How much does a website cost? Honest prices, from DIY to premium.

Ask three studios what a website costs and you will hear three numbers that seem to describe different products. One quotes a few hundred, another a few thousand, a third quotes five figures, and all of them call it a professional website. The gap is not random. It sits in what each price includes, and in what happens after launch.

This guide puts the price levels side by side, with sources you can check yourself. You will see what drives website design cost, what affordable means once you count three years instead of one invoice, and what a website costs at Viralistic. We design websites in Figma and build them in Astro, from Amsterdam. Our own prices are published on our site, so we name them here too.

How much does a website cost in 2026?

A website costs anywhere from a monthly builder subscription to well over €20,000. Where you land depends mostly on who does the work and how much strategy and design goes into it. These are the levels, with a source for every figure.

Trustoo is a Dutch platform where businesses compare quotes from web designers, and its figures are averages rather than quotes. By the hour, Trustoo lists €50 to €70 for a junior, €70 to €90 for a mid-level and €90 to €120 for a senior web designer. The Knab freelance rates survey puts the average Dutch freelance web developer at €73 an hour in 2026, excluding VAT.

For a US reference point, the Bureau of Labor Statistics lists a 2025 median pay of $47.85 an hour for web developers and digital designers. That is an employee wage, not a billing rate. Freelancers and agencies charge more, because their rate also covers tools, overheads and the hours nobody can invoice.

Four ways to get a website built

There are four routes, and each one is the right answer for someone. The difference lies in who makes the decisions: you, one specialist, a team or a strategic partner.

Build it yourself on Squarespace or Wix

A website builder is the cheapest route in money and the most expensive in your own time. Squarespace bundles hosting, SSL and templates into the subscription, and every site starts with a 14-day free trial. There is no free plan. Annual billing includes a free domain for the first year, after which it renews at the standard rate.

Running a restaurant in Amsterdam on a tight budget? A builder is often the honest choice. Every Squarespace plan includes a menu block and an OpenTable block for reservations. The trade-off: you become the designer, the copywriter and the maintainer. Our Squarespace review breaks down each plan, its fees and its limits.

Hire a freelance web designer

A freelancer gives you a direct line and a clear price. In the Netherlands, Trustoo puts a simple site from a web designer at €500 to €2,000. You do depend on one person: their availability, their taste and their knowledge.

Know the difference between graphic web design and development. The first is how your site looks and reads, the second is how it works. A web design specialist who masters both at a high level is rare, so ask who designs, who builds and who looks after the site afterwards.

Work with a web design agency

An agency puts several specialists on your project: strategy, design, development and project management. You see that in the price. Trustoo places advanced sites at €2,000 to €5,000 and custom work at €10,000 or more. What you buy is a fixed process and continuity: if one person is out sick, your project keeps moving.

Choose a premium agency or strategic partner

Premium web design agencies rarely publish fixed prices, because the scope differs for every brand. What you pay for at this level is the work before the design: positioning, a brand script and a sitemap that guides visitors towards a decision. Then comes design made for each page instead of a template. This level suits brands for whom the website is the first proof of their quality. Our article on luxury websites, proven to convert shows what that looks like in practice.

What drives website design cost

Price follows hours, and hours follow a handful of decisions. Know them before you compare quotes, and the quotes start to make sense.

• The foundation. Is there a brand with a clear story? Without a brand guide, someone still has to make those decisions, and that takes time. If you have no visual identity yet, read what having a house style made involves first.
• The number of designed pages. A designed homepage with templates for the rest is a different job from every page worked out in detail. At Viralistic, this is the biggest price factor.
• Content. Copy, photography and translation often take longer than the build. Always ask who supplies them.
• Features and integrations. A contact form is simple. A booking system, a CRM connection, a shop or several languages cost more.
• The platform. A builder, WordPress, Webflow and Astro each need a different kind of upkeep. If you want WordPress, read how to hire a WordPress specialist, and when not to. If your marketing team wants to build pages visually, Webflow often fits better, as our guide to choosing a Webflow agency explains.
• Who does the work, and where. Experience costs more per hour. Trustoo notes that rates in the Randstad, the urban region that includes Amsterdam, are often higher than elsewhere in the Netherlands.

What affordable means over three years

Affordable means the lowest total cost over the years your site does its job, and that is rarely the lowest quote. After launch, a website needs a domain, hosting, security, updates and small changes, and those costs return every year.

Trustoo puts the yearly running costs at €10 to €50 for a domain, €50 to €300 for hosting, €0 to €100 for SSL and €100 to €1,000 or more for maintenance. Together that is €160 to €1,000 or more a year. Set that next to the build and the picture changes:

These totals are calculated from Trustoo’s averages and Squarespace’s annual Core price. Your own quote will differ, but the ratio holds: with a cheap build, running costs make up a large share of the total.

Maintenance is not a formality. Patchstack counted 11,334 new vulnerabilities in the WordPress ecosystem in 2025, 91% of them in plugins, and 46% had no fix from the developer in time for public disclosure (State of WordPress Security in 2026). A site with a long list of plugins needs steady attention. Our article on website maintenance covers what that involves.

