| Languages | WPML Multilingual CMS, a year of updates and support | 99 euro |
| Forms | Gravity Forms Basic, one site | 59 dollars, about 52.52 euro |
| SEO | Yoast SEO Premium, one site | 118.80 euro |
| Backups | UpdraftPlus Premium Personal, two sites | 70 dollars, about 62.31 euro |
| Upkeep | Core, theme and plugin updates, and checking that everything still works | 200 to 1,000 euro on the Belgian market |
| Total | From year two, upkeep at the low end | about 813.50 euro |
Each premium plugin has a free version, and you rarely need all four. But languages on a business site nearly always need a paid plugin, and backups are not something to leave to chance. A static build of the same pages has no plugins and no database; hosting, the domain and changing content remain. The wider picture is in website cost per year, and building a site starts from 1,500 euro with us, quoted as a fixed price after a first call; see website design.
Languages in WordPress, done right
Most of our clients sell in more than one country, so the language setup decides more than the theme. In WordPress there are three ways to lay out languages, and we nearly always pick the first.
| Setup | Example | Fits |
|---|---|---|
| A folder per language | example.com/fr/ | Most companies: every language builds on one domain |
| A subdomain per language | fr.example.com | A language run by a separate team or host |
| A domain per country | example.fr | A brand that must look local in each market, with the budget to build each domain up |
Within that setup we keep to four rules.
- A folder per language, such as /fr/ and /de/, on the same domain, so every language builds on the authority of the site.
- Hreflang on every page, pointing to its versions in the other languages, so Google shows the French page to a French reader. What it is and how it breaks is in hreflang.
- Titles from the search terms of each market, not translated from Dutch or English. A buyer in Lyon types other words than one in Brussels.
- One plugin for languages, not a plugin for each part of the site, and no machine translation going live unread.
Sites in four and five languages are our normal work: Business Centrum runs in Dutch, French, English and Turkish. How we build them outside WordPress is on multilingual website development, and a Belgian example of two languages on one site in a website in French and Dutch.
A plugin we built instead of a new site
No.4 Lange Ast is a holiday home for eight near Ghent. The owner had a WordPress site on his own hosting and wanted to keep it. What he needed was a calendar showing when the house is free, without double bookings with Airbnb and Booking.com.
We wrote a WordPress plugin for it. It reads the iCal calendars of Airbnb and Booking.com, shows the free dates and sends a booking request to the owner. No new hosting, no new site: one piece of code that does exactly what was missing.
That is the other way to use WordPress well: keep it, and add what no plugin in the directory does. How such a calendar works for a guest house is on bed and breakfast booking software.
Every plugin is a door
Nearly all WordPress vulnerabilities sit in plugins and themes, not in the core. So the plugin list is a security decision, not a matter of taste: every plugin you do not install is one nobody has to patch. The real size of the risk and what to do about it is in is WordPress safe.
The same plugins make a site slow. Fewer WordPress sites pass Google's Core Web Vitals on mobile than sites on most builders, and that is rarely WordPress itself; why is WordPress so slow covers the four causes. Test your own site with the website speed test, and read improve website speed for what helps.
We build with a light block theme, a handful of plugins we know and an agreement on who runs the updates. If that is not your team, we take it on in website maintenance.
Before you commission a WordPress site
- How much does WordPress website development cost?
- A business site runs 2,000 to 6,000 euro on the Belgian market, WordPress or not; with us it starts from 1,500 euro. On top come the yearly costs in the table above, about 813.50 euro from year two in our example.
- Should we choose WordPress or a site builder?
- A builder is cheaper to start and harder to leave. Compare them in Wix or WordPress and Webflow or WordPress; for AI builders, see Lovable vs WordPress.
- Can we keep our WordPress content and still get a fast site?
- Yes, with a headless setup: the content stays in WordPress, the site is built from it as static pages. More on headless website agency.
- We already run WordPress. Do we need a new site?
- Often not. If the structure works, a lighter theme and fewer plugins may be enough. If it does need rebuilding, read website redesign agency on keeping your rankings, and custom website or WordPress on the choice.
Website design
How VBS helps you with this
We build your site from design to copy, imagery and code, in one team, so that Google and your buyers find it and get in touch.
- Design and copy built on your buyers' questions
- Fast, multilingual when you need it, at a fixed price
- Forms, cookieless analytics and hosting on AWS
How we approach it is on our page about Website design.
WordPress or not, for your site?
Send us your current site and tell us who publishes and how often. After a call you get our advice, the yearly cost of both options and a fixed price. This is how we approach website design.
Rather get in touch right away?