Website cost calculator
Quotes for the same website routinely differ by a factor of five, and almost never because of the day rate. They differ because of what the quote leaves out. This calculator puts the line items on the table: every choice maps to a fixed number of person-days, the total is multiplied by a day rate, and the annual running cost sits next to it — the figure most quotes omit entirely.
- Build cost as a range, a timeline in weeks, and the annual cost after launch — not just the price of launch day.
- The full coefficient table is on the page; every number can be traced back to it.
- Accessibility is its own line item rather than an invisible assumption.
- No form before the result.
How the calculation works
Everything is computed in person-days and converted to money only at the end, so a rate change touches one number rather than the whole table.
- 1
Effort = baseline + project type + scope + design + CMS + features + SEO + migration + languages - 2
Total effort = effort × standard factor - 3
Build cost = total effort × day rate, presented as a ±20% range - 4
Running cost = 15–25% of build cost per year
The standard factor applies to the total: the same pages built to survive an audit cost more than the same pages built to go live quickly.
The coefficients
| Item | Person-days |
|---|---|
| Baseline (setup, deploy, launch) | 2 |
| Type of project: One-pager / landing page | 1 |
| Type of project: Company website | 4 |
| Type of project: Online shop | 10 |
| Type of project: Portal or platform | 22 |
| Scope: Up to 5 pages | 2 |
| Scope: 6–15 pages | 5 |
| Scope: 16–40 pages | 12 |
| Scope: More than 40 pages | 22 |
| Design: Theme or template, customised | 2 |
| Design: Custom design | 7 |
| Design: Custom design with motion and feature pages | 14 |
| Editing the content: No CMS, we maintain the content | 1 |
| Editing the content: WordPress | 3 |
| Editing the content: Headless CMS (Storyblok, Sanity, Payload) | 7 |
| Editing the content: Shop platform (Shopify, Shopware) | 10 |
Features
| Item | Person-days |
|---|---|
| Blog or news section | 2 |
| Forms with conditional logic | 2 |
| Booking or appointment flow | 7 |
| Login or member area | 9 |
| Payment processing | 6 |
| Product data import / PIM connection | 9 |
| Search with filters | 4 |
| Integration with ERP, CRM or inventory | 8 |
| Accessibility (WCAG 2.1 AA) | 6 |
| Core Web Vitals optimisation | 4 |
| Editor training and handover | 2 |
| SEO: Not included | 0 |
| SEO: Technical foundations | 2 |
| SEO: Technical, structure, keyword mapping, redirects | 7 |
| Migrating existing content: No, all new | 0 |
| Migrating existing content: Partially | 5 |
| Migrating existing content: Fully, including a redirect plan | 12 |
| Additional languages (+1) | 3 |
| Standard: Lean — live quickly | × 0.85 |
| Standard: Solid — regular operation | × 1 |
| Standard: Platform-grade — scale, SLA, audit | × 1.25 |
| Day rate and band — €600 | ± 20% |
The price bands
Almost every project lands in one of these. The DIY site-builder band is deliberately absent: that is a subscription you operate yourself, not commissioned work.
| Band | Cost and timeline | What it includes |
|---|---|---|
| Agency standard | €13,000 – €19,0004–6 weeks | A company website of 5–20 pages with a custom design and a maintained CMS. Most enquiries land here. |
| Custom build | €39,000 – €58,00013–19 weeks | Multiple languages, a shop, ERP or CRM integration, an editorial team, migration with a redirect plan. |
| Platform | €83,000 – €125,00016–24 weeks | Portals, marketplaces, programmatically generated pages, roles and permissions, real application logic. |
What actually drives the price
Four line items explain most of the distance between two quotes for what looks like the same website.
Who produces the content
The most common cause of a late website project is not technical: the copy and images never arrive. A quote that quietly leaves content with the client is cheaper and ends up costing more — either in weeks or in a change order.
Connections to systems you do not own
Inventory, CRM, payment providers, carriers. The cost is not the connection itself but the failure cases, and the fact that those systems change without asking you.
Accessibility — a line item now, not a nice-to-have
Under the European Accessibility Act it is a requirement for a large share of consumer-facing sites. Building it in is a manageable item; retrofitting it costs several times more, because it lives in the design system.
What you give up by starting at the bottom
A theme saves design days up front and costs flexibility later: every deviation becomes a workaround, until a relaunch is cheaper than the next change. That is a legitimate trade — as long as it is made deliberately.
Where this calculator stops being useful
These it does not model:
- Copywriting and photography. Text, imagery and translation are separate disciplines with separate budgets.
- Licences and subscriptions: shop platform, plugins, search services, CDN. Those run alongside the maintenance budget.
- Marketplace and portal projects with real application logic. Past that point it is software development and should be estimated as such.
- Campaigns and media budget. SEO here means technical foundations and structure, not ongoing work.
Read next
Frequently asked questions
- A company website with a custom design and a maintained CMS runs roughly €6,000–20,000. Multiple languages, a shop or integrations move it into €25,000–80,000. Portals and platforms start around €80,000. Below that is the DIY band, where you do the work yourself.