A static Astro site has fewer moving parts, and hosting one is inexpensive. What you pay for with managed hosting is the partner who keeps everything around it working: domain, DNS, SSL, email records, updates and incidents, with one point of contact.

Hiring a web design specialist in Amsterdam

In Amsterdam you often pay a little more per hour, so the real question is what you get back for it. An affordable website is entirely possible here, as long as you know which parts the price covers and which parts you handle yourself. Ask every studio the same questions:

1. What does the price include, and what does it explicitly exclude? Think copy, photography and translation.
2. How many pages are actually designed, and how many follow a template?
3. Who owns the design file, the code and the domain after launch?
4. Who hosts the site, who runs the updates and what does that cost per month?
5. How many feedback rounds are there, and what does a change after approval cost?
6. Who do you call when something breaks on a Friday evening?

Clear answers to all six let you compare quotes fairly. Working locally has one more practical benefit: you can sit at the same table. Our studio is at Achtergracht 17 in Amsterdam, and our article on choosing a web design agency in Amsterdam goes deeper on what a strong one delivers.

What a website costs at Viralistic, and who it fits

A web design project at Viralistic starts around €4,000. Larger CMS-driven platforms can reach €20,000 or more. The biggest factor is how much we design in Figma: the homepage and one or two pages that need heavy design work, or every page in detail for exclusive projects. We agree on that scope in the first phase.

This level fits established businesses and premium brands that want their website to show the standard they actually deliver. You get one strategic lead instead of a stack of freelancers. Is your budget a few hundred euros, or are you just starting out? Then a website builder is the more honest choice, and we will tell you so.

How a Viralistic website project runs

We never start with code. First we check whether a proper brand guide is in place. If it is not, we build that foundation first. Then come six phases, each closed with a feedback moment:

1. Foundation. A brand guide check, a moodboard, a brand script and a sitemap. We move on only once we agree on the pages, how they connect, the story and the mood.
2. Structure. The sitemap and brand script merge into a wireframe, deliberately without design, so the route through your site stays in focus. The moodboard grows into a stylescape that makes the direction tangible.
3. Brand guide. The stylescape is worked out into rules for typography, colour and imagery. That brand guide stays yours.
4. Design. Brand guide and wireframe come together in a high-fidelity design in Figma. Scope follows budget.
5. Build. We build the approved design in Astro. For you, this is a quieter phase.
6. Delivery. In a review call we go through everything together, fix bugs and alignment issues, and publish the site.

Later phases build on what you approved earlier. Changing your mind is always allowed, but a change after approval costs extra time and budget, so agreed deadlines and the original budget no longer hold. Simple projects go live in four to six weeks, larger projects take a few months.

How we help

Want a website that still represents you well three years from now? Our web design page walks through every phase in detail, and you can download the full process there as a PDF. After launch, managed hosting keeps your site live, fast and secure, with one point of contact for domain, DNS, SSL and updates. In a strategic call, we tell you honestly whether your brand is ready for development, or what needs to happen first.

Frequently asked questions

How much does a basic website cost?

A basic website costs €500 to €2,000 from a web designer in the Netherlands, according to Trustoo. Build it yourself on Squarespace and you pay $19 to $99 a month in the US, or €12 to €69 excluding VAT in the euro area. Either way, budget for yearly domain, hosting and maintenance costs, and for your own time on copy and photos.

How much do web designers charge per hour?

Web designers in the Netherlands charge €50 to €120 an hour, according to Trustoo, depending on experience: €50 to €70 for a junior and €90 to €120 for a senior. Dutch freelance web developers average €73 an hour in 2026, per the Knab survey. In the US, the BLS lists a 2025 median employee wage of $47.85 an hour.

How much does a website cost per month?

After launch, a website costs €160 to €1,000 or more a year for domain, hosting, SSL and maintenance, according to Trustoo. That is roughly €13 to €83 a month. On a website builder, hosting is part of the subscription. With managed hosting you also pay for one point of contact who handles updates and incidents for you.

How much do premium web design agencies charge?

Premium web design agencies rarely publish fixed prices, because scope depends on the brand. The work starts where Trustoo’s custom range begins, at €10,000 or more in the Netherlands, and rises with strategy, custom design per page and content. At Viralistic, projects start around €4,000 and larger CMS-driven platforms reach €20,000 or more.

How much does a landing page cost?

A landing page follows the same cost drivers as a full website: strategy and copy, design, build and connections to your forms or CRM. One page is less work, but the message has to be sharper, because there is no second page to explain anything. Ask up front which parts the price includes, and who writes the copy.

How much does a website redesign cost?

Refreshing an existing website usually costs less than building a new one, Trustoo notes, because structure and content already exist. That holds as long as the foundation is sound. If your brand has outgrown the site, or it runs on outdated technology, a refresh often only postpones the new website you will need anyway.