What does a website cost?
There is no price list, and that is not evasion: the same sentence can mean three days or three months. What can be said is what drives it — and what you can influence.
- Written by
- Kristóf Karner — independent developer, Budapest
- Updated
- 13 August 2026
There is no price list for this, and that is not evasion. The same sentence — “I need a website” — can mean three days or three months, depending on what sits behind it. What can be said: what drives the figure, what the orders of magnitude are, and what you can influence.
What drives it
Three things, in decreasing weight.
How many systems have to be connected. This is the largest item. A site that introduces you and gives contact details stands on its own. A site that takes payment, issues an invoice and opens access talks to three or four separate services — and half the work goes into making the chain hold when one step fails.
Who edits the content afterwards. If you do — price list, staff, opening hours — then there has to be a surface where that can be done. That is separate work, and the visitor never sees it. You do. There is a page on what I build with.
How much content goes on it. Not the writing — that is a separate trade — but getting it in: preparing images, sizing, fitting it to the structure. Twenty pages is not twenty times one, but it is not the same either.
Three orders of magnitude, in working days
The price comes from the workload, so that is the part that can be estimated. These are my own numbers, and they give a range rather than a point:
- A brochure site with the content ready — six to ten working days. A few pages, description, images, contact details. The stage-by-stage breakdown is in the piece on how long a website takes to build.
- A site with an editing interface — ten to sixteen working days. The same, plus a surface where you maintain the content afterwards.
- A connected system — fifteen to twenty-five working days. Payment, access, invoicing, notification — and the fault tolerance, which takes the most of it.
The market day rate multiplies into those days. In my quote this appears broken down by stage, so that there is something to discuss — there is a separate piece on what a quote is made of.
- ARISES ONCE
- Development: 6–25 working days, depending on the job
- RECURS WHILE THE SITE LIVES
- Hosting, domain: yearly · Maintenance: monthly, if you want it — FOR YEARS
- Why they belong together
- The top row appears on an invoice once; the bottom one every month. Within a few years the bottom row adds up to the top one — which is why they belong together.
What sits outside the development
Hosting and domain — yearly, and not with me: they are in your own name. For a brochure site this is the smallest item on the list.
Maintenance — on a retainer, if you want it. Updates, backups, bug fixes, small changes. There is a separate piece on what a sensible retainer covers. Within a few years this adds up to the development figure — which is why the two belong together, rather than only the first one.
What I do not do: copywriting, photography, logo design, legal texts. These are separate trades, and you are better off with someone who does that for a living. I help work out what is needed.
What you can influence
The content. This is the largest movable item, and the most common cause of a slip. If the text and images are there on day one, calendar time and working time nearly coincide. If they are not, the project waits — and waiting costs us both.
The decision-making circle. One person deciding, or five? That does not add working days, it adds calendar — but it shows up all the same by the end.
The size of the structure. Fewer and better pages rather than many: this is worth working through in the first conversation. Often half of what someone asks for is not needed — and I say so.
When it is not worth paying a developer
If all the site has to do is introduce you and give contact details, a site builder solves that, faster and cheaper. I say so when that is the situation — there is a whole piece looking for exactly that line.
The line is where the site has to do something: take payment, handle a booking, open access, hand data to an existing system. There the interface is only the surface.
If you have a job in mind and want to know roughly where it sits, write a few sentences about it. Scoping is the first stage, and it is usually where half of what matters comes out — “it is not worth starting” is a complete answer too.
Questions on this topic
What does a brochure site cost?
The workload is six to ten working days if the content is ready: a few pages, description, images, contact details. The price comes from that day count and the day rate, so the day count is the estimable part. If the site does not have to do anything beyond appearing, a site builder solves it faster and cheaper — and I say so when that is the case.
Why is there no figure on the site?
Because the same request can be three times the work depending on how many systems have to be connected, who edits the content afterwards, and how much material goes on the site. A list price would either be high enough to cover the worst case, or it would mislead. The workload, on the other hand, can be estimated, and it appears in a quote broken down by stage.
What comes on top of the development?
Hosting and domain yearly, in your own name. Maintenance on a retainer if you want it: updates, backups, bug fixes, small changes. Within a few years the maintenance adds up to the development figure, which is why the two belong together. Copywriting, photography and logo design are separate trades; I do not do those.
What makes it cheaper?
The largest movable item is the content: if the text and images are there on day one, calendar time and working time nearly coincide. It also helps if one person decides, and if the structure is smaller — often half of what someone asks for is not needed, and I say so.